25 Best Team Chat Tools for 2020

The phrase “team chat ” has become synonymous with the phrase “team collaboration.” As new communication tools are being developed, so are collaboration features. As we know it, 2020 is the year where team chats are breaking boundaries.

Many companies are developing the “do-it-all” chat software. Ideally, the “do-it-all” chat software should combine collaboration features that allow work to be done with minimal effort. In other words, have all the business essentials in one place. That way you minimize the extra tabs and workspace. 

In this blog post, we are going to share our list of groundbreaking team chat tools of 2020. Each tool’s description will have the features and functions, pricing, and the pros and cons to them. Without further ado, let’s dive into the 25 best team chat tools of 2020.

AirSend

It would be weird if we didn’t believe AirSend was the lead groundbreaking tool for team chat and collaboration. One of the great features with AirSend is that it carries the ideal collaboration tools needed to get work done. Tools, such as task-management, premium built-in file storage, audio/video calling, and personalized notebooks made for each channel. 

Most importantly, AirSend’s productivity train is continuously chugging, which means that we are constantly delivering new updates and features. New updates and features mean new ways for efficient communication and collaboration. 

Pricing

If you sign up now, you can get AirSend Pro free for one year! In the picture below are the features that come with AirSend Pro.

Pros to AirSend

Compared to other team chat tools in which both parties need an account, AirSend only needs one person to sign up to have a conversation. This feature is called email-to-channel. To learn more about this feature, read our blog post. Rather than switching between many communication tools, you can now keep all your conversations from one place. 

Cons to AirSend

AirSend is still in its beta stages. Because AirSend is still in development, there will be consistent updates and added features to the product.

Chanty

Chanty is a simple AI-powered tool with an easy-to-use interface. One of the big selling points to Chanty is that they keep a balance between features and usability, hence the simple and easy-to-use design. They also come with built-in task management and unlimited messages.

Pricing

Chanty is free! They also carry a Business plan which runs about $3 user/month. The only difference between the free and business plan is that business carries audio and video calls. 

Pros to Chanty

Like AirSend, Chanty is constantly developing. As of right now, they are in the process of developing audio and video calls. Additionally, collaboration with Chanty is endless.

Cons to Chanty

While Chanty is a great team chat and collaboration tool, they are not ideal for large teams. In their free plan, there is a limit of 10 users and 10 GB of storage per team. 

Microsoft Teams

One of the biggest selling points to Microsoft Teams is the smooth integration of Office 365. This becomes useful if you depend on Office 365 for your daily tasks.  Furthermore, Microsoft Teams is great for keeping all your team’s chats, meetings, files, and other apps together in one place. 

Pricing

When it comes down to pricing, Microsoft Teams can be a little daunting. The free version of Teams allows chat and collaborations. However, under the free plan, there are partially included essentials, such as:

• meetings and calls
• productivity apps and services
• security and compliance. 
• Limited storage: 2GB per user and a total of 10 GB is shared among your team. 

There is also a $5 monthly plan that is not much different from the free version, except an increase in storage (1 TB per user). Finally, there is the $12.50 monthly plan. This plan includes everything.

Pros to Microsoft Teams

As said before the great thing with Teams is that it allows for smooth integration of Office 365. Users have the capability to edit, delete, and pin messages. Users can also create a new thread and share files, provided it fits with the limited storage. If you use Office 365 daily, Teams might be worth considering. 

Cons to Microsoft Teams

There is plenty of room for Microsoft Teams to grow. After thorough research of use cases and reviews, there are many aspects where Microsoft Teams is still lacking. Some use cases have mentioned that setting up the app was not an easy task.

Additionally, users must set up a unique email for each user in their team. Microsoft Teams also does not support drag and drop functions.

MatterMost

MatterMost is a wonderful communication tool to have that is specifically designed for having a  private cloud and an opened-sourced channel.

MatterMost targets large enterprises. They also implement self-hosting capabilities. With self-hosting capabilities, users can have greater control over privacy and security.

Pricing

Luckily, before fully committing to MatterMost, there is a 30-day free trial. With the E10 edition (basic) and a minimum of 10 users, the price is $39 per user. Annually making it $390.

There is also an E20 edition, which is an advanced enterprise edition that roughly charges $8.50 monthly.

Because the E20 edition is made for larger corporations, you must get a quote from MatterMost before continuing to pay. To see what each plan offers, click here.

Pros to MatterMost

Though MatterMost is priced on the higher end, MatterMost offers premium control over privacy and security.

Additionally, you can run the messaging platform behind your organization’s firewall.

The way we see it, MatterMost is great if your organization is large enough to have or require self-hosted team messaging.

Cons to MatterMost

MatterMost lacks video and audio conferencing, and users cannot share screens. With MatterMost’s almost overwhelming design, the UX becomes difficult to maneuver. After researching some alternatives MatterMost had to these cons, we believe that aside from AirSend’s built-in wiki capability, Microsoft Teams would be the better choice.

Slack

The way we see it, Slack is the king of integrations. Additionally, Slack’s goal is to replace email. That being said, they provide all the tools that you would get with email into Slack.

Pricing

Here is an image of Slack’s current pricing. Some key things to note is that with the free plan, there is a limit to integrations and search history.

Pros to Slack

Slack is built as a communication tool, so it offers a variety of options when it comes to conversations. Conversations happen in public or private channels and can further be separated into threads. Slack also allows audio and video calling.

Cons to Slack

According to several use cases, Slack’s UI design can be a bit overwhelming. Slack’s noise-to-signal ratio is also really high, making it hard to be productive. Further, they carry steep prices that may not be in peoples’ interest at the moment. Finally, Slack only offers third party file storage and task management.

Flock

Flock is one of the more promising team chat software. Flock is incredibly easy to use, and with integrations from Google Suite, and a built-in shared to-do list, productivity seems promising.

They also carry other features, such as guest accounts, one-way announcement channels, and a five-column interface. They also support video and audio calls.

Pricing

With Flock, there are three pricing plans: 

1. Free
   • Unlimited messaging
   • 10,000 searchable messages
   • 10 public channels
   • 5GB total per team
   • Single team admin
   • 1-1 Video calls
2. Pro Plan: $4.50 monthly
   • Unlimited search history and messaging
   • Unlimited private and public channels
   • 10 GB per team member
   • Multiple team admins
   • Group video calls
   • Screen sharing 
   • 24/7 priority support
3. Enterprise Plan: $8 monthly
   • Includes everything plus 20 GB per team member

Pros to Flock

Flock offers built-in tools, such as app integration, polls, to-do lists, the ability to create public and private channels, reminders, and many more.

Cons to Flock

With recent reviews and case studies, a major con to Flock is its five-column interface. Having a busy interface can make users feel overwhelmed.

Much like Discord or Slack, having a complex UI design can leave the user experience lacking.

Furthermore, specific features designed for team collaboration is nice, but some of them feel unnecessary.

Rocket.Chat

Rocket.Chat is an open-source team chat software.  With a similar Slack UI design, Rocket.Chat carries seamless conversations, along with a full range of customization. They also carry the similar function of making public and private channels.

Pricing

Rocket.Chat has umbrella pricing. What we mean by this is that they carry two major plans, and underneath those plans are the subscribed plans.

The first plan we will go over is the Self-Managed plan, in which you can host your own channels. 

• Self-Managed Plan
  • Community Version is Free
  • Pro Plan- $30, per user, annually; $3 per user, monthly
  • Enterprise Plan:  Quote

The next major plan is the SaaS plan, which is a cloud offering hosted by Rocket.Chat

• SaaS Plan
  • Bronze Plan: $20 per user, annually; $2 per user, monthly
  • Silver Plan: $40 per user, annually; $4 per user, monthly
  • Gold Plan: Quote
  • Each plan requires a minimum of 10 users

Pros to Rocket.Chat

One of the cool things with Rocket.Chat is that you can easily migrate and export files.

There is also real-time automatic translation, end-to-end encryption, LiveChat, and endless customization.

Cons to Rocket.Chat

Though having an open server is great, the maintenance to one is not that easy. Having your own open server means you also have to manage your own backups, security, and knowing how to fix things in case of failure. And if you’re not that tech-savvy, Rocket.Chat may not be a good fit for you.

Telegram

Telegram is a cloud-based mobile and desktop messaging app with a focus on security and speed. The selling point to Telegram is that it is available on many of the most widely used platforms. Telegram is also free.

Pros to Telegram

With Telegram, you can send messages, photos, and videos to people who have Telegram, and to those who are in your phone contacts. You can also create groups for up to 200,000 people or channels.

They also have cool features like bots, secret chats, self-destructing messages, and support large files. If you are looking for a free communication tool that carries a lot of features, Telegram may be worth considering.

Cons to Telegram

Though Telegram carries a lot of features, they lack the features and functions for team collaboration. Like WhatsApp, Telegram is made for casual conversation with friends and family.

Facebook Workplace

Introduced in 2016. Facebook Workplace is a team chat tool that prioritizes connection through broadcast and announcements. With the same layout as your personal Facebook account, Facebook Workplace allows you to connect with employees and have everyone on the same page.

Pricing

Facebook Workplace carries three tiers of pricing. We will list the top features that come with each plan. 

Free: 

• Up to 50 teams
• Group video calls
• 5 GB storage per person
• Auto-translate
• Live-video sharing
• Available on mobile apps

Advanced: $4 per user, per month

• Unlimited teams
• Group video calls
• 1 TB storage per person
• Organization chart
• Surveys
• Safety check

Enterprise: $8 per user, per month

• Everything included. 

Pros to Facebook Workplace

Facebook Workplace offers integrations of G Suite, Office 365 and Dropbox. And it’s like Facebook, but adapted for work. So anyone can start using it right away. This can also be seen as a negative, and here’s why.

Cons to Facebook Workplace

Because Facebook Workplace carries the same UI design as the normal Facebook, collaboration and communication can seem a bit unusual. If you are looking for a tool that has more of a professional layout, Facebook Workplace may not be the ideal solution. 

Ryver

Ryver is a team collaboration tool that makes managing your team simple and hassle-free. Similar to Slack, Ryver’s goal is to solve the world’s email problem and replace the outdated way many teams collaborate. 

Pricing

Ryver offers three plans: 

• Starter: $49/monthly
  • Up to 12 users
  • Unlimited chat
  • Unlimted file sharing
  • Task management
  • Voice and video calls
• Unlimited: $99/monthly. As of right now, they are currently offering the plan at $79/monthly
  • Everything included in the starter plan
  • Unlimited Users
  • Custom invite links
• Enterprise: Originally $199/monthly, but right now it is being offered for $149/monthly
  • Everything included from the Unlimited plan
  • Single Sign-On (SSO)
  • Premium Support
  • Advanced team management
  • Testing Sandbox

Pros to Ryver

Essentially, Ryver is a combination of Slack and Trello. The selling point is that they surround their platform around a kanban based idea. They also include forums, teams, and one-on-one interaction.

Cons to Ryver

Aside from Ryver’s steep prices, they also require third-party integrations. Their biggest client for integrations is Zapier. This means that the majority of your integrations need to come from Zapier. This would be counterproductive for companies looking for a team chat that is easy-to-use and does not require a lot of strict integrations.

Glip

Glip is a collaboration software that offers free messaging, real-time text, voice, and video, task management, screen sharing, shared calendars, and note tracking.

Pricing

Glip carries two plans: the free version and the $5 per user, per month. Between the two plans, almost everything is the same. The key differentiator is the shared minutes. In the free version, there is a limit of 500 minutes, and in the paid plan it is a limit of 1,000 minutes per user, per month.

Pros to Glip

Glip has quite a few built-in options. Users can create and assign tasks, schedule meetings, set deadlines in a shared calendar, and keep track of notes. There are also unlimited integrations.

Cons to Glip

After studying quite a few use cases, there are common themes mentioned that ultimately are cons to Glip. For starters, they have fairly working features, however, Glip doesn’t have any individual feature that excels.

Additionally, Glip forces you to download its proprietary app, RingCentral Meetings. You cannot integrate other video conferencing apps. Finally, the interface is messy, and there are problems with trying to integrate apps. If you are not tech-savvy Glip may not be ideal. 

Fleep

Fleep is a team communication tool that lets you chat with any other Fleep user out there. Similar to Skype, all it requires is an account and you can connect to anyone else who has an active Fleep account. 

Pricing

Fleep carries three pricing plans: 

• Free
  • 10 GB File Storage
  • Native apps
  • Unlimited 1:1 conversation
• Business: 5 Euros, per user, per month, billed annually
  • 100 GB File Storage
  • Teams
  • Organization Settings
  • Task Management
• Enterprise: Must have a Quote
  • 100 GB Storage 
  • Includes features from the Business plan

Pros to Fleep

Fleep is an open network that allows you to connect with anyone in the app. There are also unlimited integrations. 

Cons to Fleep

Like Skype, Fleep is user-based and not team-based. This makes it hard to communicate with other people specific to your team. 

Jostle

Jostle is a cloud-based simple intranet solution. They offer communication, company culture building, internal bulletin board, and much more.

Pricing

Jostle is priced on the number of employees your company has. To give an overview, we went with the minimum required. However, the higher the employee count is, the cheaper the prices are. 

15 minimum User: 

• Silver Plan: $9.33 per user, billed annually
  • Core Intranet
  • Integrations
  • 2 powerups
• Gold Plan: $13.33 per user, billed annually
  • Core Intranet
  • Integrations
  • Single Sign-On (SSO)
  • 5 power-ups
• Platinum: $16.00 per user, billed annually
  • 8 power-ups
  • Features from Gold Plan

Pros to Jostle

As said before, Jostle carries features that help with company culture, productivity, and collaboration. Features, such as bulletin boards, news articles, calendar entries, and announcements.

Cons to Jostle

While the product is amazing for building company culture, it is not the ideal solution for communication. The UI design makes it hard for users and teams to communicate effectively.

Gitter.im

Gitter.im is a chat and networking platform that helps to manage, grow, and connect communities through messaging, content, and discovery. Though it is made community building and targeted towards developers, it also works well as a team chat app. The best part, they are free.

Pros to Gitter.im

Gitter.im allows for private and public communities. It is also incredibly easy to use, and there is unlimited integration. Finally, the UI is visually appealing.

Cons to Gitter.im

As said before, Gitter.im is originally marketed towards creating communities. So the features and functionalities are community-based. However, if this is not a problem, Gitter.im would be worth a shot. Finally, Gitter.im carries a design similar to Reddit.

Wire

Wire is a modern-day collaboration tool that meets advanced security and user experience. 

Pricing

Wire carries three price plans: Wire Pro: 4 Euro, Wire Enterprise: 8 Euro, and Wire Enterprise Technology. To see their features, click here.

Pros to Wire

Wire carries all things needed for collaboration. They carry personal and group chats, conference calls, screen and file sharing, availability status, mentions, and message reactions. Best of all, Wire has a guest room feature, in which you can talk with clients or even conduct job interviews.

Cons to Wire

One of the downsides to Wire is that they do not carry built-in task management. They also lack project management tools. Having a lack of these tools may make it hard for teams to collaborate and get work done. 

Jitsi

Jitsi is a free open source video conference software. Jitsi thrives on their new form of communication, video conferencing. In other words, all communication happens over video. The selling point to Jitsi is that they are one of the few video conferencing software that offers encryption-based calls.

Pros to Jitsi

The big pro is that Jitsi is free to use. Arguably the second biggest pro to Jitsi is that it is open-source, and you can make your own servers. Jitsi also does not require accounts. Users have the option to create accounts for the purpose of attaining transcripts and meeting history. 

Cons to Jitsi

Compared to other video conferencing software, Jitsi does not support Saas, iPhone, iPad, and Android. They are also very limited in integrations and features. Further, Jitsi does not carry On-demand webcasting, record&playback ability, nor whiteboard.

Discord

Discord is known for its all-in-one voice and text chat. While Discord is originally meant for gamers, they offer a lot of features for a free communication tool. Discord also offers channel organization, only placed in a more complex UI design. 

Pricing

Another benefit is that Discord is free.

There is also a Discord Nitro in which you get more customizations than you would with the free version.

Customizations can range from animated emojis, and creating a unique tag for your profile. Annually, Discord Nitro is $99.99. Monthly it is $9.99.

Finally, there is Discord Nitro Classic, which has everything the Nitro plan has, except for a Server Boost. Annually it is $49.99, and monthly it is $4.99. 

Pros to Discord

Like AirSend, users with Discord can seamlessly switch between private and public channels. Discord also does not offer integration with apps you might use for work.

But if your team only uses text, voice, or video conferencing, you should be fine. Lastly, Discord is the only chat in this list that offers push-to-talk features, along with an instant invite link. 

Cons to Discord

Discord is great for team communication. Additionally, with a busy UI design, you feel like you are doing more with less functionality. However, it is important to remember that Discord is specifically meant for gamers. So, the UI will be more complex than what the average business chat needs.

Lastly, like Slack,  the noise-to-signal ratio is extremely high with Discord. Because of this, distractions can happen and important information can get buried among the chatter. 

Flowdock

Flowdock is a real-time team chat software that brings all of your workplace conversations, work items, and tools in one place. With Flowdock, you can prioritize work, solve problems, search and organize across teams, locations, and timezones.

Pricing

Flowdock carries three plans: 

• Free- up to 30 days with Standalone features
• Standalone: $3 per user, per month
  • Unlimited flows
  • Endless history
  • Infinite integrations
• Enterprise: $9 per user, per month
  • SSO
  • Integration-auto removal
  • Data-encryption
  • API 
  • Administration 
  • Custom Data Retention policies. 

Pros to Flowdock

Some pros are having organized conversations, message tags, bots, file-sharing, integrations, custom emojis, and gifs. 

Cons to Flowdock

One of the main cons to Flowdock is that the organization leaves to be desired. The main feature of Flowdock is its shared inbox, where project management tools, customer feedback, and version control systems are stored. Though the threads help with organizing conversations, there is not much else for users to custom organize their workspace. 

SquidHub

SquidHub is a collaboration app for people who want clarity, simplicity, a bit of fun, and a great way of working together. 

Pricing

There are three plans:

• Basic: Free
  • 2 groups
  • 1000 MB Storage
  • Unlimited search history
• Premium: $4.99 per user, per month
  • Unlimited:
    • Groups
    • Storage
    • Search 
  • Copy groups
  • Organizational view
  • Permission control
  • Disable message board
• Enterprise: Must have Quote

Pros to SquidHub

Aside from its fun name, SquidHub makes it easy to find files, optimize communication, share a task list, have a built-in calendar, and many more. Best of all, SquidHub’s design is like that of a kanban, leaving the organization at its finest. Finally, SquidHub’s UI design makes it easy-to-use.

Cons to SquidHUb

Like Slack, SquidHub does not offer built-in file storage, rather you have to integrate third-party file storage platforms. If file-integration is not a concern for you, then SquidHub is definitely worth a shot.

Convo

Convo is a team communication app that brings all business essentials into one place. Essentially, you can use this tool as a central place for having discussions, collaboration, and making faster decisions in real-time.

Pricing

There are three plans: Free, Pro, and Enterprise. For the Pro and Enterprise version, it is custom pricing. To see what each plan has to offer, click here. 

Pros to Convo

One of the things the platform likes to preach is fewer meetings, better collaboration. Ideally, this would mean having real-time chat and file sharing. Further, you can customize your notifications. Finally, a nice touch is that they offer acknowledgment posts, that way your message is heard loud and clear. 

Cons to Convo

A downside to convo is that the UI design is a bit overwhelming. They have multiple ways in which you can carry a conversation via instant chat, group chat- private and public, and email integration. They carry a lot of neat features, but the communication is being sacrificed at the hands of collaboration features and integrations. 

Proofhub

ProofHub is a team communication software that brings all your project communications together in one place.

Pricing

They carry two plans

• Essential: $45 monthly, billed annually
  • 40 projects
  • Unlimited users
  • 15 GB Storage
  • Core features
• Ultimate: $89 monthly, billed annually
  • Unlimited projects and users
  • 100 GB storage. 
  • Core features
  • Advanced custom roles
  • Custom workflow

Pros to ProofHub

Some highlights to Proofhub is that they have 1:1 chats, group chats, and tagging. They also carry a similar Kanban design to help with visual appeal.

Cons to ProofHub

Unfortunately, the majority of Proofhub relies on third-party integration. While it is nice to have a built-in Kanban, it is hard to make up for the lack of other built-in features. For those who are opposed to integrations, or do not feel comfortable connecting personal tools to work, Proofhub may not be the ideal choice. Finally, they carry features that can appear overwhelming and not needed. 

Asana

Asana lets you work anytime, anywhere. With Asana, keep remote and distributed teams, and your entire organization focused on their goals, projects, and tasks. 

Pricing

For a list of features each plan carries, click here. 

Pros to Asana

Some of the many pros to Asana is its color-coded tasks, email integration, google drive integration, and time tracking through integration with EverHour.

Cons to Asana

Though Kanban-style is great, a downfall to Asana, which inhibits the use of Kanban, is that tasks can only be assigned to one member per team. Further sub-tasks are difficult to work with, and the interface can sometimes feel overwhelming with the graphics. Finally, some users have reported that Asana sends too many emails of tasks being due. This can be sometimes annoying. 

Twist

Twist is a chat platform built by an internationally distributed team at Doist. Ideally, Twist makes it much easier to keep track of a conversation and refer back to it later. They also target remote teamwork, making it suitable for an organized communication hub, share updates, and keep track of messages after several years. 

Pricing

There are two plans for Twist

• Free
  • Access to 1 month of comments/messages
  • Up to 5 integrations
  • 5GB file storage
  • Unlimited guests
  • Unlimited everything
  • $5 per user/per month

Pros to Twist

Some highlights to Twist is the organization of threads to keep discussions in order. This is helpful for companies that have a lot of employees. Unlike most other chat platforms, Twist lets you disconnect to focus on your work. It is similar to a “do not disturb” mode that you would find on your phone. 

Cons to Twist

A con to Twist is that in their free package they do not offer as much compared to other team chats. Twist gets the basic job done, but if you are looking for more usage in a free tool, Twist may not be ideal. 

Bonus: to see what are the latest free communication tools for remote work, read our blog post. 

Troop Messenger

According to Troop Messenger, their chat software integrates multiple features and functionalities on a single interface offering ease of use and heightened user experience. Troop Messenger comes with all the basic functionalities needed for group chats: voice-video calls, screen sharing, file sharing, and filtering content.

Pricing

Troop Messenger comes with three price plans:

• Premium: $1 per user/ per month
  • 7-day free trial of enterprise
  • 150 GB of storage
• Enterprise: $5 per user/per month
  • 1 TB storage
• Self Hosting: $5+ per user/per month

To see their feature and function list, click here. 

Pros to Troop Messenger

Troop Messenger allows users to send messages or attachments to multiple users. Troop Messenger also features an unread message filter, which helps for looking at missed messages. Finally, a big plus is that they carry self-hosting and API delivery options. This is beneficial for large companies.

Cons to Troop Messenger

At its core, Troop Messenger is a chat app, and its collaboration is second. Troop Messenger carries little-to-no integrations. The lack of integration compromises for the overwhelming features that come with the platform.

Zulip

Zulip combines the immediacy of real-time chat with an email threading model. With Zulip, you can catch up on important conversations while ignoring irrelevant ones. Zulip is an emerging leader of business collaboration tools.

Pricing

Below is a capture of their latest image pricing

Pros to Zulip

The selling point to Zulip is that they are arguably the best at handling synchronous and asynchronous communication. Zulip carries a lot of features and integrations. They also have a nice design for the messaging itself. With its amazing email threading model, Zulip allows users to catch up on important notifications/conversations while muting the irrelevant ones.

Cons to Zulip

Functions and features aside, the UI design of the whole platform is not desirable. True, the messaging is visually appealing, but the overall design leaves the feeling of a “senior-citizen” aesthetic. Personally, the brand colors remind me of my grandmother’s bathroom who had the same color scheme.

Conclusion

These are what we believe are the latest 2020 groundbreaking team chat tools, however, this list barely scratches the surface. There are many amazing team chat tools out there. We look forward to seeing our future competition and hope that each team chat tool rises to the challenge. 

We use AirSend as our digital workspace for our marketing team. Even though AirSend is our product, we sincerely believe that AirSend can help your team too. Give us a try and let us know what you think!

AirSend is a versatile digital workspace to share files, send messages, and complete tasks. See how AirSend can help you.