Slack vs Discord - Which Is Better For Team Communication | MESA Blog

Slack vs Discord have many similarities. But branding makes these apps distinct.

Slack brands itself as a “digital HQ,” primarily targeting business users. Discord calls itself a “place to hang out,” tailor-made for building online communities. But in all other Slack alternatives, having a Discord server is the most popular.

If you run both apps side-by-side, you’ll find an uncanny resemblance in the interface. Both have workspaces, channels, and chats on the left sidebar. You can make audio and video calls using both apps.

Slack offers more integrations. But you can always use a tool like MESA to integrate Discord into Shopify and other platforms. MESA will allow you to set up trigger-based workflows, helping you best use your communication app, Slack vs Discord.

In this article, we focus on the differences between these apps to help you decide the best communication app for your ecommerce business.

Main differences between Slack vs Discord

Slack is the perfect messaging tool for text-based business communication. On the other hand, Discord’s strengths lie in its audio and video communication features.

Your internal team members are most likely to be using Slack vs Discord users are community members in your niche.

But this hasn’t stopped people from building communities on Slack or conducting business on Discord. Here are some more key differences between Slack and Discord:

Exploring Slack

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Slack is the most popular collaborative platform for businesses.

As an ecommerce business, you can integrate Shopify into Slack. Once set up, you can create workflows to send a Slack message when products go out of stock or when a product with infinite options is purchased.

The most appealing parts of Slack are its design and feature set.

Stewart Butterfield (Slack’s founder) partnered with MetaLab to design Slack using the color scheme of a video game. That’s why Slack has a playful feel.

A Slack workspace is designed with features focused on business use cases. For example, Slack direct messages (DMs) are confined to a specific workspace. Paid Slack users can access these DMs. However, you can’t access DM logs on Discord.

Exploring Discord

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Discord is the perfect communication platform if you want to build a community. Most Discord features are free, though you get some minor upgrades, like higher-quality screen sharing, by upgrading to Nitro.

The app started as an app that allowed gamers to start an audio chat and leave it running while they play a game. The early focus on gamers is why Discord has robust audio and video features.

However, there are a few downsides to using Discord. For example, the documentation was created with gamers in mind. You might find the documentation confusing if you aren’t familiar with gaming language.

Discord doesn’t offer many integrations, but MESA can fix that problem. For example, even without a Shopify integration, MESA can help automatically send a Discord message when a tagged product is purchased.

Benefits of a great messaging tool

There are four benefits to a great messaging tool:

Real-time communication

Communicating via messaging apps is far easier than using emails—be it with your team on how the new marketing campaign is going or with your community on chatting with them during an event.

It also adds the option of voice and video communication within the same tool. Direct messages and tagging users make it easier to separate conversation threads among team members.

Improved engagement

Messaging app help get all team members to engage in decision-making. Quick polls make choosing between options easier, and a group chat makes it possible to get their opinions without any meetings.

Similarly, instant messaging apps can get your community members to weigh in, share their thoughts and engage with your campaigns. For example, you can host an Ask Me Anything session with your community to answer your loyal users’ questions.

Great for project management

Using a messaging tool can help complete projects faster. Instead of going back and forth over emails, use real-time messaging to collaborate on projects.

You can automate notifications for overdue tasks, communicate with your entire team in real-time, distribute reports to stakeholders, and increase your project completion rate.

For example, you can configure an automation workflow that shares real-time updates about the project status in a relevant channel so all team members know who’s working on what part of the project right now.

Creates insightful records

After a great employee leaves, communication records offer great insights into how they manage tasks, resources, and projects. These records are a great reference for future decision-making.

For example, suppose Paul from HR had an excellent way of dealing with unhappy employees. You can go back to Paul’s communication records to understand his way of finding mutually agreeable solutions.

Why automate the messaging experience?

Communicating via messages can easily turn into a burden if you opt for doing everything manually. That’s where the magic of automating messages comes in. Automation can remove the back-and-forth between different software and takes away the pressure to be 24/7.

You can set up different automation workflows for your use cases. You might’ve noticed some of them above. Here are a few more:

Do more with messaging tools without the work

Both Slack and Discord offer features for effective communication. But it’s best to use the tools for the purpose they were created for.

Slack offers a robust collaboration environment for businesses. Discord is a great platform for building thriving communities.

Shopify store owners can integrate Slack or Discord with their store using MESA. MESA allows you to connect Shopify with Slack or Discord seamlessly, whichever message app is your final choice.

What to do next…

The fastest way to automate anything is to start with a single task.

  1. 1Try MESA free
    — 7-day free trial included
  2. 2Start from a template
    — pre-built workflows for the most common tasks
  3. 3Describe your workflow
    — let our AI assistant build it for you

Written by
Ryan O'Donnell

Designing Shopify apps and digital commerce experiences for brands worldwide since 2012.