Slack

First, we’d like to give a quick nod to the team at Slack.

Undeniably, they’ve also built a great product that people love to use. It does what it’s supposed to do and it does it well.

So why do companies choose Rocket.Chat over Slack?

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In short: Because they are centered more around legal compliance, scalability, and UX customization.

Rocket.Chat customers believe compromised data protection is a disqualifying factor. These tend to be organizations in highly regulated industries or companies that handle sensitive business or customer information.

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While Slack does offer some features around data privacy and security, Rocket.Chat puts it first.

Here are the 5 reasons why companies choose Rocket.Chat over Slack

Rocket.Chat offers on-premise hosting

Slack is a SaaS solution, only. For many companies, especially those with a focus on data privacy, security and ownership, that’s just not an option. Rocket.Chat even allows for air gapped deployments.

Rocket.Chat is more flexible and gives you full access to the code

Unlike Slack, you can actually see what’s going on under the hood. This means additional security assurances, unlimited UX customizations, and the ability to see and contribute to the roadmap.

Rocket.Chat let’s you connect with Slack accounts

Slack lets you message people in other companies, such as vendors, partners and suppliers - as long as they are also using Slack. Rocket.Chat let’s you connect across platforms - so you don’t ever have to ask: Are you on Slack?

Security-centric features available with every plan

E2E encryption, chat history, HIPAA compliance, role-based access - All the things you need if you care about the privacy and security of your data come with a high barrier to entry with Slack (or don’t exist at all).

Unlimited conversation history for everyone

No matter which Rocket.Chat plan you have, everyone gets access to the full conversation history, no matter when they joined a certain channel. With Slack, on the other hand, you don’t always get access to crucial conversations that happened in the past.

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Still not convinced? No problem.

Here’s an in-depth feature comparison of Rocket.Chat vs Slack

Rocket.Chat

Slack

Open Source

Open-source software

Full access to source code, server APIs, libraries, and influence on the roadmap

Team collaboration and productivity

Teams and channels

Discussions

Voice, video, and screen sharing

File, image, and link sharing

Unlimited message history in every plan

High availability

Engagement dashboard and insights

Read receipt

White labeling

High scalability cluster

Data Sovereignty

Private network deployment (SaaS or On-Prem)

No third party monitoring

Verifiable data retention policies in every plan

Full access to source code, server APIs, libraries, and influence on the roadmap

Post incidents reports

Privacy

ISO 27001 (external audit)

End-to-end encryption

Core access control policies

Advanced access control policies

Data loss prevention (DLP)

LDAP-based single sign-on

SAML-based single sign-on

Complete operational auditability

Complete technical auditability

ID-only push notifications

Omnichannel features

Manual & Auto Chat Routing

Queue Management

Agent office hours configuration

Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter Integrations

SMS & CRM Integration

Email Inbox

Analytics and Real-time monitoring dashboards

Chat tagging and forwarding

Support

SLA high availability

24/7 live support

Onboarding call

On-Call Upgrade Assistance

Apps

Native apps for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac and Linux

Community

On GitHub

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Here’s what customers who picked Rocket.Chat have to say.

Stefan Teubner

IT Project Leader, Audi Business Innovation GmbH

Mike Schwartz

CEO & Founder at Gluu

“Slack wasn’t a real alternative for us at that time, because it was SaaS. For data privacy concerns, we needed something that we could host ourselves.”