Choosing a Slack alternative for your private community

Chanty is a team chat app with task management built in, so any message can become a task. Its free plan covers up to 5 team members, with unlimited searchable history and 20 GB of storage per team. Above that, the Business plan is priced per user. Chanty also offers a version for communities; its pricing page shows no price for it, only a demo to book. The same page describes no way for members to pay for access.

Circle puts a community, courses, live events, a website and payments on one plan, with iOS, Android and desktop apps. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial. Plans start at $89 a month on annual billing, for unlimited members. Members pay through Circle's Stripe integration. Circle's transaction fee is 2% on Professional, 1% on Business and 0.5% on Circle Plus. Stripe's processing fee is a separate charge on each payment.

Discord describes itself as a place to talk, play and hang out, with voice, video and text chat and streaming, for friends or a worldwide community. The app is free, with in-app purchases, and Nitro, its premium subscription, adds features such as uploads above the free 10 MB limit. Paid access works only in the United States: Server Subscriptions need US banking information and US identification. Discord's Creator Revenue FAQ describes a 90/10 split, where Discord keeps 10% of each membership payment. Its Monetization Terms calculate that 10% from the payment less applicable transaction taxes, payment processing fees and transaction fees. The same terms take a 6% payment processing fee out of the payment on desktop and in the browser.

What a paid Discord server requires, and what it costs next to Groupanda, is compared row by row on its own page. Other tools that replace Discord are on our list of Discord alternatives for private communities.

Discourse organizes discussions into categories and tags, and its Pro plan includes chat. The free hosted plan has unlimited members, 2 staff seats and 10 categories. Pro costs $100 a month and Business $500, with discounts for non-profits on both. Discourse is also free and open source if you run it on your own server. Paid access comes from its Subscriptions plugin on Pro and above. The plugin sells recurring or one-time subscriptions to a group and needs a Stripe account. Neither the plugin page nor the pricing page states a Discourse fee on those payments.

Element is a messaging app built on Matrix, an open and decentralised standard. It has threads, voice messages, polls and reactions, and its voice and video calls work one to one and in groups. Everything is end-to-end encrypted by default. The app is free for personal use, on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and the web. For a server of your own, the free Community edition covers 1 to 100 users and is meant for non-professional deployments and evaluations. The Enterprise plan is priced per seat per month. Element's pages describe no way for members to pay for access.

Google describes Chat as a communication platform designed for businesses. It comes with Google Workspace, which is priced per user, and without Workspace you can try it for 14 days. With a personal Google Account you can still create spaces for collaboration, where everyone can post, react and reply in threads. Spaces for announcements and settings for who can find a space are kept for work or school accounts. Google's pages describe no way for members to pay for access.

Groupanda is a workspace for private communities: real-time chat in channels, with an owner, admins and members, and plans that members buy. It is free, with no member limit and no time limit. You can offer up to 5 plans side by side. Each is a monthly subscription or a one-time payment with no renewal date, and each opens its own channels. Members buy a plan in the browser, and the iOS and Android apps send them there. On a paid group the member pays the price you set. Out of that payment, Groupanda keeps a 6% platform fee. Stripe's processing fee is deducted from your payout. Nothing is added on top of what the member pays. Stripe Connect pays out to the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Norway, Liechtenstein, Canada, and Switzerland.

What Groupanda does not have: threads, voice or video calls, screen share, bots and integrations. You search messages within a channel, one channel at a time.

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Mattermost is a collaboration platform with channels, threaded discussions, one-to-one audio calls and screen sharing. Its free Team Edition is open source and runs on your own server. Mattermost says it is intended for small teams, hobbyists or personal use under 250 activated users. The paid plans are sold through sales, and the hosted version is a single-tenant cloud offered to enterprises. Its pages describe no way for members to pay for access.

Teams has a free version for personal use, and Microsoft says anyone can use it, including small businesses and non-profit organizations. It includes communities, where owners sort topics into channels and invite members by contact, invite link or QR code. Communities are private by default. Group calls and meetings last up to 60 minutes with up to 100 participants, and each user gets 5 GB of cloud storage. Microsoft's pages describe no way for members to pay for access.

Mighty Networks combines a community with courses and automations, and its top plan, Mighty Pro, adds your own branded apps. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial. Launch costs $79 a month on annual billing or $95 month to month, for unlimited members. Members can pay by subscription or one-time payment, for the whole network or a single space. Mighty Networks takes 2% on Launch, 1% on Scale, and 0.5% on Growth and Mighty Pro.

Pumble is a team chat app with channels, direct messages, and voice and video messages. Its free plan is for an unlimited number of users, with unlimited message history, one-to-one voice and video meetings, and 10 GB of storage per workspace. It can import public channels, messages and members from Slack. Paid plans are priced per seat and add group meetings and screen sharing. Pumble's pages describe no way for members to pay for access.

Rocket.Chat is a chat platform with channels, groups, direct messages, threaded discussions, searchable history and end-to-end encryption. Its Starter plan is free for up to 50 users on a workspace you deploy yourself, and Rocket.Chat points non-profits and open-source projects to it. Above 50, a free open-source Community edition keeps basic channels and direct messages for up to 100 concurrent users. Its paid plans, Commercial, Government and Defense, are priced on request. Rocket.Chat's pages describe no way for members to pay for access.

Skool pairs a community with courses and live calls. Hobby costs $9 a month and Pro $99, both with unlimited members. Skool processes the payments itself, and its fee includes processing. It takes 10% plus 30 cents per transaction on Hobby, and 2.9% plus 30 cents on Pro, or 3.9% plus 30 cents on transactions above $900. Its Growth Boost, on by default, adds a 30% commission on members Skool brings you, for as long as their subscription stays active. You can turn it off in the group's settings. Payouts go to your bank account every Wednesday.

What Skool costs next to Groupanda, and how Groupanda works as a Skool alternative, are compared row by row on a separate page.

Zulip is an open-source chat app where every conversation starts with a brief topic, so replies stay in context. On Zulip Cloud's free plan, only the most recent 10,000 messages can be viewed and searched, and older ones stay stored. Standard costs $6.67 per user a month billed annually, or $8 month to month. Zulip offers a free Standard plan to most small non-profit organizations and to most communities for which the free plan is not an option. Self-hosting is free. Its plans page describes no way for members to pay for access.