Microsoft Teams alternatives: 12 team messaging tools compared
People look for a Microsoft Teams alternative when chat is the only part of Microsoft 365 they want, when add-on licences push the bill past the base plan, or when they need to host the messaging system themselves. They move to a chat-only product with a published price, to an open-source platform they can run on their own servers, or to a threaded tool built for asynchronous work.
Short answer: The first three alternatives to Microsoft Teams in our team messaging software ranking are Slack, Google Chat and Zulip. Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Choose Slack if you want the same channel model with published per-seat prices and a large app directory. All 12 alternatives below are ranked products from Best Team Messaging Software in 2026, and each says where it differs from Microsoft Teams.
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Pricing: Per user per month subscriptions; Teams Essentials standalone; add-on licences extra; amounts not readable this session
Established in: United States
Built for: Organisations already running Microsoft 365 that want chat and meetings under one admin
Not for: Small teams wanting a quick, single-purpose chat tool outside Microsoft
01
Why buyers look past Microsoft Teams
01
Licences and add-ons are layered on top of the plan
Microsoft's own documentation describes Teams add-on licences (Teams Premium, Audio Conferencing, and Teams Phone with PSTN connectivity) that are bought for the users who need them, and says which add-ons are available depends on the Teams plan you hold. The base plan is therefore rarely the whole bill. We could not read Microsoft's price pages, which block automated requests, so this page quotes no Teams amounts.
02
Limits depend on which plan you hold
Per Microsoft's limits page, meetings host up to 300 people on Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard, Premium and Teams Essentials, and up to 1,000 on E-, F-, and A-class plans. Teams also runs inside a Microsoft 365 tenant, with teams built from Microsoft 365 groups. A company that wants chat without the tenant has no way to take just that part.
03
A suite you adopt, not a tool you pick
Teams sits inside Microsoft 365 plans and as the standalone Teams Essentials, and the limits page lists separate Teams EEA plans. Buyers who only need channels and direct messages can choose products priced per seat for chat alone, or products with a permanent free tier, and compare them side by side before paying.
Free edition; Standard, Professional and Enterprise editions per user; ten-user minimum on the top two
Zoho's chat tool with a free edition and four editions
you already use Zoho applications and want chat attached to them
#11
03
What each one does differently
1
Slack
United States · Free plan; Pro and Business+ per user per month, published; Enterprise+ quoted
The closest like-for-like replacement: channels, huddles and an app directory of over 2,600 apps. Slack's pricing page shows Free with 90 days of message history and up to 10 apps, Pro at EUR 6.75 and Business+ at EUR 15 per user per month billed annually, and Enterprise+ on request.
Switch from Microsoft Teams if you want the same channel model with published per-seat prices and a large app directory.
United States · Included in Google Workspace; per user per month, published; 14-day trial
Sold as part of Google Workspace rather than separately: the Workspace pricing page lists Chat among the products, with Starter at EUR 6.80 per user per month billed monthly, 30 GB pooled storage and meetings of 100 participants. It suits a company already on Gmail and Drive, and offers no separate chat-only price.
Switch from Microsoft Teams if your company already runs on Google Workspace and wants chat bundled with mail and meetings.
United States · Free cloud plan with limited history; per user per month above that, published; self-hosted edition at no charge
Organises every message under a topic inside a channel. Zulip's plans page lists a free cloud plan limited to 10,000 messages of search history, Standard at USD 6.67 per user per month billed annually, and a self-hosted edition at no charge as open-source software. It can import from Microsoft Teams, Slack and Mattermost.
Switch from Microsoft Teams if you want threaded conversations and the choice between hosted and self-hosted.
United States · Quoted per organisation; limited-use evaluation edition; self-hosted or vendor-managed cloud
Aimed at organisations that run messaging on their own infrastructure, including air-gapped deployments. Its pricing page names Professional, Enterprise and Enterprise Advanced, all quoted by sales, plus a limited-use evaluation edition. There is no published per-seat price to compare against Teams.
Switch from Microsoft Teams if you need self-managed deployment and accept a sales-led quote.
United Kingdom · Community edition at no charge, AGPL; Enterprise and Sovereign priced per seat per month on request
A client for the Matrix protocol. Element's pricing page offers a Community edition under AGPL for 1 to 100 users, an Enterprise tier priced per seat and a Sovereign tier for air-gapped deployments priced per deployment. The page labels the Community homeserver as not for production. Element Creations Limited is its UK headquarters entity.
Switch from Microsoft Teams if you want an open protocol, federation and servers you control.
United States · Commercial plan quoted by sales; Starter plan for evaluation; self-managed deployment
Sold as a Commercial plan with pricing from sales, deployable on-premises, in a private cloud, air-gapped, or as Rocket.Chat-managed dedicated hosting. A Starter plan covers evaluation, small businesses and non-profits. The page lists federation for shared channels with outside organisations. No per-seat figure is published.
Switch from Microsoft Teams if you need to host chat yourself and share channels with partner organisations.
United States · Free plan for unlimited users; three paid plans per seat per month, published
The cheapest published ladder we checked: a free plan for unlimited users with unlimited message history, 10 GB storage per workspace and up to 3 apps, then USD 2.49 (Pro), 3.99 (Business) and 6.99 (Enterprise) per seat per month billed annually. Multi-channel guests occupy a paid seat. It belongs to the CAKE.com family.
Switch from Microsoft Teams if you want a free tier without a history limit and low per-seat prices.
Switzerland · Free plan for five people; SMB per person per month, published; Enterprise custom
Built around end-to-end encrypted messaging. Wire's pricing page lists Wire for Free for up to 5 people, SMB at EUR 7.45 per person per month billed annually for up to 100 people with SSO and SCIM, and custom Enterprise pricing. Federation and data sovereignty features sit on the Enterprise tier. The operating entity is Wire Swiss GmbH.
Switch from Microsoft Teams if encryption and a European parent group matter more than the app marketplace.
Not stated by the vendor · Free plan; one published per-user Business plan; Enterprise quoted
A small-team chat tool with built-in task management. Chanty's pricing page shows a Free plan for up to 5 team members and 20 GB per team, a Business plan at EUR 3 per user per month, and Enterprise on request, including an on-premise possibility. Data residency options sit on the quoted tier.
Switch from Microsoft Teams if you run a small team and want chat plus tasks at a low per-user price.
Not stated by the vendor · Free plan up to 20 members; Pro plan with 30-day trial; Enterprise quoted
A smaller messaging product with a Starter plan free for teams of up to 20 members, limited to 10,000 searchable messages, 10 public channels and 5 GB per team. Pro carries a 30-day trial and Enterprise is quoted. We could not read Pro amounts on the page, so compare it in the trial.
Switch from Microsoft Teams if your team is under 20 people and a free plan with limits is enough.
Not stated by the vendor · Free plan; one paid plan per user per month, published
Built for asynchronous work rather than instant chat: conversations run in threads. The pricing page shows a Free plan with one month of visible history and 5 integrations, and Unlimited at EUR 6 per user per month. It is made by Doist, with legal terms issued by Todoist Inc. It does not replace Teams meetings.
Switch from Microsoft Teams if your team spans time zones and prefers threads to a constant chat stream.
Not stated by the vendor · Free edition; Standard, Professional and Enterprise editions per user; ten-user minimum on the top two
Offered as a Free edition, then Standard, Professional and Enterprise editions, with a minimum of 10 users on the top two. The free edition limits searchable messages to 10,000 and storage to 100 GB per organisation. Audit history, eDiscovery and DLP sit on Enterprise. We could not read the amounts on the page.
Switch from Microsoft Teams if you already use Zoho applications and want chat attached to them.
Teams remains the sensible choice when your organisation already holds Microsoft 365 licences and relies on the tenant for identity, files and meetings. Microsoft's limits page allows teams of up to 25,000 members, up to 1,000 channels per team and, on enterprise-class plans, meetings of up to 1,000 people, figures none of the alternatives above is shown to match on its pricing page. Moving also adds a second subscription for chat while the Microsoft licence continues.
05
What moving off Microsoft Teams involves
01
Check how your history will travel
Zulip's help centre has an import guide for Microsoft Teams, as well as for Slack and Mattermost. Mattermost's migration guide covers Slack and Rocket.Chat. Pumble documents a Slack import on its free plan. For most others we found no Teams import in the pages we read, so ask the vendor before you commit and plan to keep Teams read-only for the old threads.
02
Count the seats you will actually pay for
Guests behave differently by vendor. Pumble counts multi-channel guests as paid seats while each paid seat includes five single-channel guests, and Twist bills multi-channel guests like members. Slack Free keeps 90 days of history. Add the people who only join occasionally before you compare totals with the Teams bill.
06
Questions about replacing Microsoft Teams
6 answers
Is there a free replacement for Microsoft Teams?
Several alternatives publish a free tier with stated limits: Slack Free (90 days of history, up to 10 apps), Pumble (unlimited users), Zulip Cloud (10,000 messages of search history), Chanty (up to 5 members), Flock (up to 20 members) and Twist (one month of visible history).
Self-hosting Zulip or the Element Community edition costs no licence fee, but you run the servers.
Which alternatives can be hosted on our own servers?
Zulip publishes a self-hosted edition as open-source software. Element offers a Community edition under AGPL and a Sovereign tier for air-gapped deployments. Mattermost and Rocket.Chat both describe self-managed deployments, including air-gapped ones, on quoted plans. Chanty mentions an on-premise possibility on its Enterprise tier.
Can we replace Teams meetings as well?
Only partly. Slack lists huddles, Google Workspace lists meetings of 100 participants on Starter, Pumble lists group meetings from its Pro plan, and Wire lists video conferences up to 150 participants on SMB.
Check participant caps against Microsoft's 300 on Business plans before dropping Teams calls.
Does Teams cost extra for phone calls and dial-in?
Microsoft's documentation lists Audio Conferencing and Teams Phone with PSTN connectivity as add-on licences. Which add-ons you can buy depends on your Teams plan. We could not read Microsoft's amounts, so ask your reseller for a quote with the add-ons your people need.
Are any of these alternatives European?
Wire Swiss GmbH is a Swiss entity within a group whose parent is incorporated in Berlin, per Wire's own page. Element states its headquarters entity is in the UK.
The others are not verified as European on pages we read. Establishment is a fact on this page, not a ranking reason.
Which alternative fits a small team best?
For up to five people, Wire and Chanty offer free plans. Pumble offers a free plan for unlimited users with 10 GB of workspace storage.
Past that, check what the paid tier adds: Chanty Business is EUR 3 per user per month, Pumble Pro USD 2.49 billed annually. Our judgement from the published prices, not a test.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Written, edited and fact-checked by Sebastiaan Smits. Last reviewed
23 October 2026. How we review.
