Free Slack Alternative
by Hans Rempel | October 28, 2022 | Category: Collaboration
Slack has recently changed its pricing to require a subscription to a paid plan to retain access to older messages - this change has motivated a lot of people to look for a free Slack alternative.
Diode Drive is a content-first collaboration application that makes chat for teams more pertinent, more secure, and better to use.
Read below for how Diode can not only be used a free Slack alternative, but also as a more secure and capable environment for individuals and teams!
What Features are Important in a Free Slack Alternative?
Chat has become an indispensable tool for work and personal communications. Some key features that make or break a team chat application are simple!
Let’s dig in.
Inherently Secure and Private
One of the most important factors is the security of your chat app. No-one wants their communications, personal information, or friend network to be used in a way they don’t intend. People’s frustrations with their data becoming someone else’s product has meant that chat application security has become the number one determining factor in chat application adoption:
The core vulnerability for most chat applications is that your chats reside on a server that the chat company runs - they can be exploited and/or exposed to data breaches.
Diode is different - when using Diode, your DMs, group chats, and other information are never resident on a server.
Although a few other chat applications, like Signal, have a similar commitment for chat content, Diode goes even further: Diode accounts use self custodial authentication (your account information is not stored on any server where it could be subject to a data breach), and accounts are pseudo anonymous (they have a username, but require no identifiable information). Apps like Slack, Discord, and even Signal require other account identifiers and store certain authentication information on managed servers.
Designed for Organizations
We really respect Signal here at Diode. However, Signal is oriented towards individual users and user groups - not towards organizations and teams.
Diode is more organization-oriented, like Slack or Discord, but also has native integrations with structured files (a self custody Dropbox / Google Drive like capability) and dynamic content (an enterprise VPN like capability) - the very information that makes many chats pertinent to teams in the first place!
If the team’s focus includes files/work product, Diode Drive can help the team’s chats organize, share, reference, pin, and even author files in conversations.
If the team’s core focus includes accessing secure dynamic content - like access to a server admin interface or training content - those resources can be accessed end-to-end encrypted from within the app, making the insitu team collaboration more secure, pertinent, and accessible.
Never Holds Your Data Hostage
Most chat apps have to restrict storage / history in their free plans so that their “freebie” cloud server bill remains at a dull roar. This means that teams need to subscribe to higher priced plans when they need more storage or longer history.
For example, if you need more than 90 days of chat history with Slack, you need to pay a minimum of $7.25 USD per team member for that privelege.
Diode is different - it is a self-custody solution that has no cloud server bills related to storage and chat history. We pass this benefit directly to our users by having free unlimited history and chat content storage.
Get Started Today!
If you are looking for a free Slack alternative, Diode may check all the boxes! The combination of security and privacy, collaboration, and usage features makes Diode a great option for chat and more.
In the spirit of full disclosure, Diode does have modest paid plans for when your team grows or when certain features become more widely used by the team!
Diode Drive is bringing a whole new approach to collaboration – please download and try it out! If you have questions or want to talk more about how Diode can enable your use-case, please get in touch!