Slack vs Discord

Battle of the chat apps —which should you use?

-  SAM LEWIS

COMMUNICATION IS KEY. Yes, that’s an old saying, but it’s something that is especially true in the modern digital age, where we stay in touch with friends, work colleagues, even family. In order to build strong communications, you need an equally strong application to make things as simple and clear as possible. That’s where these two apps come in.

Whether you’re after a corporate or more gamer-focused app, Slack and Discord are two of the most prominent connectivity platforms to choose from. Both essentially offer the same service, but with unique features that set them apart, it’s often difficult to decide which one to primarily use. Let’s pit them against each other and figure out which one will be victorious.

In the grand scheme of things, both apps are fairly new to the party, with the oldest, Slack, releasing in August 2013, while Discord came out in May 2015. Yet despite being relatively young, they have made quite an impact, with millions of active worldwide users.

Slack was created by founder Stewart Butterfield, who knows a thing or two about software services as he one of the co-founders of photo sharing site Flickr. Butterfield and his team accidentally kick-started Slack by starting to develop something for the massively multiplayer online role playing game market. In 2009, they created a gaming developer called Tiny Speck, working on the MMORPG Glitch. It was a unique title as it didn’t have combat mechanics, and was based on a 2D platform design with surrealist and fantasy-esque aesthetics. It was popular with a loyal but sadly small audience.