Microsoft Teams (Chat) vs Slack

Microsoft Teams (Chat)

The captured pages name chat and channels as a solution area and show real file infrastructure (SharePoint Plan 1 team sites, 1 TB per user), which puts this above flat group chats. We found no public information on threading, mentions, search across history, message editing or any history limit, so I cannot credit the archive a busy team actually leans on.

Slack

Channels, Slack Connect, file sharing and search across the company's entire stored knowledge are evidenced, and history is unlimited from Pro upward — the daily surface works. But nothing in the evidence speaks to threads staying readable, edit history, pinned items, filtered search, or archiving a channel without losing its history, so the 'archive as knowledge base' half of the scale is unevidenced.

Microsoft Teams (Chat)

Encryption for meetings, chats, calls and files is listed as included and a free Microsoft Entra ID version ships in every plan, but no mechanism is documented — we found no public information on end-to-end encryption, key handling, guest scoping or per-channel roles. The privacy statement describes using data for AI model training, so I read the encryption story as vendor-held rather than end-to-end.

Slack

Encryption at rest and in transit with vendor-held keys, SSO down to the free tier, 2FA, and an Enterprise Key Management add-on for customer-held keys — solid but conventional. No end-to-end encryption anywhere, no device verification or admin-revocable session management documented, and no plain statement of what Slack itself can read beyond promises about LLM training.

Microsoft Teams (Chat)

Compliance is named but parked one floor up: data security and compliance sits in the Microsoft Purview Suite and requires Microsoft 365 E3, and we found no public information on retention configuration, discovery export, or an admin audit log. The privacy statement documents that time, date and the users involved in Teams communication are captured, and we found no public information on organisation-wide controls to switch such monitoring off.

Slack

Retention configurable at workspace and channel level (plan-dependent), plus legal hold, audit logs, DLP and information barriers on the pricing page — the legal object is at least named. Missing: eDiscovery export including edits and deletions, evidenced policy execution, and any word on whether activity analytics can be switched off organisation-wide, which is exactly what a works council asks first.

Microsoft Teams (Chat)

Every capture points at Microsoft's own cloud: personal data may be stored in the user's region, the United States, and any jurisdiction where Microsoft or its service providers operate, and we found no public information on a self-hosted or dedicated-instance edition. The only documented exit is deletion — on cancellation all associated data is deleted — and we found no public information on export of the archive in a readable format.

Slack

Cloud-only from a proprietary San Francisco vendor: no self-hosting, no open-source core, no documented export format anywhere in the evidence. The only custody-adjacent facts are Germany hosting from Business+ and Slack hosting its own LLMs in its own AWS private cloud — neither puts my archive in my hands.

Microsoft Teams (Chat)

Over 250 integrated business apps plus custom chatbots built with Copilot Studio is more than a plain integration list. But the bot route requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, and we found no public information on a documented API, webhooks, slash commands, event subscriptions or rate limits, so I cannot call it a buildable platform from the evidence shown.

Slack

An average of 43 apps per team and 1.7M weekly active apps say the ecosystem is real, automations are buildable 'with a click or by code', third-party services are controllable per workspace, and SCIM provisioning exists.

Microsoft Teams (Chat)

The vendor is headquartered in Redmond, Washington, and its privacy statement says personal data may be stored in the user's region, the United States, and any jurisdiction where Microsoft or its service providers have facilities. We found no public information on an EU contracting entity, named hosting infrastructure, or a published subprocessor list.

Slack

Salesforce, Inc. of San Francisco is the vendor and contracting entity, Germany data residency exists but only from Business+ upward, and no subprocessor list is published — the classic 'EU residency offered while the entity sits outside the EU' position. The LLM stack staying inside Slack's AWS private cloud is a nice touch but it's still Slack's cloud, not mine.

Microsoft Teams (Chat)

Two add-ons carry public per-user prices with billing period and VAT treatment stated — Microsoft Teams Premium at 8,70 € Benutzer/Monat and Microsoft 365 Copilot Business at 18,20 € (15,60 € discounted), both jährliche Abrechnung, Preise zzgl. MwSt. — and refund, trial and discount terms are explicit. But the compliance path requires Microsoft 365 E3, and we found no public information on pricing for that tier or for guest users, so the full annual invoice is not computable from what I can see.

Slack

Tier boundaries are unusually legible — SSO down to the free plan, unlimited history from Pro, Germany residency from Business+, DLP on every tier — and VAT-compliant invoices are a product feature. But no per-user figure is captured in this evidence and the compliance tier (legal hold, SCIM, audit) sits in Enterprise+ without a stated price, so I cannot compute my annual invoice from these pages alone.