{"slug": "slack", "name": "Slack", "category": "communication", "category_name": "Email and chat", "description": "Team messaging app with channels, direct messages, and third-party integrations.", "recommenders": 13, "commenters": 50, "warners": 12, "score": 7.376, "rising": 1.05, "first": "2025-11-10", "latest": "2026-10-27", "why": "HN commenters mostly like Slack as a much better option than Microsoft Teams, citing its searchable history, simple integrations and cross-org channels.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 13, "neutral": 27, "compare": 0, "warn": 14}, "spark": [0, 1, 1, 3, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 3, 1], "listed": true, "loved": ["Better than Teams", "Searchable history"], "caveat": "Slow and bloated", "short_quote": "I'd pay the $$$ for Slack. The ability to search past conversations has saved me hours of productivity", "icon": true, "domain": "packagecloud.io", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://slack.com", "pricing": "freemium", "aliases": ["Slack"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters mostly like Slack as a much better option than Microsoft Teams,", "cites": [{"id": 797588145, "item_id": 49849259, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49849259", "by": "dieselgate", "date": "2026-09-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I prefer Slack to alternatives", "excerpt": "Switched from Spotify to Deezer. I prefer Slack to alternatives, Teams is miserable.", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What vendor you'd switch out if a better option was available?"}, {"id": 749991360, "item_id": 46874460, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46874460", "by": "firefoxd", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Slack is a delight compared to Teams.", "excerpt": "After an acquisition, we are transitioning from google meet and slack, to Teams. I used to hate slack so much with their random features popping left and right and menus moving around. Oh I didn't know how good we had it. Slack is a delight compared to Teams. And I'm not even alone in this, everyone is still using slack until it gets pried off our hands. So help me God anyone mentions Copilot one more time...", "context": "company transitioning after an acquisition", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "France dumps Zoom and Teams as Europe seeks digital autonomy from the US"}, {"id": 746783024, "item_id": 46673939, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46673939", "by": "ryanSrich", "date": "2026-01-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I wouldn't wish Teams on my worst enemy, so in that regard, I love Slack", "excerpt": "I run a company that services 1,000+ clients on Slack, another 300+ on Teams, and a < 100 on Email/Gchat I wouldn't wish Teams on my worst enemy, so in that regard, I love Slack The thing I struggle with the most is how I'd move all of our core functionality from Slack. A lot of the people/teams that build these \"Slack killers\" I don't think have ever run Slack at scale How are you going to replace the 30+ in-house a", "context": "runs a company servicing 1,000+ clients on Slack", "use_case": "client and workflow communication", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Dock \u2013 Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss"}, {"id": 795442081, "item_id": 49715130, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49715130", "by": "mahboi", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Thankfully we use Slack where I work. The cross-org channels are cool.", "excerpt": "MS Teams is terrible, and yet it's gotten this far. I don't know if Slack or Teams is winning, just that Jabber won't beat Teams at its own game. Thankfully we use Slack where I work. The cross-org channels are cool.", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jabber/XMPP: How Do We Gain Traction?"}]}, {"text": " citing its searchable history, simple integrations and cross-org channels.", "cites": [{"id": 757932784, "item_id": 47370799, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47370799", "by": "AznHisoka", "date": "2026-03-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'd pay the $$$ for Slack. The ability to search past conversations has saved me hours of productivity", "excerpt": "There's loads of companies that use Discord, but they all seem to be blockchain/gaming companies [1] I think Discord has the same problem that FB faced when it tried to launch their FB Workplace product. It has the perception of being \"fun\" and not serious/professional. If I were you, I'd pay the $$$ for Slack. The ability to search past conversations has saved me hours of productivity and well worth it [1] https://b", "context": "", "use_case": "work chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Does anyone here use Discord as their work chat tool?"}, {"id": 757964032, "item_id": 47372752, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47372752", "by": "muzani", "date": "2026-03-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Slack was one of those tools that just held context of everything.", "excerpt": "We considered it before in a past job when cost cutting. But nobody wants the boss to know when they're playing DOTA. More seriously though, Slack was one of those tools that just held context of everything. All the engineering decisions and past error messages. Discord potentially could, but it doesn't seem to built for this use case. Can it handle a thousand channels? It sounds ridiculous, but companies scale, and ", "context": "", "use_case": "work chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Does anyone here use Discord as their work chat tool?"}, {"id": 752297168, "item_id": 47018573, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47018573", "by": "CrzyLngPwd", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Slack every day, and I love it.", "excerpt": "I use Slack every day, and I love it. Integrations are simple and reliable, giving us useful information about critical things. Why it uses 400mb I have no idea.", "context": "", "use_case": "workplace chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenAI Should Build Slack"}, {"id": 752298112, "item_id": 47018632, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47018632", "by": "mcintyre1994", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "We use Slack at work, and everyone we work with uses Slack, and we all work together with Slack Connect.", "excerpt": "We use Slack at work, and everyone we work with uses Slack, and we all work together with Slack Connect. I suspect if we moved to a competitor that\u2019s pretty much the main impact we\u2019d see, and it wouldn\u2019t be good unless everyone else work with moved too. I think that network effect is probably the only meaningful differentiation in that space.", "context": "", "use_case": "cross-company work chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenAI Should Build Slack"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaint is that the Electron app is slow and memory-hungry,", "cites": [{"id": 804173971, "item_id": 50260873, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50260873", "by": "radicalbyte", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "warn", "quote": "slow bloated and buggy apps usually running on Electron (Slack et al)", "excerpt": "iTunes. Skype. Windows File Manager. It has been a thing for a long time in consumers software from the big guys. The people working on it don't care about UX or performance. Now a lot of the small-company software we used to use has been replaced by slow bloated and buggy apps usually running on Electron (Slack et al) so we're seeing it everywhere as opposed to in a couple of bad apps.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Software may be getting worse, but it used to be horrible"}, {"id": 800687936, "item_id": 50042996, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50042996", "by": "javier2", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Slack is a very bad that is super slow no matter what time of day I use it.", "excerpt": "Slack is a very bad that is super slow no matter what time of day I use it. It completely locks up on a spotty network. Discord works way better and their voice chat is several leagues above.", "context": "", "use_case": "chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "IRCv3"}, {"id": 790424816, "item_id": 49401551, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49401551", "by": "hylaride", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "When I use slack and discord, I sigh when I start seeing UI rendering lag", "excerpt": "I have mixed feelings in this debate, too. The big issue with GUIs is that they\u2019ve become so bloated, especially as the default framework is now often electron apps. Web based frameworks tend to start keeling when large amounts of data need to be handled in the DOM, etc. When I use slack and discord, I sigh when I start seeing UI rendering lag when I switch channels and projects. Though there\u2019s been some recent progr", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Making TUIs"}, {"id": 780888180, "item_id": 48805511, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48805511", "by": "seabrookmx", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "my only complaint is Slack's RAM usage", "excerpt": "I don't understand why people care about Electron? Evaluate the quality of the software based on its own merits IMO. VS Code, Slack, Postman, Obsidian.. I use this software every day and my only complaint is Slack's RAM usage (which honestly has no negative effect on my machine, but just seems silly for a messaging app). Claude is a buggy mess because it's slop, not because it's electron. Heck, it runs a full Linux V", "context": "", "use_case": "messaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anthropic's Method to Losing Goodwill in a Few Easy Steps"}]}, {"text": " and some also find its search and reminder notifications frustrating.", "cites": [{"id": 790080721, "item_id": 49380045, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49380045", "by": "prepend", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "good luck finding a slack message from a month ago much less a decade", "excerpt": "I use a git-generated static site that has good search, so if people want to find stuff before asking that\u2019s the go-to. Otherwise, I can search email quite effectively. And oddly, its one of the few things Office Copilot is goos at. I don\u2019t email is a collaboration tool. It\u2019s an information sharing tool and maybe workflow. Just today I had to email out to like 20 people a data call with a couple paragraphs of instruc", "context": "", "use_case": "team communication", "switched_from": "", "story": "Don't Paste the AI, please"}, {"id": 749788545, "item_id": 46861784, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46861784", "by": "nix0n", "date": "2026-02-02", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the search function actually worked which is better than I can say for Slack.", "excerpt": "If you are looking for another self-hostable alternative to Slack, Rocket chat[0] is also worth looking at. I wasn't involved in any of the Dev Ops aspect when my former employer used them, but the search function actually worked which is better than I can say for Slack. [0]https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/blob/develop/LICENSE", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Mattermost say they will not clarify what license the project is under"}, {"id": 749190176, "item_id": 46824386, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46824386", "by": "throwaway_2351", "date": "2026-01-30", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I am starting to hate the way notifications are implemented.", "excerpt": "I use reminders in Slack frequently (\"remind me in 3 hours\" or \"remind me tomorrow / next week\"). They work fine as reminders, but I am starting to hate the way notifications are implemented. I often use \"remind me tomorrow\" that will notify me at 9am. The problem is that I often have multiple reminders triggering its own notification popup with sound on my phone. I don't think the Slack PMs actually use their produc", "context": "", "use_case": "reminders", "switched_from": "", "story": "Notification Overload (Discussion)"}, {"id": 744631264, "item_id": 46539454, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46539454", "by": "acc0362", "date": "2026-01-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The only downside is that Slack doesn\u2019t seem to have considered this workflow.", "excerpt": "I use this technique in Slack by setting a reminder on a message so I can follow up later. Sometimes I even push it to the next day or week by setting a reminder for 09:00. The only downside is that Slack doesn\u2019t seem to have considered this workflow. Instead of giving me a single notification that several messages are ready for follow\u2011up, I get multiple push notifications on my phone. It\u2019s a bit irritating, but it\u2019s", "context": "", "use_case": "message reminders", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Napoleon Technique: Postponing Things to Increase Productivity"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Better than Teams", "summary": "Several commenters who moved to or use Teams say Slack is far more pleasant.", "quotes": [{"id": 749991360, "item_id": 46874460, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46874460", "by": "firefoxd", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Slack is a delight compared to Teams.", "excerpt": "After an acquisition, we are transitioning from google meet and slack, to Teams. I used to hate slack so much with their random features popping left and right and menus moving around. Oh I didn't know how good we had it. Slack is a delight compared to Teams. And I'm not even alone in this, everyone is still using slack until it gets pried off our hands. So help me God anyone mentions Copilot one more time...", "context": "company transitioning after an acquisition", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "France dumps Zoom and Teams as Europe seeks digital autonomy from the US"}, {"id": 746783024, "item_id": 46673939, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46673939", "by": "ryanSrich", "date": "2026-01-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I wouldn't wish Teams on my worst enemy, so in that regard, I love Slack", "excerpt": "I run a company that services 1,000+ clients on Slack, another 300+ on Teams, and a < 100 on Email/Gchat I wouldn't wish Teams on my worst enemy, so in that regard, I love Slack The thing I struggle with the most is how I'd move all of our core functionality from Slack. A lot of the people/teams that build these \"Slack killers\" I don't think have ever run Slack at scale How are you going to replace the 30+ in-house a", "context": "runs a company servicing 1,000+ clients on Slack", "use_case": "client and workflow communication", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Dock \u2013 Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss"}, {"id": 797588145, "item_id": 49849259, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49849259", "by": "dieselgate", "date": "2026-09-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I prefer Slack to alternatives", "excerpt": "Switched from Spotify to Deezer. I prefer Slack to alternatives, Teams is miserable.", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What vendor you'd switch out if a better option was available?"}]}, {"label": "Searchable history", "summary": "Past conversations act as a searchable record of decisions and errors.", "quotes": [{"id": 757932784, "item_id": 47370799, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47370799", "by": "AznHisoka", "date": "2026-03-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'd pay the $$$ for Slack. The ability to search past conversations has saved me hours of productivity", "excerpt": "There's loads of companies that use Discord, but they all seem to be blockchain/gaming companies [1] I think Discord has the same problem that FB faced when it tried to launch their FB Workplace product. It has the perception of being \"fun\" and not serious/professional. If I were you, I'd pay the $$$ for Slack. The ability to search past conversations has saved me hours of productivity and well worth it [1] https://b", "context": "", "use_case": "work chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Does anyone here use Discord as their work chat tool?"}, {"id": 757964032, "item_id": 47372752, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47372752", "by": "muzani", "date": "2026-03-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Slack was one of those tools that just held context of everything.", "excerpt": "We considered it before in a past job when cost cutting. But nobody wants the boss to know when they're playing DOTA. More seriously though, Slack was one of those tools that just held context of everything. All the engineering decisions and past error messages. Discord potentially could, but it doesn't seem to built for this use case. Can it handle a thousand channels? It sounds ridiculous, but companies scale, and ", "context": "", "use_case": "work chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Does anyone here use Discord as their work chat tool?"}, {"id": 802213265, "item_id": 50138329, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50138329", "by": "penultimatename", "date": "2026-10-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "posting a funny link or a picture of your cat in Slack feels personable", "excerpt": "I\u2019ll touch on two areas that the article and many comments didn\u2019t mention. We switched from Slack to Teams at a previous company. - The loss of institutional knowledge was absolutely punishing and costly. Overnight, we lost access to an easily searchable knowledge base. A solution was available, but the search was awful and you had to know what you were looking for. While this isn\u2019t really a fault of Teams and the ve", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Teams is a red flag"}]}, {"label": "Simple, good UX", "summary": "Praised as simple, with just enough features and a good interface.", "quotes": [{"id": 752305776, "item_id": 47019111, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47019111", "by": "simianwords", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Slack is a really really good product because it is simple enough and works nice", "excerpt": "I can't read the article, but I feel people are missing the point here. Slack is a really really good product because it is simple enough and works nice - performant, has just enough features but not too many and the UX/UI is good. Its not a power tool but it gets the job done without getting in the way. You would know what I mean if you have used teams/ google chat etc. Sure you can criticise slack for being a bit s", "context": "Uses Slack as main work app", "use_case": "workplace chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenAI Should Build Slack"}, {"id": 742242577, "item_id": 46390161, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46390161", "by": "renewiltord", "date": "2025-12-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I\u2019ll just use Slack instead of some garbage clone that has the same restrictions.", "excerpt": "As is usual, HN\u2019s favourite \u201cunderdog\u201d alternative to mainstream software is just a worse version of the mainstream software. I\u2019ll just use Slack instead of some garbage clone that has the same restrictions.", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Mattermost restricted access to old messages after 10000 limit is reached"}, {"id": 797598993, "item_id": 49849937, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49849937", "by": "theguysudo", "date": "2026-09-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "slack is pretty good already", "excerpt": "i prefer soundcloud i have switched to it a while ago its better and free as well as you tend to get more freedom exploring content from new artist more slack is pretty good already so wont prefer swaping it", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What vendor you'd switch out if a better option was available?"}]}, {"label": "Integrations", "summary": "Integrations and in-house apps are described as simple and reliable for automating workflows.", "quotes": [{"id": 752297168, "item_id": 47018573, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47018573", "by": "CrzyLngPwd", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Slack every day, and I love it.", "excerpt": "I use Slack every day, and I love it. Integrations are simple and reliable, giving us useful information about critical things. Why it uses 400mb I have no idea.", "context": "", "use_case": "workplace chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenAI Should Build Slack"}, {"id": 746783024, "item_id": 46673939, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46673939", "by": "ryanSrich", "date": "2026-01-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I wouldn't wish Teams on my worst enemy, so in that regard, I love Slack", "excerpt": "I run a company that services 1,000+ clients on Slack, another 300+ on Teams, and a < 100 on Email/Gchat I wouldn't wish Teams on my worst enemy, so in that regard, I love Slack The thing I struggle with the most is how I'd move all of our core functionality from Slack. A lot of the people/teams that build these \"Slack killers\" I don't think have ever run Slack at scale How are you going to replace the 30+ in-house a", "context": "runs a company servicing 1,000+ clients on Slack", "use_case": "client and workflow communication", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Dock \u2013 Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss"}]}, {"label": "Cross-org channels", "summary": "Slack Connect and cross-org channels make it easy to work with outside teams.", "quotes": [{"id": 795442081, "item_id": 49715130, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49715130", "by": "mahboi", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Thankfully we use Slack where I work. The cross-org channels are cool.", "excerpt": "MS Teams is terrible, and yet it's gotten this far. I don't know if Slack or Teams is winning, just that Jabber won't beat Teams at its own game. Thankfully we use Slack where I work. The cross-org channels are cool.", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jabber/XMPP: How Do We Gain Traction?"}, {"id": 752298112, "item_id": 47018632, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47018632", "by": "mcintyre1994", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "We use Slack at work, and everyone we work with uses Slack, and we all work together with Slack Connect.", "excerpt": "We use Slack at work, and everyone we work with uses Slack, and we all work together with Slack Connect. I suspect if we moved to a competitor that\u2019s pretty much the main impact we\u2019d see, and it wouldn\u2019t be good unless everyone else work with moved too. I think that network effect is probably the only meaningful differentiation in that space.", "context": "", "use_case": "cross-company work chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenAI Should Build Slack"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Slow and bloated", "summary": "The Electron app is called slow, laggy and heavy on RAM.", "quotes": [{"id": 800687936, "item_id": 50042996, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50042996", "by": "javier2", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Slack is a very bad that is super slow no matter what time of day I use it.", "excerpt": "Slack is a very bad that is super slow no matter what time of day I use it. It completely locks up on a spotty network. Discord works way better and their voice chat is several leagues above.", "context": "", "use_case": "chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "IRCv3"}, {"id": 790424816, "item_id": 49401551, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49401551", "by": "hylaride", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "When I use slack and discord, I sigh when I start seeing UI rendering lag", "excerpt": "I have mixed feelings in this debate, too. The big issue with GUIs is that they\u2019ve become so bloated, especially as the default framework is now often electron apps. Web based frameworks tend to start keeling when large amounts of data need to be handled in the DOM, etc. When I use slack and discord, I sigh when I start seeing UI rendering lag when I switch channels and projects. Though there\u2019s been some recent progr", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Making TUIs"}, {"id": 780888180, "item_id": 48805511, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48805511", "by": "seabrookmx", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "my only complaint is Slack's RAM usage", "excerpt": "I don't understand why people care about Electron? Evaluate the quality of the software based on its own merits IMO. VS Code, Slack, Postman, Obsidian.. I use this software every day and my only complaint is Slack's RAM usage (which honestly has no negative effect on my machine, but just seems silly for a messaging app). Claude is a buggy mess because it's slop, not because it's electron. Heck, it runs a full Linux V", "context": "", "use_case": "messaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anthropic's Method to Losing Goodwill in a Few Easy Steps"}]}, {"label": "Search", "summary": "Some find it hard to locate older messages with Slack search.", "quotes": [{"id": 790080721, "item_id": 49380045, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49380045", "by": "prepend", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "good luck finding a slack message from a month ago much less a decade", "excerpt": "I use a git-generated static site that has good search, so if people want to find stuff before asking that\u2019s the go-to. Otherwise, I can search email quite effectively. And oddly, its one of the few things Office Copilot is goos at. I don\u2019t email is a collaboration tool. It\u2019s an information sharing tool and maybe workflow. Just today I had to email out to like 20 people a data call with a couple paragraphs of instruc", "context": "", "use_case": "team communication", "switched_from": "", "story": "Don't Paste the AI, please"}, {"id": 749788545, "item_id": 46861784, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46861784", "by": "nix0n", "date": "2026-02-02", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the search function actually worked which is better than I can say for Slack.", "excerpt": "If you are looking for another self-hostable alternative to Slack, Rocket chat[0] is also worth looking at. I wasn't involved in any of the Dev Ops aspect when my former employer used them, but the search function actually worked which is better than I can say for Slack. [0]https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/blob/develop/LICENSE", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Mattermost say they will not clarify what license the project is under"}]}, {"label": "Reminder notifications", "summary": "Multiple reminders trigger separate noisy phone notifications.", "quotes": [{"id": 749190176, "item_id": 46824386, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46824386", "by": "throwaway_2351", "date": "2026-01-30", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I am starting to hate the way notifications are implemented.", "excerpt": "I use reminders in Slack frequently (\"remind me in 3 hours\" or \"remind me tomorrow / next week\"). They work fine as reminders, but I am starting to hate the way notifications are implemented. I often use \"remind me tomorrow\" that will notify me at 9am. The problem is that I often have multiple reminders triggering its own notification popup with sound on my phone. I don't think the Slack PMs actually use their produc", "context": "", "use_case": "reminders", "switched_from": "", "story": "Notification Overload (Discussion)"}, {"id": 744631264, "item_id": 46539454, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46539454", "by": "acc0362", "date": "2026-01-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The only downside is that Slack doesn\u2019t seem to have considered this workflow.", "excerpt": "I use this technique in Slack by setting a reminder on a message so I can follow up later. Sometimes I even push it to the next day or week by setting a reminder for 09:00. The only downside is that Slack doesn\u2019t seem to have considered this workflow. Instead of giving me a single notification that several messages are ready for follow\u2011up, I get multiple push notifications on my phone. It\u2019s a bit irritating, but it\u2019s", "context": "", "use_case": "message reminders", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Napoleon Technique: Postponing Things to Increase Productivity"}]}, {"label": "Bot setup friction", "summary": "Setting up bots requires many permissions and more friction than alternatives.", "quotes": [{"id": 783942912, "item_id": 48996432, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48996432", "by": "jillesvangurp", "date": "2026-07-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "dialing in the gazillion of permissions needed to end up with something that works is a bit painful", "excerpt": "Bots in team chat is not a bad idea. I've been experimenting with that for a few months. We started with Slack. This kind of works but dialing in the gazillion of permissions needed to end up with something that works is a bit painful. And you have to do this over and over again for each new bot. So, we started experimenting with self hosted alternatives. First we tried Matrix. It's nice but a bit too strict on end t", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat with bots", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jack Dorsey launches Buzz to combine team chat, AI agents and Git hosting"}, {"id": 756512401, "item_id": 47282025, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47282025", "by": "arjie", "date": "2026-03-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Telegram doesn't have a threading notion, but Slack does", "excerpt": "My wife and I use a shared Telegram chat to talk to our claw and it seems pretty fine to be honest. It's useful to just see what the other is getting done but it can be pretty noisy. Usually I'm not that interested in the details of it. Telegram doesn't have a threading notion, but Slack does, so it's particularly well-suited to it. Integrating with Slack is much higher friction, but now that I've thought about it, i", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anthropic, Please Make a New Slack"}]}, {"label": "Threading", "summary": "Commenters criticize its single-threaded conversations and lack of nested threads.", "quotes": [{"id": 747075152, "item_id": 46692197, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46692197", "by": "damnitbuilds", "date": "2026-01-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Slack was awful for being single-threaded.", "excerpt": "I have felt this for a long time. Back in the email days, I used to try and get people to nest their email replies. But that was too much work or too complicated for most people. Slack was awful for being single-threaded. Is it still ?! X.com seems to be multi threaded but it is hard to see the threads. I find it unusable for discussions, and only use it as a read-only newsfeed. It would be vastly improved if one cou", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why Linear Chat is failing us"}, {"id": 752305776, "item_id": 47019111, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47019111", "by": "simianwords", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Slack is a really really good product because it is simple enough and works nice", "excerpt": "I can't read the article, but I feel people are missing the point here. Slack is a really really good product because it is simple enough and works nice - performant, has just enough features but not too many and the UX/UI is good. Its not a power tool but it gets the job done without getting in the way. You would know what I mean if you have used teams/ google chat etc. Sure you can criticise slack for being a bit s", "context": "Uses Slack as main work app", "use_case": "workplace chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenAI Should Build Slack"}]}, {"label": "Spotty networks", "summary": "One user says it locks up on an unreliable connection.", "quotes": [{"id": 800687936, "item_id": 50042996, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50042996", "by": "javier2", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Slack is a very bad that is super slow no matter what time of day I use it.", "excerpt": "Slack is a very bad that is super slow no matter what time of day I use it. It completely locks up on a spotty network. Discord works way better and their voice chat is several leagues above.", "context": "", "use_case": "chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "IRCv3"}]}], "who": [{"by": "bilalq", "context": "mobile app developer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50238760", "date": "2026-10-26"}, {"by": "harshalizee", "context": "works in an MS-stack company as a dotnet developer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50133349", "date": "2026-10-17"}, {"by": "resonious", "context": "develops from phone", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49239244", "date": "2026-08-09"}, {"by": "HMETechnologies", "context": "hiring at a media company", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48059654", "date": "2026-05-08"}, {"by": "adamtaylor_13", "context": "built their own claw implementation", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47153314", "date": "2026-02-25"}, {"by": "simianwords", "context": "Uses Slack as main work app", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47019111", "date": "2026-02-14"}, {"by": "toomuchtodo", "context": "in tech for 25+ years", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46904157", "date": "2026-02-05"}, {"by": "firefoxd", "context": "company transitioning after an acquisition", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46874460", "date": "2026-02-03"}, {"by": "yesnomaybe", "context": "uses Fedora for work", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46702232", "date": "2026-01-20"}, {"by": "ryanSrich", "context": "runs a company servicing 1,000+ clients on Slack", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46673939", "date": "2026-01-18"}, {"by": "atmosx", "context": "small team", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46545812", "date": "2026-01-08"}], "tags": ["for teams", "for cross-org collaboration", "for AI agent chat", "for workflow automation", "for Linux users"], "use_cases": ["team chat", "work chat", "messaging", "chat", "team communication", "work messaging"], "compared": [{"slug": "microsoft-teams", "name": "Microsoft Teams", "co": 15, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 2}, {"slug": "discord", "name": "Discord", "co": 13, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 2}, {"slug": "matrix", "name": "Matrix", "co": 6, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 2}, {"slug": "mattermost", "name": "Mattermost", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "claude", "name": "Claude", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "telegram", "name": "Telegram", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "zulip", "name": "Zulip", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "element", "name": "Element", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47012553", "title": "OpenAI Should Build Slack", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50130228", "title": "Microsoft Teams is a red flag", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49847959", "title": "Ask HN: What vendor you'd switch out if a better option was available?", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47360676", "title": "Ask HN: Does anyone here use Discord as their work chat tool?", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46493785", "title": "The Napoleon Technique: Postponing Things to Increase Productivity", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50257548", "title": "Software may be getting worse, but it used to be horrible", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 1}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 5, "recommend": 1, "warn": 2}, "2026-02": {"warn": 2, "neutral": 4, "recommend": 3}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 2}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 3, "recommend": 1, "warn": 2}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 4, "warn": 2}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {"warn": 4, "neutral": 3, "recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 804173971, "item_id": 50260873, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50260873", "by": "radicalbyte", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "warn", "quote": "slow bloated and buggy apps usually running on Electron (Slack et al)", "excerpt": "iTunes. Skype. Windows File Manager. It has been a thing for a long time in consumers software from the big guys. The people working on it don't care about UX or performance. Now a lot of the small-company software we used to use has been replaced by slow bloated and buggy apps usually running on Electron (Slack et al) so we're seeing it everywhere as opposed to in a couple of bad apps.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Software may be getting worse, but it used to be horrible"}, {"id": 804037520, "item_id": 50252345, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50252345", "by": "xp84", "date": "2026-10-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Open on my desktop right now: Slack, Outlook, Zoom, Windows Terminal, Edge, Claude, Obsidian, whatever the Windows image viewer is called, Cursor, and VS Code", "excerpt": "> I use lots Oh really? I, sadly, use nearly none. Open on my desktop right now: Slack, Outlook, Zoom, Windows Terminal, Edge, Claude, Obsidian, whatever the Windows image viewer is called, Cursor, and VS Code. Only the last 2 have menu bars. And I can\u2019t be certain that I didn\u2019t dig through the preferences of one or both of them when I first installed them to tell them to knock off the bullshit and give me back the m", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Oldest GUI application that still runs on Windows 11"}, {"id": 803820162, "item_id": 50238760, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50238760", "by": "bilalq", "date": "2026-10-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "side by side with Slack or Linear to create issues or discuss with people", "excerpt": "I love my Pixel 10 Fold and can't imagine ever going back to a non-foldable now. The larger screen is great for productivity. Reviewing PRs on the larger screen is way more comfortable than a normal phone size. The built-in terminal app also works nicely with herdr and Tailscale to let me connect to my work machine. I can interact with my agents and get real work done on the go. I also have saved split views so I can", "context": "mobile app developer", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "iPhone Duo Teardown"}, {"id": 802213265, "item_id": 50138329, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50138329", "by": "penultimatename", "date": "2026-10-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "posting a funny link or a picture of your cat in Slack feels personable", "excerpt": "I\u2019ll touch on two areas that the article and many comments didn\u2019t mention. We switched from Slack to Teams at a previous company. - The loss of institutional knowledge was absolutely punishing and costly. Overnight, we lost access to an easily searchable knowledge base. A solution was available, but the search was awful and you had to know what you were looking for. While this isn\u2019t really a fault of Teams and the ve", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Teams is a red flag"}, {"id": 802133584, "item_id": 50133349, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50133349", "by": "harshalizee", "date": "2026-10-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "We use slack for messaging", "excerpt": "You would severely limit yourself if you're strict about your list without nuance. GitHub is pretty much bog standard in most companies unless you're working for the few using mercurial, etc. I work in a MS stack and most of your list is untrue for my case. We use slack for messaging, Confluence, Wikimedia, and GDrive for documentation, Google Mail for email, I develop primarily dotnet/C# apps on a MacBook pro M5, ha", "context": "works in an MS-stack company as a dotnet developer", "use_case": "messaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Teams is a red flag"}, {"id": 802104192, "item_id": 50131512, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50131512", "by": "f30e3dfed1c9", "date": "2026-10-17", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I do know that I loathe Slack, though. Of the software I use almost every day, it is the worst by miles.", "excerpt": "I don't know whether Teams is worse than Slack. I do know that I loathe Slack, though. Of the software I use almost every day, it is the worst by miles.", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Teams is a red flag"}, {"id": 800687936, "item_id": 50042996, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50042996", "by": "javier2", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Slack is a very bad that is super slow no matter what time of day I use it.", "excerpt": "Slack is a very bad that is super slow no matter what time of day I use it. It completely locks up on a spotty network. Discord works way better and their voice chat is several leagues above.", "context": "", "use_case": "chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "IRCv3"}, {"id": 799058595, "item_id": 49941162, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49941162", "by": "jillesvangurp", "date": "2026-10-03", "stance": "warn", "quote": "We got rid of Hubspot, Slack, and many other tools", "excerpt": "The big picture here is that LLMs using APIs to get into information stores works but is stupidly slow. Email is a good example. You can hookup gmail or whatever to codex or claude and it's great. But it takes ages for it to dig through your inbox and that involves doing a lot of API calls. Most SAAS tools are about gate keeping data via APIs. You need to break open those silos to get to the data. A CRM is just a con", "context": "runs a small company", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sites in ChatGPT"}, {"id": 797598993, "item_id": 49849937, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49849937", "by": "theguysudo", "date": "2026-09-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "slack is pretty good already", "excerpt": "i prefer soundcloud i have switched to it a while ago its better and free as well as you tend to get more freedom exploring content from new artist more slack is pretty good already so wont prefer swaping it", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What vendor you'd switch out if a better option was available?"}, {"id": 797588145, "item_id": 49849259, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49849259", "by": "dieselgate", "date": "2026-09-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I prefer Slack to alternatives", "excerpt": "Switched from Spotify to Deezer. I prefer Slack to alternatives, Teams is miserable.", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What vendor you'd switch out if a better option was available?"}, {"id": 797304145, "item_id": 49831509, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49831509", "by": "mac3n", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've got Slack and Signal in one", "excerpt": "This talks about the \"desktop\" experience. My desktop is a laptop. I don't have a desk or a large external monitor. Tiling window managers don't work for me. I try to keep windows stacked in different virtual desktops, but they're getting pretty crowded. I've got Slack and Signal in one, editor and terminals in another, etc. I work mostly with remote cloud services or headless servers via VPNs. For the cloud I rely o", "context": "", "use_case": "messaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 795442081, "item_id": 49715130, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49715130", "by": "mahboi", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Thankfully we use Slack where I work. The cross-org channels are cool.", "excerpt": "MS Teams is terrible, and yet it's gotten this far. I don't know if Slack or Teams is winning, just that Jabber won't beat Teams at its own game. Thankfully we use Slack where I work. The cross-org channels are cool.", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jabber/XMPP: How Do We Gain Traction?"}, {"id": 791126436, "item_id": 49445402, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49445402", "by": "unsnap_biceps", "date": "2026-08-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Chat is via slack, but I use the website and not the native app.", "excerpt": "I live with safari and finder and all my office ware is native (mail.app) or web based (Google Docs). Chat is via slack, but I use the website and not the native app. I've adapted to the quirks and I'd bet that's a lot of the reason why it doesn't feel slow to me. I feel I have plenty of windows open at once but likely less than you do. Different folks different strokes as they say.", "context": "", "use_case": "chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra"}, {"id": 790424816, "item_id": 49401551, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49401551", "by": "hylaride", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "When I use slack and discord, I sigh when I start seeing UI rendering lag", "excerpt": "I have mixed feelings in this debate, too. The big issue with GUIs is that they\u2019ve become so bloated, especially as the default framework is now often electron apps. Web based frameworks tend to start keeling when large amounts of data need to be handled in the DOM, etc. When I use slack and discord, I sigh when I start seeing UI rendering lag when I switch channels and projects. Though there\u2019s been some recent progr", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Making TUIs"}, {"id": 790080721, "item_id": 49380045, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49380045", "by": "prepend", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "good luck finding a slack message from a month ago much less a decade", "excerpt": "I use a git-generated static site that has good search, so if people want to find stuff before asking that\u2019s the go-to. Otherwise, I can search email quite effectively. And oddly, its one of the few things Office Copilot is goos at. I don\u2019t email is a collaboration tool. It\u2019s an information sharing tool and maybe workflow. Just today I had to email out to like 20 people a data call with a couple paragraphs of instruc", "context": "", "use_case": "team communication", "switched_from": "", "story": "Don't Paste the AI, please"}, {"id": 789840032, "item_id": 49365002, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49365002", "by": "arjie", "date": "2026-08-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I pay for Slack etc.", "excerpt": "* git hosting * CI/CD * KB system * Task management Of course I have the personal software etc. but this is work stuff. Agents can create granular tasks and interact through my KB/task system so that they can own subsystems (this is useful for context isolation and performance). Commercial SaaS just get overwhelmed by this. Even hobbyists usually take the Open Office approach to copying a large amount of features and", "context": "", "use_case": "work messaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Cursor launches Origin, GitHub alternative"}, {"id": 788671954, "item_id": 49291997, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49291997", "by": "twotwigs", "date": "2026-08-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "And Slack for communications -_-", "excerpt": "We use Jira for PM -_- Excel for spreadsheets -_- And Slack for communications -_- Sometimes we use Google (yawn) Docs -_- \u201cI use Linux\u201d O_O", "context": "", "use_case": "team communication", "switched_from": "", "story": "Choose Boring Technology (2015)"}, {"id": 787827905, "item_id": 49239244, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49239244", "by": "resonious", "date": "2026-08-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Slack isn't the best UI for this stuff.", "excerpt": "Not surprised at all but there seems to be tons of these kinds of tools and I'm having a hard time picking one. Is there a nice list somewhere? I guess I can ask chatgpt... Honestly right now I do a lot of development from my phone - I don't have the time to pull out my laptop very much. Right now I use hermes agent and just chat with it on Slack. But sometimes I wish I had easier access to more advanced features, an", "context": "develops from phone", "use_case": "chat interface to agent", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenChamber: An Agentic Development Environment"}, {"id": 784252849, "item_id": 49015803, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49015803", "by": "Marsymars", "date": "2026-07-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the sum total of Electron apps I use are Teams (I guess not quite Electron now, but close enough)/Slack/Discord/Android Messages/VS Code", "excerpt": "> Just like in the native vs electron debate it's not \"Beautiful hand-crafted native app\" or \"Electron wasteful trash\", it's \"Electron or nothing\". The overwhelming majority of the total uses of Electron apps are going to be the same pile of apps from various megacorps that could fund native apps with change from their couch cushions. e.g. the sum total of Electron apps I use are Teams (I guess not quite Electron now", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns"}, {"id": 783942912, "item_id": 48996432, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48996432", "by": "jillesvangurp", "date": "2026-07-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "dialing in the gazillion of permissions needed to end up with something that works is a bit painful", "excerpt": "Bots in team chat is not a bad idea. I've been experimenting with that for a few months. We started with Slack. This kind of works but dialing in the gazillion of permissions needed to end up with something that works is a bit painful. And you have to do this over and over again for each new bot. So, we started experimenting with self hosted alternatives. First we tried Matrix. It's nice but a bit too strict on end t", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat with bots", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jack Dorsey launches Buzz to combine team chat, AI agents and Git hosting"}, {"id": 783245394, "item_id": 48952837, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48952837", "by": "PaulHoule", "date": "2026-07-17", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I have to type R E A L L Y : S L O W L Y when I use Slack at work.", "excerpt": "I've got really mixed feelings about Clojure. Like when I read Graham's book I went through a phase of \"he wouldn't be fighting with nconc if he was using Clojure!\" I find some algorithms to be easy and fun to write using persistent data structures and others maddening though if I did it more I'd get better at it. zippers are weirdly unergonomic because of some little bad choices. I badly wanted to do a project with ", "context": "", "use_case": "work chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "A Road to Lisp: Which Lisp"}, {"id": 780888180, "item_id": 48805511, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48805511", "by": "seabrookmx", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "my only complaint is Slack's RAM usage", "excerpt": "I don't understand why people care about Electron? Evaluate the quality of the software based on its own merits IMO. VS Code, Slack, Postman, Obsidian.. I use this software every day and my only complaint is Slack's RAM usage (which honestly has no negative effect on my machine, but just seems silly for a messaging app). Claude is a buggy mess because it's slop, not because it's electron. Heck, it runs a full Linux V", "context": "", "use_case": "messaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anthropic's Method to Losing Goodwill in a Few Easy Steps"}, {"id": 780770496, "item_id": 48798156, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48798156", "by": "ben_w", "date": "2026-07-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "somewhere between IRC and slack, or if you really like long-form, Dreamwidth", "excerpt": "The networks themselves always were, well before Zuckerberg, before Babbage and Ada dreamed of a mechanical computer, before Lucy got fossilised. The apps are increasingly cringe, and even when someone wins a monoploy so hard their app is defacto mandatory they get rejected and mocked by their own users for presenting content like they're a third wheel on a date who only wants to talk about their hobby and doesn't ge", "context": "", "use_case": "social interaction", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Are you guys happy with existing social networkin apps?"}, {"id": 780195152, "item_id": 48762197, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48762197", "by": "goalieca", "date": "2026-07-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Spinning off us how we use slack after all.", "excerpt": "> the liveliness of the discussions have a shelf life of a day. Perhaps even worse. It\u2019s really whatever was posted at that moment you loaded the page unless you are actively responding. There are features to show unread messages only but it becomes a mess. The flat forum posts are great and sub-conversations can always split off into its own thread. Spinning off us how we use slack after all.", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat threads", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bring Back Crappy Forums"}, {"id": 778127876, "item_id": 48632992, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48632992", "by": "tlongwell-block", "date": "2026-06-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I actually really like Slack", "excerpt": "quickstart (docker required): git clone https://github.com/block/buzz; cd buzz; just dev; Buzz is a channel-driven workspace for teams of humans and their agents to work together in. It should look vaguely similar to whatever you're used to chatting with your team in. Written in Rust. Apache 2 licensed. Nostr-shaped. To work in Buzz, I'll spin up a new channel, add my team and my agents, and start brainstorming the b", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Block/buzz: a workspace built for teams of humans and agents"}, {"id": 775532257, "item_id": 48470766, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48470766", "by": "imglorp", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "That plus slack, zoom, ff with scores of tabs", "excerpt": "I'll defend, not cringe for everyone. Daily driver is a 6yo, 32Mb mbp and it might not scream like an M5 or have the miraculous power draw of an M5, it gets my job done. One nice thing is x86 containers run natively: I run most of my $work landscape which is 40 or 50 k8s pods on top of Kind, which is itself a plain container. That mirrors my prod. That plus slack, zoom, ff with scores of tabs, etc. all while building", "context": "", "use_case": "work communication", "switched_from": "", "story": "macOS Container Machines"}, {"id": 772469844, "item_id": 48279365, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48279365", "by": "jillesvangurp", "date": "2026-05-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Slack is hopelessly locked down and tedious to deal with.", "excerpt": "I've been against self hosting internal tools for a long time mainly because of the devops and other overhead. But AI based devops makes it so easy now to spin up whatever you want now that I'm reconsidering that. I use a lot of ansible for several of our deployments. At this point, most of that is managed via codex. For Git, all you technically need is ssh access and some backup strategy for your server. It would be", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Actions down again today"}, {"id": 768954469, "item_id": 48059654, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48059654", "by": "HMETechnologies", "date": "2026-05-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "We use Slack, Notion, and Google Docs.", "excerpt": "HME Technologies | AI Operations Lead | REMOTE | Full-Time | $40k-$75k base + Bonus HME Technologies (https://hmetech.com/) is a small, profitable media and affiliate marketing company. We build audiences, sell sponsorships, and run a growing portfolio of content properties across YouTube and emerging platforms. We're operator-run, AI-native, and looking for our first AI Operations Lead to work directly with the co-f", "context": "hiring at a media company", "use_case": "async team communication", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2026)"}, {"id": 765221153, "item_id": 47826322, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47826322", "by": "hmokiguess", "date": "2026-04-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Slack is dying", "excerpt": "I have been using discord for work these days, new gen workers are sort of prevalent there, and Slack is dying. I think they feel it\u2019s more counterculture and cool. While I appreciate the move away from Slack, I wish someone brought IRC back. I cannot understand how people spend money on Discord, and a lot of it. There is so much personalization and fluff going on there as a monetized feature and the product is so fu", "context": "", "use_case": "work chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Discord Read Receipts Exploit: When, How Often, How Long"}, {"id": 764603361, "item_id": 47787710, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47787710", "by": "godot", "date": "2026-04-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I opted for Slack over Telegram or Discord", "excerpt": "I use it, it works well for a certain limited category of tasks once you've set it up properly, it's not as easy and straightforward as it seems, but once you've learned its quirks you can make it work. The category of task I have it do is basically the pattern of \"scrape some certain websites on a regular schedule, do some light data processing/understanding/analyzing, report the result to me [all or sometimes only ", "context": "", "use_case": "bot interface for the agent", "switched_from": "", "story": "Is anyone actually using OpenClaw?"}, {"id": 761165777, "item_id": 47572861, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47572861", "by": "ipster_io", "date": "2026-03-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "At my office, we use Slack and Teams", "excerpt": "I built Heartbeat.page for myself. At my office, we use Slack and Teams, but honestly no one actually checks a digital status before they walk over to your desk. I keep a QR code on my desk with a note that says \"What I\u2019m up to.\" Anyone can scan it to see if I\u2019m in a deep-focus session or free to chat. I can update it from anywhere just by sending a quick email to a custom address. (There is a 'Download QR Code' icon", "context": "", "use_case": "office chat status", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Heartbeat \u2013 A simple public page for your real-world and online status"}, {"id": 757964032, "item_id": 47372752, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47372752", "by": "muzani", "date": "2026-03-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Slack was one of those tools that just held context of everything.", "excerpt": "We considered it before in a past job when cost cutting. But nobody wants the boss to know when they're playing DOTA. More seriously though, Slack was one of those tools that just held context of everything. All the engineering decisions and past error messages. Discord potentially could, but it doesn't seem to built for this use case. Can it handle a thousand channels? It sounds ridiculous, but companies scale, and ", "context": "", "use_case": "work chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Does anyone here use Discord as their work chat tool?"}, {"id": 757932784, "item_id": 47370799, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47370799", "by": "AznHisoka", "date": "2026-03-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'd pay the $$$ for Slack. The ability to search past conversations has saved me hours of productivity", "excerpt": "There's loads of companies that use Discord, but they all seem to be blockchain/gaming companies [1] I think Discord has the same problem that FB faced when it tried to launch their FB Workplace product. It has the perception of being \"fun\" and not serious/professional. If I were you, I'd pay the $$$ for Slack. The ability to search past conversations has saved me hours of productivity and well worth it [1] https://b", "context": "", "use_case": "work chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Does anyone here use Discord as their work chat tool?"}, {"id": 756512401, "item_id": 47282025, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47282025", "by": "arjie", "date": "2026-03-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Telegram doesn't have a threading notion, but Slack does", "excerpt": "My wife and I use a shared Telegram chat to talk to our claw and it seems pretty fine to be honest. It's useful to just see what the other is getting done but it can be pretty noisy. Usually I'm not that interested in the details of it. Telegram doesn't have a threading notion, but Slack does, so it's particularly well-suited to it. Integrating with Slack is much higher friction, but now that I've thought about it, i", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anthropic, Please Make a New Slack"}, {"id": 754453024, "item_id": 47153314, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47153314", "by": "adamtaylor_13", "date": "2026-02-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use it through Slack", "excerpt": "I really enjoyed reading both posts. Thanks for sharing! I, like many others, have written my own \"claw\" implementation, but it's stagnated a bit. I use it through Slack, but the idea of journaling with it is compelling. Especially when combined with the recent \"two sentence\" journaling article[1] that floated through HN not too long ago. [1] https://alexanderbjoy.com/two-sentence-journal-approaches/", "context": "built their own claw implementation", "use_case": "interface for personal claw agent", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Code Remote Control"}, {"id": 752546817, "item_id": 47034176, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47034176", "by": "antonyh", "date": "2026-02-16", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I wasn't a fan of Slack either", "excerpt": "I don't think the world needs another protocol, we need to leverage the ones we have. This space (text-based real-time messaging with media attachments) is feature complete, there's nothing left to add. The remaining value-adds are exactly that; optional extensions for productivities suites and integrating SaaS tools. Pricing and Privacy are another two concerns, and personally for the latter I'd like human chat to b", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenAI Should Build Slack"}, {"id": 752305776, "item_id": 47019111, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47019111", "by": "simianwords", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Slack is a really really good product because it is simple enough and works nice", "excerpt": "I can't read the article, but I feel people are missing the point here. Slack is a really really good product because it is simple enough and works nice - performant, has just enough features but not too many and the UX/UI is good. Its not a power tool but it gets the job done without getting in the way. You would know what I mean if you have used teams/ google chat etc. Sure you can criticise slack for being a bit s", "context": "Uses Slack as main work app", "use_case": "workplace chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenAI Should Build Slack"}, {"id": 752298112, "item_id": 47018632, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47018632", "by": "mcintyre1994", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "We use Slack at work, and everyone we work with uses Slack, and we all work together with Slack Connect.", "excerpt": "We use Slack at work, and everyone we work with uses Slack, and we all work together with Slack Connect. I suspect if we moved to a competitor that\u2019s pretty much the main impact we\u2019d see, and it wouldn\u2019t be good unless everyone else work with moved too. I think that network effect is probably the only meaningful differentiation in that space.", "context": "", "use_case": "cross-company work chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenAI Should Build Slack"}, {"id": 752297168, "item_id": 47018573, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47018573", "by": "CrzyLngPwd", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Slack every day, and I love it.", "excerpt": "I use Slack every day, and I love it. Integrations are simple and reliable, giving us useful information about critical things. Why it uses 400mb I have no idea.", "context": "", "use_case": "workplace chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenAI Should Build Slack"}, {"id": 750466512, "item_id": 46904157, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46904157", "by": "toomuchtodo", "date": "2026-02-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I'm in several Slack teams for non profits and professional orgs", "excerpt": "I'm in several Slack teams for non profits and professional orgs, Teams for a client or two, IRC and Matrix servers for digital archiving ops, Signal/WhatsApp/GroupMe/Telegram groups, etc. I have been in tech for 25+ years, I am familiar with the extremes. You are right, things can be bad, that is the point of systems engineering: to drive directionally towards continual improvement. Success is never assured, but thr", "context": "in tech for 25+ years", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams"}, {"id": 749991360, "item_id": 46874460, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46874460", "by": "firefoxd", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Slack is a delight compared to Teams.", "excerpt": "After an acquisition, we are transitioning from google meet and slack, to Teams. I used to hate slack so much with their random features popping left and right and menus moving around. Oh I didn't know how good we had it. Slack is a delight compared to Teams. And I'm not even alone in this, everyone is still using slack until it gets pried off our hands. So help me God anyone mentions Copilot one more time...", "context": "company transitioning after an acquisition", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "France dumps Zoom and Teams as Europe seeks digital autonomy from the US"}, {"id": 749788545, "item_id": 46861784, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46861784", "by": "nix0n", "date": "2026-02-02", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the search function actually worked which is better than I can say for Slack.", "excerpt": "If you are looking for another self-hostable alternative to Slack, Rocket chat[0] is also worth looking at. I wasn't involved in any of the Dev Ops aspect when my former employer used them, but the search function actually worked which is better than I can say for Slack. [0]https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/blob/develop/LICENSE", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Mattermost say they will not clarify what license the project is under"}, {"id": 749190176, "item_id": 46824386, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46824386", "by": "throwaway_2351", "date": "2026-01-30", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I am starting to hate the way notifications are implemented.", "excerpt": "I use reminders in Slack frequently (\"remind me in 3 hours\" or \"remind me tomorrow / next week\"). They work fine as reminders, but I am starting to hate the way notifications are implemented. I often use \"remind me tomorrow\" that will notify me at 9am. The problem is that I often have multiple reminders triggering its own notification popup with sound on my phone. I don't think the Slack PMs actually use their produc", "context": "", "use_case": "reminders", "switched_from": "", "story": "Notification Overload (Discussion)"}, {"id": 746783024, "item_id": 46673939, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46673939", "by": "ryanSrich", "date": "2026-01-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I wouldn't wish Teams on my worst enemy, so in that regard, I love Slack", "excerpt": "I run a company that services 1,000+ clients on Slack, another 300+ on Teams, and a < 100 on Email/Gchat I wouldn't wish Teams on my worst enemy, so in that regard, I love Slack The thing I struggle with the most is how I'd move all of our core functionality from Slack. A lot of the people/teams that build these \"Slack killers\" I don't think have ever run Slack at scale How are you going to replace the 30+ in-house a", "context": "runs a company servicing 1,000+ clients on Slack", "use_case": "client and workflow communication", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Dock \u2013 Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss"}, {"id": 744631264, "item_id": 46539454, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46539454", "by": "acc0362", "date": "2026-01-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The only downside is that Slack doesn\u2019t seem to have considered this workflow.", "excerpt": "I use this technique in Slack by setting a reminder on a message so I can follow up later. Sometimes I even push it to the next day or week by setting a reminder for 09:00. The only downside is that Slack doesn\u2019t seem to have considered this workflow. Instead of giving me a single notification that several messages are ready for follow\u2011up, I get multiple push notifications on my phone. It\u2019s a bit irritating, but it\u2019s", "context": "", "use_case": "message reminders", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Napoleon Technique: Postponing Things to Increase Productivity"}]}