Work · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss

Hey HN – I built Dock after years of team chat frustrations as a founder. Free forever for teams up to 5. Unlimited search, unlimited history. No "upgrade to see messages older than 90 days" nonsense. Built for teams who work both async and sync/real-time when it matters. runs on SOC 2 infra, compliant, secure and in-transit and at-rest encryption, runs on Cloudflare. Early stage – would love feedback from anyone who's felt the same pain.

Dock is a team chat application designed as a simpler alternative to Slack, offering unlimited message history and search without paywalls or retention limits. It supports both asynchronous and real-time communication… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.

1. 1
   Slack▲2,714

   Be less busy. Real-time messaging, archiving & search.

   2013 · slack.com · its alternatives →

2. 2
   Slack 4.0▲472

   A snappier, more efficient Slack desktop experience

   2019 · slack.com · its alternatives →

3. 3
   Twist 2.0▲291

   For teams burnt out by real-time chat, work async, not ASAP

   2021 · twist.com · its alternatives →

4. 4
   SpatialChat 3.0▲505

   All-in-one space for collaboration, all-hands and networking

   2022 · spatial.chat · its alternatives →

5. 5
   Hangouts Chat by Google (Early Access)▲450

   Bring your team together

   2017 · blog.google · its alternatives →

6. 6LT
   Linen.team – A lightweight, thread-first Slack alternative▲124

   Hi HN! I'm Kam, the founder and one of the authors of Linen. Today, we are launching Linen.team (https://linen.team/), a lightweight threaded messaging app for your team. Modern workplace messaging apps (like Slack) are based on IRC, which is great for small groups, but as it scales, breaks down quickly: you either get overwhelmed by notifications or you have to turn them all off. Most chat apps have threads tacked on but aren't built from the ground up with this design in mind. We wanted to create a thread-first experience where you can organize and prioritize conversations…

   2024 · its alternatives →

7. 7
   Air for Teams▲614

   The fastest way to find, store, and share content

   2022 · air.inc · its alternatives →

8. 8
   Slack Shared Channels▲480

   Work with anyone in Slack

   2017 · slack.com · its alternatives →

9. 9DA
   DriftDB – an open source WebSocket backend for real-time apps▲367

   Hey HN! I’ve written a bunch of WebSocket servers over the years to do simple things like state synchronization, WebRTC signaling, and notifying a client when a backend job was run. I realized that if I had a simple way to create a private, temporary, mini-redis that the client could talk to directly, it would save a lot of time. So we created DriftDB. In addition to the open source server that you can run yourself, we also provide https://jamsocket.live where you can use an instance we host on Cloudflare’s edge (~13ms round trip latency from my home in NY). You may have seen my…

   2023 · driftdb.com · its alternatives →

10. 10
    Slack Enterprise Grid▲292

    Power up every part of your business

    2017 · slack.com · its alternatives →

11. 11
    Slack 2.0▲424

    Improvements that make working in Slack easier for everyone

    2020 · its alternatives →

12. 12
    Twist 1.0▲413

    More productive messaging for teams

    2017 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

13. 13
    Rocket.Chat▲152

    Your own open source Slack-like chat

    2015 · rocket.chat · its alternatives →

14. 14
    Dock▲275

    Collaborative workspace for prospects and customers

    2022 · dock.us · its alternatives →

15. 15
    Let's Chat▲323

    Like Slack, but opensource and self-hosted.

    2015 · sdelements.github.io · its alternatives →

16. 16
    Commons▲220

    Private Discord for your team to collaborate

    2021 · blog.mozilla.org · its alternatives →

17. 17
    Teamhub.com▲237

    Hey HN, We've just launched our team collaboration platform where we're bringing together all the important tools under one app. We've been frustrated in the past with tools which had a huge disconnect between projects and chat. It always inevitably leads to teams using external chat apps for "project management" and then abandoning the main tools altogether. We're creating tools we hope teams will stick with. Super integrated Chat. Convert comments to tasks and have them auto added to project boards. Automations to help massively reduce burden on the team. Workflows, Time-Off and so much…

    2024 · teamhub.com · its alternatives →

18. 18
    Buzz▲161

    Your people, your agents, your project — all in one place

    Jul 2026 · buzz.xyz · its alternatives →

19. 19
    End-to-end LTE example with Docker and emulated radio▲210

    Minimal end-to-end LTE. Dockerized and emulated radio over shared memory. - pgorczak/srslte-docker-emulated

    2018 · github.com · its alternatives →

20. 20
    Slack for Mobile 2.0▲300

    Rebuilt from the ground up

    2015 · slack.com · its alternatives →

21. 21
    Slack▲93

    Platform for team communication

    2015 · slack.com · its alternatives →

22. 22
    Chatlio – Live chat with your web visitors directly from Slack▲136

    Add live chat to your website and answer visitors directly from Slack. One-minute install, full widget customization, and a 30-day free trial.

    2016 · chatlio.com · its alternatives →

23. 23
    Clear for Slack▲292

    Clear messages get answered quicker

    Jan 2026 · installclear.com · its alternatives →

24. 24
    Icebreakers 2.0▲142

    Build stronger team relationships with fun Q&A on Slack

    2019 · careerlark.com · its alternatives →

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →