Can you run a community on Slack?

Welcome to Jatra, Thomas. I wrote an article comparing Slack and Discord for community building. If time permits, do give it a read: Slack Vs. Discord

Slack is not suitable for building customer communities - especially if you are looking to grow it organically. Slack is an example of a closed community usually difficult to grow organically. I'd recommend reading our comparison of Public Vs. Private communities

Some of the factors I'd like you to consider before deciding on Slack -

1. Slack is a real-time chat and collaboration tool
2. It's not a dedicated community platform
3. Slack reduces the life-span of content to a few days or hours
4. Slack does not give you the benefit of free traffic with SEO
5. Slack restricts access to your content after 90-days.
6. The paid plans start at ~$8/month. For 300 members, you'd be paying $2400/monthly
7. Community costs will go up very high once you start getting more members
8. Slack is a chat tool; and quickly becomes chaotic once you have 30-40 active members

One of the biggest arguments in favor of Slack is that "you should go where your customers are". That's now how communities work. People will happily go to a platform that gives them maximum value.

There are free alternatives to Slack available like Rocket.Chat, Zulip, MatterMost etc. However, they have limits on their free plans.

If you are looking to self-host; then Campfire ($299) could be your choice. It's an alternative to Slack that you can check.

However, keep in mind that self-hosting software looks lucrative; but it's often loaded with hidden costs.

I hope this helps.

This is very helpful. I think Slack's pricing breaks it as a community platform for us. The only thing that goes in favor of Slack is that it doesn't require users to install any new software or create a new login. However, the drawbacks of Slack as a community platform cannot be ignored.

Can you hammer a nail with a rock? The answer is yes, but when you have a hammer—a tool specifically designed for the task - you’ll get the job done faster, more effectively, and with far less frustration.

The analogy perfectly applies to running a community on Slack. Yes, you can run a community on Slack - but it's not a community platform. Slack is fundamentally a chat tool designed for real-time communication, not for fostering long-term engagement, resource discovery, or structured discussions.

Let me give you an example: I’ve seen a community of product managers start on Slack, and while it worked initially, they quickly ran into problems. As the conversations grew, it became almost impossible for members to revisit old discussions or find important resources shared weeks ago.

Threads became tangled, and newer members struggled to integrate because the information they needed was buried under a mountain of chat history.

Compare this to using a platform purpose-built for communities, where discussions are organized by topics, resources are easily searchable, and members can engage at their own pace. The difference is night and day.

Slack excels at collaboration and real-time teamwork, but for building a thriving, sustainable community, it feels like using a rock to hammer a nail. Why not pick up a proper hammer instead?

Don't build a community on Slack, unless you have deep pockets. The only community I saw successful on Slack is the one where the CxOs hangout and happily pay $xxxx for annual membership.