Security, offline and access rules that differ between Slack and Microsoft Teams. Rows where both tools are the same (4) are left out; the full side-by-side is on each tool’s page: Slack, Microsoft Teams.
US, Germany, France, SE, Switzerland, Japan, India, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, UK, Canada, BrazilBusiness+source
Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, IT, Japan, NO, PL, QA, South Korea, South Africa, SE, Switzerland, UAE, UK, Americas, APAC, EMEAsource
Encryption
Encrypted at rest and in transit by default; optional customer-managed keys via Slack EKMsource
TLS 1.2+ with AES-256 in transit; BitLocker plus per-file encryption at rest; optional end-to-end encryption and Customer Keysource
YesMicrosoft Entra ID P1 (included in Microsoft 365 Business Premium)source
Device & session controls
YesFreeBlock desktop/mobile file downloads (desktop downloads can be limited to allowed IP ranges) and mobile message copying on all plans; session duration controls; EMM-managed mobile device requirement on Enterprise Grid/Enterprise+.source
YesMicrosoft Entra Conditional Access policies apply to Teams sign-ins (device compliance, location); Intune mobile application management; Conditional Access requires Entra ID P1.source
Office & room hardware
—
Microsoft Teams Rooms turn meeting spaces from huddle areas to large conference rooms into one-touch-join Teams rooms, sold as Windows and Android devices from partners.source
Set up single sign-on in Microsoft Teams before you invite the team, so accounts are created through your identity provider rather than by hand.
Checked September 19, 2026 against each vendor’s own trust center, help docs and app pages. Hover or tap “source” to see the exact wording we relied on. “Not published” means we could not find the vendor saying it on its own site; it doesn’t mean the feature is missing. Plan names are the lowest plan the vendor says includes the feature. Security · Offline · Remote vs office · Download the data
TEAM COMMUNICATION · MIGRATION GUIDE
Switching from Slack to Microsoft Teams
Slack-to-Teams is the more automated direction of this pair, thanks to Microsoft’s official Slack-to-Teams migration tool, though it’s explicitly limited to public channels.
Quick verdict: A practical move for organizations consolidating onto Microsoft 365, and Microsoft’s own migration tool takes real work out of it, but private channels and direct messages still require a separate manual export-and-recreate process.
Why teams switch from Slack to Microsoft Teams
Consolidating chat with an existing Microsoft 365 investment
Companies already licensing Microsoft 365 for email and Office apps often view a second paid chat tool as redundant once Teams is available.
Microsoft provides an official migration tool
Microsoft’s Slack-to-Teams migration tool automates moving public channel messages and files, reducing the manual burden compared to a fully from-scratch rebuild.
Unified identity and compliance controls
Consolidating chat into Teams lets IT manage retention, eDiscovery, and access policies through the same Microsoft compliance center used for email and files.
Estimate the real hidden cost of moving from Slack to Microsoft Teams, not just the subscription price.
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Estimated migration time
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Data friction rating
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Total hidden switching cost
Data mapping & cleaning labor—
Migration / cleaning tooling fees—
Team retraining overhead—
Switching friction buffer (10%)—
Assumes a blended $45/hr internal labor rate, using Microsoft Teams’s native importer. Adjust the sliders to match your team.
How to migrate your data
Microsoft’s official migration tool covers public channels; everything else still needs a manual process.
Step
What happens
1Run Microsoft’s Slack-to-Teams migration tool
Use Microsoft’s official migration tool to move public channel messages, threads, and files from Slack into corresponding Teams channels.
2Map channels to teams
Decide how Slack channels map onto Teams’ team-and-channel structure, since Teams organizes channels under teams rather than a flat channel list.
3Manually handle private channels and DMs
Export what you can from Slack’s private channels and direct messages and manually recreate critical conversations, since the official tool explicitly does not migrate these.
4Recreate integrations and bots
Rebuild Slack app integrations and bots as their Teams equivalents, since third-party app connections don’t carry over automatically.
5Reapply channel membership and permissions
Manually add members and set channel permissions in Teams to match who had access to each corresponding Slack channel.
6Run a parallel period before retiring Slack
Keep Slack accessible in read-only mode for a transition period while teams fully adopt Teams for day-to-day communication.
What Microsoft Teams’s importer doesn’t handle: Microsoft’s official Slack-to-Teams migration tool only covers public channels — it does not migrate direct messages or private group chats, which have to be handled manually or left behind.
Pricing during the transition
Here’s how Slack and Microsoft Teams plans stack up, from free tier to the mid-market plan most switching teams land on.
Plan
Slack
Microsoft Teams
Free plan
Free: $0 — 90-day searchable message history limit
Teams Free: $0 — chat, calling, and basic meetings for individuals/small groups
Microsoft 365 Business Basic (bundles Teams + email + 1TB storage): $7/user/month, paid yearly (annual subscription)
If your organization already licenses Microsoft 365 seats that include Teams, the real savings come from dropping the Slack bill entirely, not from a like-for-like plan comparison.
Feature-parity checklist
Teams bundles chat with calling, meetings, and Microsoft 365 files; Slack remains more focused purely on messaging and third-party integrations.
Feature
Slack
Microsoft Teams equivalent
Chat + calling + meetings in one app
Chat-focused, calling/meetings via Slack Huddles are lighter-weight
Full chat, calling, and meetings in one app
Threading model
Flexible threaded replies within channels
Threaded replies in channels
Third-party app/bot ecosystem
Very large third-party app marketplace
Growing but smaller marketplace, strong on Microsoft 365 apps
External guest/vendor chat
Slack Connect for cross-company channels
External access via Teams guest accounts, more setup involved
Does Microsoft’s migration tool move our private Slack channels?
No, it’s explicitly scoped to public channels only, so private channels and direct messages need to be manually exported and recreated if you need to preserve them.
What happens to our Slack DMs?
They aren’t migrated by the official tool at all; if DM history matters for compliance or reference, you’ll need to export Slack data separately (subject to your Slack plan’s export permissions) before cancelling.
Do our Slack bots and workflow automations transfer?
No, custom Slack apps, bots, and Workflow Builder automations need to be rebuilt as Teams equivalents; they don’t have a direct one-click equivalent.
Is Teams’ free tier good enough during a migration pilot?
Teams Free covers basic chat and small meetings, which can work for a small pilot group, but most companies migrate directly onto a paid tier tied to their Microsoft 365 subscription.
How long does migrating public channel history typically take?
It depends on total message and file volume, but Microsoft’s tool is designed for bulk transfer and can typically complete within a day or two for a mid-size organization’s public channels.
Canonical data for the tools on this page
Every pricing fact, rating, AI billing model and switching guide we hold on each tool, on one page, with the date each figure was last verified.
Prices on this page were recorded from each vendor’s own pricing page on the date shown at the top of the page. Vendors change pricing often — check the live source before you buy.
Verified prices costed for your team size, a check against your must-have requirements, the questions to settle before you sign, and a source for every figure. Print it, or paste it into an email to whoever approves the spend.
Built for the leader who owns the selection, answers for the spend, drives the rollout, and lives with the results. HelpCompare covers the whole decision, not just the first step.
Engineer by training, operator by experience, marketer by choice. Bill spent eight and a half years as an engineer at HP, was COO of Auctiva (the number one third-party selling platform on eBay, past 200,000 users) and ran Google’s $70M/year search syndication partnership at Alot.com. Then he spent 13 years building his own web properties with his own money at stake. He has bought, trialled, integrated and cancelled more SaaS tools than he can count, and started HelpCompare because the real cost of switching tools is the part nobody covers.
“I’ve sat on both sides of the table: the agency recommending the tool and the client paying for it.”
Researched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team. Pricing on this page was last verified on September 16, 2026. No paid sponsorships, no affiliate commissions.
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