9 Best Microsoft Teams Alternatives for Mac in 2026

Slack is the best Microsoft Teams alternative for most Mac users: it has a proper Mac app, strong channels and threads, and it can still start Teams calls. Pick Google Chat if you run on Google Workspace, Zoom Workplace if your company has Zoom seats, Mattermost to self-host, Webex for free at work, and Discord for free in informal groups.

Teams usually arrives on a Mac because the company bought Microsoft 365, not because anyone chose it. So the real question is rarely which app has the longest feature list. It's what you're actually replacing, chat or calls or both, and who has to come with you. Below you'll find nine options grouped by situation, what each costs, how each one behaves on macOS, and how to move without losing a year of decisions.

Should you replace Microsoft Teams at all?

Replacing Microsoft Teams makes sense when your team chooses its own tools and your documents don't live in Microsoft 365. If you pay for Microsoft 365 anyway, Teams often comes with the plan, so a second chat app is a cost you're adding, not one you're swapping.

A slow Teams from a few years ago is also not a reason on its own. Microsoft says the current client runs up to twice as fast and uses 50% less memory than earlier versions. On a Mac, Microsoft asks for 4 GB of RAM and one of the three most recent macOS versions, so a Mac that has fallen behind on updates has a real problem that switching apps may not fix. Update macOS and the Teams app before you commit to a migration.

Cost can be the wrong argument too. Microsoft lists Teams Essentials at $4 per user per month, paid yearly, which is cheaper than any team plan in the table above, and the free version gives you 60-minute group meetings for up to 100 people. Our Microsoft Teams vs. Slack comparison goes through those plans line by line.

When a client runs everything on Microsoft 365, I keep Teams open in a browser tab for their meetings and don't ask them to change anything. Nobody moves a whole company's tooling for one outside vendor, and asking only makes you look difficult. Switching is a decision for your own team, not for anyone outside it.

The best overall Microsoft Teams alternative for Mac: Slack

Slack is the strongest all-round replacement for Microsoft Teams on a Mac because it does team chat very well and doesn't force you to abandon Teams meetings on day one.

Slack for Mac comes as a direct download or through Apple's App Store. Slack's Free plan keeps messages searchable for 90 days, allows 10 apps and limits huddles to one-to-one. Pro costs $7.25 per user per month paid yearly, or $8.75 paid monthly, and removes those three limits. Business+ runs $15 yearly or $18 monthly.

The detail that makes Slack an easy move is the Microsoft Teams Calls app. Send /teams-calls in any Slack conversation and people get a prompt to join a Teams meeting, so a company can shift messaging first and leave meetings alone. Slack also says you can keep Microsoft 365 for documents and email, connecting Outlook calendar, OneDrive and SharePoint.

The catch is that 90-day window. A team on the Free plan will eventually search for a decision that has aged out, and that's usually the week someone starts budgeting for Pro. Treat Free as a trial, not as a home.

Teams alternatives that may already be in your subscriptions

The cheapest Teams alternative is often the chat tool already inside a subscription you're paying for. Google Workspace, Zoom Workplace and Webex all bundle chat with meetings, so check those before you buy a new seat for everyone.

Google Chat and Google Meet

Google Chat and Google Meet are the natural choice for a company on Google Workspace, since both come with every Workspace plan. Third-party price guides list Business Starter at about $7 per user per month on a one-year term, with 100 meeting participants, and Business Standard at about $14 with 150.

The Mac experience is the trade-off. Google Chat isn't a standalone Mac download. It's a web app you install through Google Chrome, and while Chrome doesn't need to be your default browser, it does need to be open for the app to work. If you live in Safari, that's a daily irritation worth knowing about in advance.

On a free personal Google account, Google Meet allows up to 100 participants, 24 hours for one-to-one calls and 60 minutes for three or more, with a warning at 50 minutes.

Zoom Workplace with Team Chat

Zoom Workplace suits companies whose people already open Zoom all day. Zoom says chat is included with every Workplace plan, even the free Basic plan, along with channels, an automatic channel for each meeting, and one-click meetings from a conversation.

Zoom's pricing page puts Workplace Pro at $14.16 per user per month paid yearly or $16.99 monthly, and Business at $18.33 or $21.99. Basic caps meetings at 40 minutes and 100 participants. The Mac app needs macOS 10.15 or later, an older floor than Webex or Mattermost, which matters if your team has older Macs. Zoom doesn't state a chat retention period on its product page, so ask before you depend on it as a record.

Webex

Webex by Cisco is the option to check if your company already has a Cisco contract, because the buying conversation has already started. Its free plan is unusually generous on messaging: unlimited messages and whiteboards, plus local recording, with meetings capped at 40 minutes and 100 attendees.

Cisco's download page lists macOS 12 or later for the Mac app, with separate Intel and Apple silicon versions, so check Apple menu > About This Mac before you download. Webex Enterprise pricing isn't published; you talk to sales. Small teams without a Cisco relationship will find Slack or Zoom easier to buy.

The best free Microsoft Teams alternative for Mac: Discord

Discord is the best truly free Teams alternative for a Mac, as long as your group is informal: a community, a volunteer project, a few friends running a side business. It has desktop builds for Apple silicon and Intel Macs, updates that now need macOS 13 or later, and voice channels anyone in the server can walk into with no invite.

Those open rooms are the appeal, and limits show up as you grow. Discord has described video in a standard voice channel as limited to 25 people, and its help center says only 50 people can watch a single screen share. The paid Nitro plans at $2.99 and $9.99 a month are perks for one person, such as larger uploads and HD streaming, not admin tools for a company.

I wouldn't put client work or anything HR-related on Discord. It's a judgment call, not a rule, but the first time you need to hand a client a tidy record or remove a departing employee cleanly, you'll want a tool designed around a business account.

The best self-hosted and encrypted Teams alternatives

Mattermost and Element are the two to look at when the reason for leaving Teams is control over your data rather than convenience. Both can run on infrastructure you manage, and both need someone technical to look after it.

Mattermost

Mattermost feels most like a self-hosted Teams, with channels, calls and workflow tools running on your own server. Mattermost lists macOS 14 or later for its Mac desktop app, a free download through Apple's App Store, but the app does nothing until you connect it to a Mattermost server, so someone has to stand one up first.

"Free" needs reading carefully here. Team Edition costs nothing and is open source, aimed at small teams under 250 activated users without single sign-on, and Mattermost itself says it isn't recommended for government or sensitive commercial workloads. Mattermost Entry is a free edition of Enterprise best suited to under 50 users, with visible channel history capped at 10,000 messages. If sensitive data is why you're self-hosting, budget for a paid plan, which goes through sales. Mattermost's pricing page also puts group calls at about 50 concurrent users per self-hosted server.

Element

Element, built on the Matrix protocol, is the pick when end-to-end encryption is the requirement. Element says its platform is encrypted end to end by default, and calls are included through Element Call. There's a Mac app to download directly.

The pricing structure rules out small companies, though. The free Community plan is for non-professional deployments and evaluations, up to 100 users. Enterprise is for professional use, priced per seat from 100 users, and the page gives no dollar figure. A company of twenty that wants encryption should talk to Element before assuming it fits.

The best Teams alternatives for fewer interruptions

Zulip and Twist are built for teams who find a constant stream of messages more tiring than helpful. Both organize conversation by subject, so you can come back after a meeting and catch up in order instead of scrolling.

Zulip

In Zulip, every message lives under a topic inside a channel, which works a bit like an email subject line. Several discussions can run at once in the same channel without tangling. There are Mac builds for Apple silicon and Intel.

Zulip Cloud pricing is plain: the Free plan has 10,000 messages of search history and 5 GB of total storage, Standard is $6.67 per user per month yearly or $8 monthly, and Plus is $10 or $12 with a 10-user minimum. Self-hosting is free with all features, though mobile notifications for most organizations stop at 10 users unless you pay. For meetings, Zulip adds a call link to a message using a provider your admin configures, such as Zoom or Jitsi, so plan on keeping a separate meeting tool.

Twist

Twist, from the makers of Todoist, treats every conversation as a thread, and the App Store listing sums up the idea as one topic per thread. Twist's help center lists a macOS app.

Twist's plans are simple. Free gives you one month of message history, five integrations and 5 GB of storage. Unlimited is $6 per user per month and removes those limits. Twist's own homepage talks about threads and async work rather than calling, so expect to pair it with a meeting tool, which is really the point. When I want a team to stop expecting instant replies, changing the tool does more than any memo I could write about it.

How to choose: match the app to your reason for leaving

Your reason for leaving Microsoft Teams should pick the app for you, and it narrows to one or two options quickly.

• Teams feels heavy and your team wants better chat: Slack.
• Your company runs on Gmail and Google Docs: Google Chat and Google Meet.
• Everyone already joins Zoom all day: Zoom Workplace, since the chat costs nothing extra.
• You have a Cisco contract, or want free unlimited messaging: Webex.
• You have no budget and no compliance needs: Discord.
• Your data has to stay on your own servers: Mattermost, with a paid plan for sensitive work.
• Encryption by default is a hard requirement: Element, if you're large enough for its Enterprise plan.
• Your team drowns in parallel conversations: Zulip.
• You want fewer meetings and slower, written work: Twist.
• You only use Teams for calls: you may not need a chat app at all. Our comparison of the three big meeting apps is the better read.

How to move off Teams without losing your history

Moving off Microsoft Teams works best in stages, with chat first and Teams left readable for months. No app in this list offers a one-click import that I can point you to, so assume old conversations stay behind unless someone pays to move them.

Slack's own guide says messages, files and channel structures can be migrated, but describes that as work done with a Slack technical architect during a paid services engagement. For a small team, that usually means leaving the history in Teams and searching it there.

1. Write down what Teams really does for you. List channels, recurring meetings, approvals and any bots. Most surprises come from a workflow only one person knew about.
2. Export or save what you need. On a personal account, Microsoft's Export page lets you download chat history, media and contacts. Microsoft says those steps apply to personal use only, so with an account from your employer, ask your IT admin. Ask about meeting recordings and transcripts too, before Teams goes read-only.
3. Copy the files you still use out of Teams. People find them faster in a shared folder they already know than in an old chat.
4. Move one team as a pilot. Pick a group that talks a lot and complains usefully.
5. Announce one switch date and one rule. For example: new discussion goes in the new app from Monday, and Teams is for reading only.
6. Set Teams channels to read-only. Slack's guide suggests this around weeks three to four, and only retiring Teams at about month six. That pace is Slack's own recommendation for larger companies, but the order holds at any size.
7. Leave the Microsoft bill until the end. Check with your admin what happens to the data before you end the subscription, not after.

The last time I watched a team change chat apps, the complaint wasn't about features. People couldn't remember where an old decision lived. So now, before anything moves, I ask each channel owner to write the handful of decisions that still matter into a short pinned note in the new app. It's dull work, and it heads off a lot of "does anyone remember why we…" later.

How to set up your new chat app on a Mac

A new chat app on a Mac needs four settings checked on day one: notifications, screen sharing permission, login behavior and a way to keep Teams handy. All of them live in macOS or Safari, so the steps don't change from app to app.

1. Set notifications. Choose Apple menu > System Settings > Notifications, then select the app under Application Notifications. Apple offers Temporary or Persistent alerts. I run chat on Temporary, so a banner doesn't sit on the screen during a presentation.
2. Allow screen sharing before your first meeting. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen & System Audio Recording and turn on the switch for the app. Doing this ahead of time beats discovering the prompt with a client watching.
3. Decide whether it opens at login. Check System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions, Apple's list of what starts with your Mac. Leave your main chat app on and remove the old one.
4. Keep Teams without keeping the app. Microsoft supports Teams for web in the latest two versions of Safari. Open Teams in Safari and choose File > Add to Dock (macOS Sonoma 14 or later), and you have a separate Teams window for outside meetings.

What happens to your meeting notes after Teams?

Meeting recaps tend to live inside the meeting tool, so leaving Microsoft Teams can strand old transcripts and start a fresh pile somewhere else. A note taker that sits apart from your chat and call apps avoids that, and we've compared seven of them side by side.