Hazel vs Slack
Slack is great for general business communication. Hazel is purpose-built for developer teams — with native GitHub and Linear integrations, open source code, and no message history limits.
| Feature | Hazel | Slack |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time messaging | ✓ | ✓ |
| Channels & DMs | ✓ | ✓ |
| Threaded conversations | ✓ | ✓ |
| File sharing & media | ✓ | ✓ |
| Full-text search | ✓ | ✓ |
| Desktop app (macOS, Windows, Linux) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Native GitHub integration | ✓ | ✗ |
| Native Linear integration | ✓ | ✗ |
| Inline code syntax highlighting | ✓ | ✗ |
| Keyboard-first interface (⌘K) | ✓ | ✗ |
| Open source | ✓ | ✗ |
| Self-hosted option | ✓ | ✗ |
| Free for small teams (up to 10) | ✓ | ✗ |
| No message history limits | ✓ | ✗ |
| Deployment notifications (Railway) | ✓ | ✗ |
| Custom bots & webhooks | ✓ | ✓ |
| SSO / SAML | ✓ | ✓ |
| GDPR compliant | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI-powered search & summaries | ✓ | ✓ |
Why developer teams switch to Hazel
No message limits
Slack's free plan hides messages after 90 days. Hazel gives you full message history on every plan — your team's knowledge base should never disappear.
Native dev tool integrations
Slack requires third-party bots for GitHub and Linear. Hazel has native, first-class integrations that show rich previews of PRs, issues, and deployments right in your chat.
Open source & self-hostable
Slack is a closed-source SaaS product. Hazel is fully open source — audit the code, contribute features, or deploy on your own infrastructure for complete data control.
Predictable pricing
Slack's per-user pricing can get expensive fast. Hazel is free for teams up to 10 members, and Pro pricing is significantly lower per seat than Slack's comparable plan.
Frequently asked questions
Can I migrate from Slack to Hazel?
Yes! We provide migration tools to help you move your channels, message history, and team members from Slack to Hazel. The process is straightforward and we offer support for larger migrations.
Does Hazel work with the same apps as Slack?
Hazel focuses on deep, native integrations for developer tools like GitHub, Linear, and Railway rather than a broad app marketplace. For custom integrations, Hazel supports webhooks and a bot API that can connect to any service.
Is Hazel as reliable as Slack?
Hazel is built on a modern, scalable architecture. For cloud-hosted plans, we offer high availability with 99.9% uptime SLA on Enterprise plans. Self-hosted deployments give you full control over your infrastructure and uptime guarantees.
Why choose Hazel over Slack?
If you're a developer team, Hazel offers native developer tool integrations, no message history limits on free plans, open source transparency, and the option to self-host. You also avoid Slack's per-user pricing that scales unpredictably.
