Hangouts vs. Slack: How Do Chat And Meet Compare With Messaging App?

Google Hangouts in its latest makeover is leaning toward business users. The app, which has served more as a personal messaging tool for messages and quick video chats, will now have two new enterprise-focused features — Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat, the company announced Thursday.

With Hangouts Chat, users can start a thread on Hangouts, similar to a group chat. Additionally, similar to Microsoft Teams, Google will let you integrate documents from Google Docs inside the chat itself. Post the new update, bots will be able to function within such chats since companies will be able to add app scripts within the threads. Google itself has put out one such bot called @meet, which will use natural language processing and machine learning to automatically schedule meetings for your team in the Google Calendar by picking up information from the thread. Third-party apps such as Box and Asana will also be integrated within Hangouts.

Read: Hangouts Update Adds Chat Bots, New Group Chats Reminiscent Of Slack Features

Hangouts Meet is an improvement over Hangouts’ video chat feature as it will allow users to start video meeting by just using a shared link. Earlier, users needed to install a Hangouts plugin on their PC or smartphone. An invite to join a meeting can be obtained from the Google Calendar, a shared link in Hangout messages or via email.

These features will only be available to G suite users.

Google has a huge user base comprising millions of users, since you need to have a Gmail account to operate an Android phone and when you do so, you automatically get access to Google apps including Hangouts. This means millions of users can easily opt to use Hangouts as it is pre-installed on their devices. Despite the availability of such a user base, Google has chosen to cater to enterprise users, rather than transforming the app into a personal messaging app like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

On Slack, too, users can create a thread with the whole team and also chat separately with individuals on a team. They can also call out specific users by using "@" symbol.

Both Slack and Hangouts can be run as apps or on a browser. Both services let you search for a keyword within the chat. You can search for a topic and see all messages mentioning the keyword. They also let you share files and have double authentication for security. The biggest difference between the new Hangouts and Slack is that Hangouts will integrate the entire Google Apps system, including emails, messaging, docs and sheets.

The biggest advantage Hangouts will have over Slack is that it has a well-used video chat feature. In a test run by the International Business Times, the free version of Slack offered the video chat feature in the browser, but the same didn't work on its mobile app. Furthermore, Slack is generally known for chat and the usage of its video feature is not well-known.

You can also integrate Hangouts with your messaging inbox, which you may not be able to do with Slack.

In terms of numbers, Hangouts had just over 3 million enterprise users as of Jan. 25, 2017, while Slack crossed 3 million users in May 2016 and had 4 million users as of Oct. 20, 2016.