Slack still leads remote collaboration - but integration costs matter more than features
The collaboration software landscape in 2026 looks remarkably similar to 2024. Slack maintains its "digital headquarters" positioning at $4.38/month, now with AI-powered conversation summaries and Canvas for lightweight documentation. Google Workspace (G2: 4.6/5) offers the tightest integration between email, docs, and meetings. Microsoft Teams bundles with Office 365. Zoom has expanded beyond video into persistent collaboration spaces.
Nothing revolutionary here. The pattern that matters: vendors are converging on similar AI features (meeting summaries, intelligent search, suggested actions) while the strategic choice remains the same - consolidated suite or best-of-breed stack.
The real trade-off
Google Workspace and Microsoft Teams win on simplicity and cost when you're already in their ecosystems. Slack plus specialized tools (Asana, ClickUp, Notion for project management; Figma for design; Jira for engineering) offers more flexibility but multiplies vendor relationships and integration overhead.
The reviews favor consolidated platforms, but enterprise customers with complex workflows continue fragmenting their stacks anyway. History suggests the "one tool for everything" promise rarely survives contact with actual team needs.
What's missing from these comparisons
The consumer-focused review criteria (ease of use, feature counts, pricing) skip the questions that matter for enterprise deployment:
- Switching costs from existing Microsoft or Google contracts
- Security certifications for regulated industries
- Data residency requirements for APAC operations
- Support quality when things break at 2am
Worth noting: specialists like Miro (visual collaboration), ClickUp (project management), and Coda (structured documents) continue capturing niche demand. They wouldn't exist if the big platforms solved every problem.
What this means in practice
If your team is already paying for Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, the switching cost to Slack needs to justify itself with measurable productivity gains. If you're building a greenfield stack, the "best" tool depends entirely on whether your teams work synchronously (favor real-time chat) or asynchronously (favor threaded discussions and documentation).
The vendors all claim to support both. In practice, tools optimize for one or the other. Choose accordingly.