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Olark vs Slack: Which is a better fit?

Updated on February 16th, 2025
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Summary
Key features rated by users
Features selected based on 3,126 reviews from Live Chat users.
% Fit
Missing features
Not enough reviews
Feature ratings
Real-Time Notifications
4.0
Chat/Messaging
5.0
Real-Time Monitoring
--
Contact Management
NA
Screen Sharing
3.0
% Fit
Missing features
Feature ratings
Real-Time Notifications
4.7
Chat/Messaging
4.9
Real-Time Monitoring
NA
Contact Management
4.5
Screen Sharing
4.4
User satisfaction
4.5
User reviews475
Ease of use
4.7
Functionality
4.3
Value for money
4.4
Customer support
4.6
4.7
User reviews23,618
Ease of use
4.6
Functionality
4.6
Value for money
4.5
Customer support
4.4
Price starts from
Monthly subscription
Free version
Free trial
/user
Monthly subscription
Free version
Free trial
Best for

Olark Live Chat is ideal for higher education and small- to mid-sized businesses in a wide range of markets, including retail, eCommerce, SaaS, education, and more.

Our customers range from two-person startups to Fortune 100 corporations. In fact, 77% of the Fortune 100 uses Slack.

User reviews
pros & cons
1 / 4
View Reviews
1 / 4
View Reviews
Video reviews
video-81f312c5-be9d-406a-7fc3-08d91b223b7c
Jeremy M
Operations Manager
3.0

Jeremy M.: Hi, my name is Jeremy. I'm an operations manager, and I give Olark a rating of three out of five stars. For more reviews like this, click below. The business problems that we're solving with Olark are direct communication with our existing customers and users, as well as communicating with potential customers and leads from our company website. What I like most about Olark is its functionality as a chatbot. It functions well, it has good chat features, and it has a good aesthetic that is customizable and matches with our company website well. What I like the least about Olark is its consistency as a connected chatbot. We've run into several instances where Olark says that our chatbot is offline even though our users are logged in and we haven't had good support from the Olark team. We've had to log on to our own company website to check to see if the chatbot is live and then report these outages to the team and we haven't had good feedback or communication from their team.

How Capterra sources reviews
View all video reviews
Cam M
Executive Director
5.0

Speaker 1: I'm Cam, senior director in our company, anywhere between 20 and 25 employees across the world at any given time. I couldn't go a day without Slack. That's five stars for me. Before Slack, we actually had to use two different software options. We used Sococo for our virtual meeting offices, and that served a purpose. It was good for a little bit, but then as we got bigger, we also had to use Skype. And so a natural progression was moving on from both of those into one that offered the same exact offerings, if not even more, and that was Slack. So previous to Slack, Sococo, Skype, and a couple other different instant messaging systems, all provided by Slack going forward. Everything from the pricing to the ease of deployment to how quickly we could get up and running, and just how generally available Slack is, whether it's desktop or the app, and from a mobile phone, you could have a web browser, anything you wanted to. You're never away from Slack, technically. And so, while that might not be a good thing for the work-life balance, it definitely made it much easier to deploy than anything else we researched, and we got forward. And now, it's just part of everyday life. The reason we chose Slack, one of them at least the biggest one was how quickly we could move everything from previous options or previous programs we used to deploy the day of. So I think that was on a scale of one to five, five being the easiest. It was a five. If not, even higher than that. It was as easy as possible to deploy Slack, get everything set up from our exec team, and then trickling it down. It took maybe a matter of a half hour to get everybody on board and inside of Slack, and it's still even faster now. So that was probably the biggest factor to getting us over to Slack in the initial phase. Recommending Slack, or if you're choosing between Slack and something else, just try the free version of Slack and understand that that is good enough to probably get you in the door and keep you in the door as well. The paid version and the other offerings from Slack make it even more integral to your business, so I would highly recommend giving it a shot. Just in general, the ease in which you could get started and the ease in which you could continue going forward without skipping a beat in your business needs, whatever your business needs might be, it's Slack and Slack going forward.

How Capterra sources reviews
View all video reviews
User interface
125957 video thumbnail}
1 Video
135003 video thumbnail}
1 Video
125957
5 screenshots
135003
5 screenshots
Do these products fit your needs?

Prioritize real-user-identified key features according to your needs to find your best fit.

Logo Img
--%
Logo Img
--%
Activity Dashboard
207
Important
API
388
Important

Olark

Top Features
27/31
  • Contact Management
  • Document Storage
  • Email Management
  • Support Ticket Management
  • Activity Dashboard
  • API
  • Autoresponders
  • Canned Responses
  • Chat/Messaging
  • Collaboration Tools
  • CRM
  • Customizable Branding
  • File Sharing
  • Geotargeting
  • Interaction Tracking
  • Mobile Access
  • Multi-Channel Communication
  • Offline Form
  • Proactive Chat
  • Real-Time Analytics
  • Real-time Consumer-facing Chat
  • Real-Time Monitoring
  • Real-Time Notifications
  • Reporting/Analytics
  • Screen Sharing
  • Search/Filter
  • Single Sign On
  • Surveys & Feedback
  • Third-Party Integrations
  • Transcripts/Chat History
  • Transfers/Routing
See All features
Hide Live Chat Software Features -

Slack

18/31
Show Live Chat Software Features +
Olark
Deployment
  • Cloud, SaaS, Web-Based
  • Desktop - Mac
  • Desktop - Windows
  • Desktop - Linux
  • Desktop - Chromebook
  • On-Premise - Windows
  • On-Premise - Linux
  • Mobile - Android
  • Mobile - iPhone
  • Mobile - iPad
Support
  • Email/Help Desk
  • FAQs/Forum
  • Knowledge Base
  • Phone Support
  • 24/7 (Live rep)
  • Chat
Training
  • In Person
  • Live Online
  • Webinars
  • Documentation
  • Videos
Slack
Deployment
  • Cloud, SaaS, Web-Based
  • Desktop - Mac
  • Desktop - Windows
  • Desktop - Linux
  • Desktop - Chromebook
  • On-Premise - Windows
  • On-Premise - Linux
  • Mobile - Android
  • Mobile - iPhone
  • Mobile - iPad
Support
  • Email/Help Desk
  • FAQs/Forum
  • Knowledge Base
  • Phone Support
  • 24/7 (Live rep)
  • Chat
Training
  • In Person
  • Live Online
  • Webinars
  • Documentation
  • Videos
Olark
  • By Olark
  • Located in United States
  • Founded in 2009
Slack
  • By Slack
  • Located in United States
  • Founded in 2014
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