Slack is one of the most popular workplace communication apps. It's a convenient way to share information and interact with others.

There's no denying that the standard Slack features are limited when it comes to levelling up your company communication, especially in a distributed work setup.

That's where Slack Apps come into place. A widely known Slack App for virtual team building is Donut.

Let's take a closer look at Donut for Slack and explore 7 alternatives you should consider if you want to establish a flourishing remote team culture on the shoulders of Slack, including the pros and cons of each.

What is Donut for Slack?

Broadly speaking, Donut for Slack is an app that helps Slack teams form better relationships by encouraging them to meet new people. The app has a limited free version and allows you to create a private channel where your team can pair up with people in a channel to virtually meet and have a chat. You can also use it to create public channels for casual communications (water cooler chats) with other people who are interested in forming good relationships with each other.

🤩 Pros

• Easy to set up
• A high number of users in the free trial
• Focus on virtual team activities and engaging new hires

😭 Cons

• EXPENSIVE!
• No HRIS integrations
• No video-based team socials
• No customizable templates

If you want to make use of features, such as having various water cooler topics to talk about or using celebration messages for your colleagues, you will need the paid plan which starts from $59 per month on a monthly plan or $49 per month / $588 for the yearly plan. 

There are a few other Slack Apps that you can use as a Donut for Slack alternative. Here are some popular ones we have gathered for you.

7 Donut For Slack Alternatives

1. Doozy

Yes, that's us! 😁🙈 Doozy for Slack is a great Donut alternative. One app to connect and celebrate your team. Whether that's team birthdays and anniversaries, setting up weekly coffee chats, or running daily team trivia. Doozy makes it super easy to foster team connections.

🤩 Pros

• Celebrate team birthdays and work anniversaries
• Virtual celebration cards the whole team can sign
• Engaging daily icebreakers and quizzes, directly in your #fun channel
• Team introductions using a matching system that pairs you up with the perfect person
• Virtual rooms to host team socials with games, icebreakers and quizzes
• Integrates with your HR platform, including BambooHR, Personio, Gusto and and many more!
• Works perfectly with Slack, Google Calendar and Microsoft Calendar

😭 Cons

• It only works with Slack

2. Shuffl.ai

Shuffl.ai offers a Donut for Slack alternative that has 3 main features:

• Bios & Intros - Team members can fill in their bios and the app randomly matches together people with the goal of starting a conversation around their topics of interest
• Activities - The team is encouraged to start a group call together
• Feedback & Gratitude - The team can share feedback or gratitude on a regular basis

The Slack App has a free tier and clocks in at $50 per month for up to 50 members and more depending on the size of the team.

🤩 Pros

• Simple activities that encourage casual conversations
• Create personal connections with bios & topics
• Free tier to test the Slack App

😭 Cons

• No further/web-based virtual team-building games
• No regular content updates
• The Slack App pairs you up, but virtual activities have to be done on other platforms like Zoom or Google Meet

3. Watercoolertrivia

The Slack App by Watercoolertrivia.com has weekly quizzes on various topics that are shared in your Slack channel. Once installed, the Slack App can be used for 4 weeks for free (10 responses per question allowed); after the trial period you have to pay $1 per participant per month.

🤩 Pros

• Weekly changing trivia quizzes
• Free to test for one month
• Low cost for small groups

😭 Cons

• No games or other virtual team activities
• Further virtual team activities have to be done on other platforms like Zoom or Google Meet
• Interactions focused on a weekly basis might lead to little engagement on the other days of the week

4. Springworks Trivia

The Slack App Trivia by Springworks offers virtual quizzes, activities, icebreakers, and auto-scheduler for happy hours. Besides the Slack App Trivia, they also have a web platform.

🤩 Pros

• Wide range of virtual games, icebreakers, quizzes, and virtual team activities
• Web platform available for video calls, whiteboards, etc.
• Engagement Reports

😭 Cons

• Games are focused text and word games (not highly interactive)
• No public preview of the quiz topics and categories is available

5. Twine

Twine for Slack is an App that sends out a message to your teammates to have a video call via the Twine Web service. It can be used to onboard new hires, or to have regular team video chats.

🤩 Pros

• Easy to set up
• Free Slack App
• Low-cost pricing starts at $25 per host (unlimited participants)

😭 Cons

• No interactions within Slack
• No quizzes, games, icebreakers, or other interactive virtual team activities
• No regular content updates

6. Snack

Snack organizes low-effort one-on-one video meetings with icebreakers that can help your team or conference build a better rapport. The app is currently not approved at the time of writing this article (Nov/22).

🤩 Pros

• You can automate scheduling your meetings with teammates in Slack
• Topical icebreakers for the meetings

😭 Cons

• The Slack App is currently not approved
• No regular content updates

7. bored.social

Bored is a social Slack App that allows you to play trivia, icebreakers, and roasting games with colleagues. The Slack App is in Beta and therefore currently free of charge.

🤩 Pros

• Various quizzes, icebreakers, and games
• Web platform for games
• Free of charge as long as in Beta-Phase

😭 Cons

• In Beta, therefore changes can be made at any time regarding pricing or the product
• No customizable templates
• No dedicated team, as bored is a product of the parent company (Super Gaming)

There are many options besides Donut for Slack

There's a wide range of alternative Slack Apps for connecting teams. These range from mainly offering trivia in Slack, to pairing up people for a call to a single app that handles all of your team engagement (that's us 😅!)

We think Doozy is the best way to connect and celebrate teams in Slack. Give us a try for free and you'll be up and running in a matter of minutes. Try for free.