8seats vs Secretly for Teams

8seats is a work messaging platform for frontline and deskless teams. Rooms support team-wide broadcasts, Tables organize focused group conversations, and Direct Messages provide private one-to-one chats. Employees can join with a phone number rather than a company email address. An admin dashboard manages users and communications across locations, and teams can connect with external guests and partners. Organizations can customize the app's look and feel. The maker says messages are encrypted in transit with TLS 1.3 and at rest with AES-256; role-based permissions govern conversation access, and administrators can remove access instantly. The Starter plan is free for up to 10 employees, with unlimited guests, 365 days of message history and 1 GB of storage. Business costs $2.99 a month, billed user/mo, with monthly and yearly options. 8seats is available on Android, iOS, macOS, web and Windows. Its stated audiences include retail, hospitality, facilities management, transport, logistics and construction teams.

Secretly for Teams provides encrypted organizational communication across Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows without requiring phone numbers or email addresses. The Teams offering targets legal, healthcare, journalism, and finance groups, with a 30-day pilot available without commitment. Team controls include an admin console, organizational Secretly IDs, enforced disappearing-message and export-lock policies, centralized billing, and priority support. Secretly says messages, calls, and files are encrypted on-device and unreadable by its servers; administrators manage membership and policy but cannot read message content. The free plan includes encrypted chats, files, one-to-one calls, group calls for up to eight, desktop apps on up to two computers, and 100 MB file sharing. Premium costs $2.99 a month, or $14.99 per year or $29.99 lifetime. Teams uses custom per-seat pricing. Source code is public, while an independent third-party security audit is planned but not completed.