Slack Clone using ReactJS and Back4App – NoCode
Tags: slack, appclone, react
Published: 2022-02-08 18:01:53

## Slack Overview
Slack is an effective and efficient business communication application that can be used as an all-in-one platform for your business communication needs. Most importantly, it offers amazing functionalities such as:

- Real-time messaging
- File archiving
- Search
- File sharing, and more.

This platform has specifically designed for modern teams. So, the team can manage their entire online communication in a single space. Even more, the conversations here are instantly searchable and accessible with whatever device you are using immediately.

Fortunately, Slack is working with above 1,500 external services and applications to give you a fully flexible and extendable platform in the best possible way.

## Slack Community
According to Statista Slack has been serving more than 12 million active users daily as of October 2019. Slack is an American collaboration hub that has been expanding its user base significantly since its inception in 2013.

Surprisingly, the majority of the Slack users come from outside the United States of America, including some of the top markets such as Japan, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Australia.

More than this, Slack has also been experiencing a huge shift in paying users since 2019. It is mainly because of Slack’s convenience to its users in terms of team communications. Also, the attitude that Slack has towards an improved team culture.

Overall, Slack’s amazing features and benefits have been helping it improve its overall slack-paying user base in the best possible way.

## Slack Features
Slack has been offering various IRC-style features that include persistent chat rooms organized by topics, direct messaging, and private groups for important discussions. Most importantly, all the content available on Slack, be it conversations or files, everything here is searchable.

Even more, users are also allowed to include emoji buttons in their chats. Other users can click on these emojis to give their reactions.

Not only this, but even the free version of Slack also offers all of the essential features. It can even let you search chats and files from their recent 10,000 messages. Even more, Slack has also redesigned its platform to enhance user experience in the best possible way.

With that, you are now allowed to enjoy some of the most amazing features of Slack as well. Let’s get to know about these exciting yet key features of Slack below to get a better idea about this regard.

So, here we go:

## Teams
Slack teams can let you use this platform to join a workspace through a certain invitation sent by the owner or a team admin. Even though the platform has developed as a business communication tool, it has been adopted over time as a community platform.

## Integrations
Slack is also integrating with tons of third-party apps and services such as Tello, Google Drive, Dropbox, GitHub, Crashlytics, and a lot more. Slack is allowing its users to install all these applications from the Slack software directory with ease.

## Messaging
Public channels can let teams interact without any group SMS or email usage. It is because public channels are open to being used by everyone in the workplace.

However, for private conversations, users can create private channels. These can also be used to manage larger teams easily.

You can also send a direct message to a specific user instead of a group whenever needed.

## API
Slack also provides an API for users to create apps and automate their processes, including sending messages automatically based on human input, sending notification alerts for certain conditions, or creating internal support tickets automatically.

## Deploy your Slack Clone
Clone the Back4App Template
Go to Database HUB and clone the Slack template backend.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/5sbptfa2xl2me3pg3jvm.png)

## Get your Keys
In your Back4App dashboard, navigate to “App Settings -> Security & Keys” and copy the Application ID and JavaScript Key values.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ffa5zzg9x0y8r9qyjqpp.png)


## Activate Real-Time
Navigate to “App Settings -> Server Settings -> Server URL and Live Query”. Activate your free Back4App subdomain and then activate Live Query, remembering to activate it on the Channel and Message classes. Copy the complete Back4App subdomain URL.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/lnhgtrshkzvhvavgjxl3.png)
## Deploy on Vercel
Click on [deployment](https://vercel.com/new/clone?repository-url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Ftemplates-back4app%2Freact-js-slack-clone&env=REACT_APP_PARSE_APPLICATION_ID,REACT_APP_PARSE_LIVE_QUERY_URL,REACT_APP_PARSE_JAVASCRIPT_KEY&envDescription=Enter%20your%20Application%20ID%2C%20Javascript%20Key%20and%20Real%20Time%20URL&envLink=https%3A%2F%2Fparse-dashboard.back4app.com%2Fapps&project-name=slack-clone-javascript-template&repository-name=slack-clone-javascript-template):


On Vercel you should inform the 3 variables copied on the previous steps: Application ID, Javascript Key, and Live Query URL (subdomain URL).

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/tjo5dhta1urh31frhdrv.png)

Click on deploy. Now you have a Slack clone app running on Vercel!

## The Code
If you want to better understand the template please access the links below:

[Technical guide – How it works the Slack Clone template](https://www.back4app.com/docs/react/templates/react-slack-clone-app)

[ReactJS Code – Javascript](https://github.com/templates-back4app/react-js-slack-clone)

[Typescript Code – Typescript](https://github.com/templates-back4app/react-ts-slack-clone)

## Conclusion
This article provided an overview of Slack, core features, and paying users. Also, it explained how to deploy a Slack Clone app using low-code tools like Back4app and Vercel.

## FAQ
What is Slack?
It’s a business communication platform.

What are Slack core features?
– Messaging
– Teams
– API
– Integrations

How to create a Slack clone app?
– Download the clone the Slack template backend
– Add your Keys to it
– Active Real-Time features
– Deploy