Slack vs Teams: Admin and Member Roles: Slack’s Primary Owner can delete or transfer a workspace—no other role has this power.; Workspace Owners in Slack manage settings and assign roles to other users.; Members in Slack can install apps from the Slack App Directory by default.
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Roles & Access

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Defining administrator and member roles in Slack and Teams

An administrator should control settings that affect many people; a member should be able to do everyday work without changing the organisation’s security posture. …

Desk Adoption · · 2 min read

Slack separates administrative roles from Member, while Microsoft Teams has two main team roles: team owner and team member. Owners and administrators manage settings or other users; members primarily use collaboration features.

Slack’s administrative roles are Primary Owner, Workspace Owner and Admin. Its non-administrative full-member role is Member; single-channel and multi-channel guests are limited-access roles.

The Primary Owner is Slack’s most powerful administrative role. One person can hold this role per workspace, and that person can delete the workspace or transfer ownership—powers other Workspace Owners do not have. Workspace Owners manage the workspace and can assign roles to other users.

Admins manage members, including guest accounts, can change Members into Admins and can archive channels. Members have access to most Slack functionality but limited ability to manage members or change workspace settings; by default, they can install Slack App Directory apps.

Single-channel guests can access one channel; multi-channel guests can access only channels they are invited to.

To assign a Slack system role from desktop, select Admin in the sidebar, then Workspace settings > Roles & permissions > Roles. Slack’s permissions-by-role reference covers individual actions.

At team level, Teams has two main roles: Team owner and Team member. The person who creates a team is its owner, who can make any member a co-owner when inviting them or after they have joined.

Owners can share responsibility for settings, membership and invitations. Members participate in the team and, by default, can create standard channels, although organisation owners can limit who may create them.

By default, owners and members can create private channels, subject to organisation policies; team owners can turn member creation on or off in the team’s Settings. The person who creates a private channel becomes its owner, and only that channel owner can directly add or remove people.

Only private-channel owners or members can see and participate in the channel; a team owner is not automatically a member of every private channel.

Separately, a Teams Administrator can add guests in the Teams admin centre, while team owners can add them in the Teams client.

Managing Guests in Teams vs Slack

  • Pros – SlackClear distinction between single- and multi-channel guests; granular access control.
  • Cons – SlackGuests cannot see all channels unless explicitly invited; may require more admin oversight.
  • Pros – TeamsGuests can be added by both administrators and team owners; flexible access at team level.
  • Cons – TeamsTeam owners can inadvertently grant access to sensitive private channels if not monitored.

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