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Slack was down

status.slack.com

181–190 of 243 posts

Re: Slack was down

#181
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2GB of RAM use for 6 open tabs in Slack is pretty awful, their desktop client has set the bar to compete with Slack on performance very low. This abusive resource usage has created a dislike of Slack among a subset of its users.

I can honestly say that I have never checked or cared about how much RAM Slack uses. Or any other software for that matter. It's certainly not an issue that I'd use as the basis for deciding which team communication tool to use.

Yeah see the people that are caring about this are caring because it has used up all of their available RAM, has pushed stuff into Virtual Memory, and it is causing performance problems for their system. Or, if they are IT, it is causing performance problems on their users' systems.

This is a pretty reasonable complaint when you're talking about a system with 2gb, and a chat application that uses 1.5gb of memory...or heck, a 16gb system when you have programs that legitimately need as much memory as you can give them and are being starved of it. Nobody would begrudge this usage if it was necessary for the task, but it isn't. Not even close.

Edit: Apparently this is better than it used to be, but there have been times when Slack also ate up CPU like crazy. Which, again, no biggie if you have plenty to spare, but when you don't...and even then, if you have plenty to spare, you're still going to be annoyed with Slack if it's eating all of your battery because the CPU is working really really really hard at...um...dunno? If it were mining bitcoin/monero without your knowledge or consent then at least it would be DOING something.

Re: Slack was down

#182
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2GB of RAM use for 6 open tabs in Slack is pretty awful, their desktop client has set the bar to compete with Slack on performance very low. This abusive resource usage has created a dislike of Slack among a subset of its users.

Same with MS Teams, and there isn't even a way to disable notifications per channel. So if people ping the channel and you are ini tyou will get a notification. It drives me insane but no progress since August 2018. They did add a way to send unicorns to people though. Priorities...

In MS Teams you can click the '...' next to a channel and then click 'channel notifications'. The options allow you to mute 'all new posts' and also to mute 'channel mentions'.

Re: Slack was down

#183
post #66
post #16

If you're a community driven project or organization using Slack, then take a look at https://zulipchat.com/ for something that sucks less, and is open source software. I've found it much more pleasant to use and less buggy than Slack.

> then take a look at https://zulipchat.com/ for something that sucks less, and is open source software. I really want to like Zulip Chat. It has everything all the alternatives have + self-hosting, but as soon as they switched to their Electron client, it has become yet another resource hog that I have to put up with. I already have to put up with 10+ electron apps slowing down my Macbook. I shouldn't have to make s…

> as soon as they switched to their Electron client, it has become yet another resource hog that I have to put up with.

FWIW I use Zulip every day -- I work on Zulip, and naturally we use it among ourselves -- and I never touch the Electron client, because I prefer the experience of a browser tab.

Chrome's task manager (shift-esc) reports that tab is using 281M right now. Less than Gmail, or some old GitHub tabs (>1G, yikes!), or a freshly-started VS Code (... oh wow, or my Emacs which is at 337M. Wasn't expecting that.) Not sure how that compares to the Electron app.

As another reply pointed out, there is also a terminal client! You might enjoy trying it: https://github.com/zulip/zulip-terminal

Re: Slack was down

#184
post #76
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wish we wouldn’t use such language, “sucks less” is highly subjective and your opinion but we don’t need to disparage Slack in order to make a point that alternatives like Zulip are available. Seems like especially poor tone on an outage thread... “Don’t kick them while they’re down” or something?

2GB of RAM use for 6 open tabs in Slack is pretty awful, their desktop client has set the bar to compete with Slack on performance very low. This abusive resource usage has created a dislike of Slack among a subset of its users.

zulip is electron also.

Re: Slack was down

#185
post #16

If you're a community driven project or organization using Slack, then take a look at https://zulipchat.com/ for something that sucks less, and is open source software. I've found it much more pleasant to use and less buggy than Slack.

Thanks! Is it easy to integrate with existing user base?

Not sure if this answers the question you have in mind, but it's easy to migrate your data (users, channels, their membership, message history, etc.) from Slack to Zulip: https://zulipchat.com/help/import-from-slack

(I work on Zulip.)

Re: Slack was down

#186
post #143
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wish we wouldn’t use such language, “sucks less” is highly subjective and your opinion but we don’t need to disparage Slack in order to make a point that alternatives like Zulip are available. Seems like especially poor tone on an outage thread... “Don’t kick them while they’re down” or something?

Slack is a multi-billion dollar valued company, we're not kicking them while they're down

Except in the literal sense.

Re: Slack was down

#188
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half a gig for IRC + gifs

Such is the nature of slightly optimized Electron apps, T-Mobile Digits Desktop app is a similar resource hog. Using the browser based version often is less resource intensive.

Tried that, they actively employ darkpatterns to coerce users onto desktop apps. I even asked them to stop asking for an app install on their links that you open from inside the webapp and they told me to get stuffed and use the desktop app.

Re: Slack was down

#189
post #84
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2GB of RAM use for 6 open tabs in Slack is pretty awful, their desktop client has set the bar to compete with Slack on performance very low. This abusive resource usage has created a dislike of Slack among a subset of its users.

Their new version seem to use less RAM, it's still Electron but with a lot of lazy-loading's

[deleted]

Re: Slack was down

#190
post #68
post #16

If you're a community driven project or organization using Slack, then take a look at https://zulipchat.com/ for something that sucks less, and is open source software. I've found it much more pleasant to use and less buggy than Slack.

Wish we wouldn’t use such language, “sucks less” is highly subjective and your opinion but we don’t need to disparage Slack in order to make a point that alternatives like Zulip are available. Seems like especially poor tone on an outage thread... “Don’t kick them while they’re down” or something?

You’re supposed to be soft on a company during an outage? That’s exactly when you’re supposed to be considering alternatives!

Similar peeve is when people say “don’t politicize this tragedy.” No, politics is how we decide to act, a tragedy is exactly when we should be the most political. The Boeing 737 crashes is when we should excoriate and eliminate the rot at Boeing and the FAA, not six years later after some respectful silence.

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