Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives • Hacker News Board

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#41

Post by ownagefool » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 8:08 PM UTC

dwb wrote: post #25

pnathan wrote: post #3

Can someone explain the attraction that nerds have for Slack/Hipchat over a well-tended IRC server?

Where I work, before Slack, we had Campfire and only us developers bothered to sign up for it, get the client, etc. We switched to Slack and suddenly everyone was on it. UX matters so much. We don't have time to tend an IRC server and act as support for it. Slack lets the whole company sign up ultra-easily and get on board – there's simply no contest. I lament the passing of the age of new open protocols too, trust m…

I'd argue there's little reason one of the chat clones couldn't be backed by an IRC server and give us a similar experience.

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#42

Post by nodesocket » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 8:12 PM UTC

Why is this even an issue? Slack has nailed team chat. Slack is easy to use, they have a free plan. If you want the premium features, their pricing is very affordable. Can we stop re-inventing the wheel, just because engineers don't want to pay for software. This is the fundamental difference between founders+engineer/engineer.

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#43

Post by akerl_ » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 8:14 PM UTC

seagreen wrote: post #37

Well there's part of the problem. "Should I use Slack or this long list of open source options, all trickily alike?" The open source team (which I would prefer to win) would do much better if their message was "use this one, canonical, excellent option."

You say that like there's not fragmentation on the closed-source side as well, with Slack, Hipchat, Skype, etc.

The reason there's competition is because ~"let's only field one perfect option" sounds great if you think you're the one with the perfect product, or you're a user whose needs are exactly like that product's pitch. In reality, user needs are diverse: there's no singular perfect product.

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#44

Post by Killswitch » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 8:15 PM UTC

dataker wrote: post #9

askafriend wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As patio11 puts it: UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX UX See more: https://twitter.com/patio11/status/660931499680657409 https://twitter.com/patio11/status/660931665275916288 https://twitter.com/patio11/status/660931949645533184 https://twitter.com/patio11/statu…

UXUXUX... is also a feature of many open source alternatives.

You mean "Lets clone Slack's UI and say 'look we are just as good at UX as Slack!'"

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#45

Post by akerl_ » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 8:16 PM UTC

nodesocket wrote: post #42

Why is this even an issue? Slack has nailed team chat. Slack is easy to use, they have a free plan. If you want the premium features, their pricing is very affordable. Can we stop re-inventing the wheel, just because engineers don't want to pay for software. This is the fundamental difference between founders+engineer/engineer.

"While Slack offers many benefits to customers, there are also downsides to using the platform, including high subscription fees and the risk of a massive leak of private data if Slack’s servers are ever breached (again)."

Not everybody wants to pay to put their potentially sensitive data onto somebody else's systems, where they can't control the security of that data.

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#46

Post by sdegutis » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 8:17 PM UTC

nodesocket wrote: post #42

Why is this even an issue? Slack has nailed team chat. Slack is easy to use, they have a free plan. If you want the premium features, their pricing is very affordable. Can we stop re-inventing the wheel, just because engineers don't want to pay for software. This is the fundamental difference between founders+engineer/engineer.

I don't think price is most people's problems. I think usually it's just

1. they don't want to depend on a third party's existence. If Slack Inc. goes under or gets sold to eBay, the team won't have Slack anymore, and

2. they want privacy. They don't want conversations being watched or sold, especially to competitors.

I'm pretty sure that's all it is. Someone correct me if I'm wrong though please.

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#47

Post by mugsie » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 8:18 PM UTC

nodesocket wrote: post #42

Why is this even an issue? Slack has nailed team chat. Slack is easy to use, they have a free plan. If you want the premium features, their pricing is very affordable. Can we stop re-inventing the wheel, just because engineers don't want to pay for software. This is the fundamental difference between founders+engineer/engineer.

Iteration is how software moves forward.

If slack didn't "re-invent" IRC, it wouldn't exist.

Also, not everyone is comfortable having data exist on a 3rd party system, that they have no audit access to. This is the fundamental difference between "founders" and people who know how systems work.

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#48

Post by bitstacker » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 8:20 PM UTC

nodesocket wrote: post #42

Why is this even an issue? Slack has nailed team chat. Slack is easy to use, they have a free plan. If you want the premium features, their pricing is very affordable. Can we stop re-inventing the wheel, just because engineers don't want to pay for software. This is the fundamental difference between founders+engineer/engineer.

I'm a member of community Slack rooms with hundreds of people. It would cost thousands of dollars a month to switch to paid accounts. That's way too high for volunteer open source projects to pay.

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#49

Post by nodesocket » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 8:20 PM UTC

akerl_ wrote: post #45

nodesocket wrote: post #42

Why is this even an issue? Slack has nailed team chat. Slack is easy to use, they have a free plan. If you want the premium features, their pricing is very affordable. Can we stop re-inventing the wheel, just because engineers don't want to pay for software. This is the fundamental difference between founders+engineer/engineer.

"While Slack offers many benefits to customers, there are also downsides to using the platform, including high subscription fees and the risk of a massive leak of private data if Slack’s servers are ever breached (again)." Not everybody wants to pay to put their potentially sensitive data onto somebody else's systems, where they can't control the security of that data.

The one thing in terms of security that is even a blip on my radar is that slack does not encrypt data at rest (disks). [1](https://twitter.com/slackhq/status/467476452364279808)

Their reason that they couldn't search through data if it were encrypted is not true. They are using AWS, and can simply use EBS encrypted volumes (http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/EBSEncryp...). Should be an easy flag to turn on.

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#50

Post by notacoward » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 8:21 PM UTC

nodesocket wrote: post #42

Why is this even an issue? Slack has nailed team chat. Slack is easy to use, they have a free plan. If you want the premium features, their pricing is very affordable. Can we stop re-inventing the wheel, just because engineers don't want to pay for software. This is the fundamental difference between founders+engineer/engineer.

Slack itself was reinventing the wheel, so it's pretty hypocritical to bash others for doing likewise. Also, the OP gave some pretty good reasons why relying on an external proprietary service might be a bad idea. If you're happy with Slack that's great, but that's no excuse for being so gratuitously negative about alternatives.