
Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives - shea256
https://blog.okturtles.com/2015/11/five-open-source-slack-alternatives/
======
JoshMnem
I wish that someone would build an easy-to-use layer on top of an open
protocol like IRC or XMPP. The tool could manage setup, configuration,
archiving, and notifications.

Instead of building a walled garden that is merely accessible via an open
protocol, it would be more interesting to build a thin layer on top of an XMPP
server that could even be removed or replaced later, if desired.

~~~
Arathorn
They have - e.g. [http://vector.im/beta](http://vector.im/beta) on top of the
Matrix.org protocol. [disclaimer, I work on Matrix]

~~~
zokier
Not to be too negative but based on quick glance it would seem like the Matrix
protocol is really "noisy" if compared to something like IRC (which admittedly
is ridiculously spartan). How much data ends up flowing down the wires for a
simple "hello world" message?

~~~
vvpan
But why does it matter? Bandwidth is super-cheap.

~~~
chetanahuja
_" But why does it matter? Bandwidth is super-cheap"_

If this comment is serious (and I have my doubts), I'm left speechless...
Don't even know where to start. I'll just leave it here
[http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/28/9625062/facebook-2g-tuesd...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/28/9625062/facebook-2g-tuesdays-
slow-internet-developing-world)

~~~
vvpan
> I'm left speechless...

Oh please. Without even knowing much about the protocol, I am almost positive
that it's bandwidth requirements are well below even a relatively light modern
webpage and likely well within 2G range.

~~~
chetanahuja
> _" Without even knowing much about the protocol"_

> "I am _almost positive_ that it's bandwidth requirements are well below even
> a _relatively_ light modern webpage and _likely_ well within 2G _range._ "

I'm pretty sure this this is almost certainly the least, or at least within
range of, quite likely the least definitive statement I might have ever read
(or at least one of the lesser definitive of statements I've read within the
past year, or at least the last few months, or so).

~~~
aklemm
We see what you did there.

------
hrjet
Also, Matrix.org

Open, federated protocol, multiple client and _server_ implementations,
integrated IRC bridge.

~~~
ausjke
this looks neat, and you can self-host it too.

~~~
ausjke
[http://matrix.org/docs/guides/faq.html](http://matrix.org/docs/guides/faq.html)

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

~~~
askafriend
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/660931499680657409)

[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/660931665275916288](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/660931665275916288)

[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/660931949645533184](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/660931949645533184)

[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/660932099742957568](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/660932099742957568)

[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/660932289002508288](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/660932289002508288)

[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/660932918672420865](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/660932918672420865)

~~~
Albright
Which is kind of a frustrating answer, because Slack's UX sucks. Its desktop
app is just a wrapped web page; the fonts and colors match nobody's operating
system; the fffffffffffffffffriendly scroll bar; all the cutesy messages and
iconography; "Reconnecting…"; etc, etc.

Yes, I understand that it's still friendlier to use than IRC, but there's a
middle ground between "easy to use" and "still looks and works like a proper,
professional desktop application." In fact, HipChat is pretty close, even
though it's just a wrapped web page too.

It's kind of frustrating to see that all of these Slack alternatives are
pretty much taking the same crappy UI cues from Slack. It's kind of like how,
until the last few years or so, many common Unix/Linux desktops looked like
Win95 rip-offs… You don't need to strive for familiarity if what people are
familiar with sucks.

~~~
trjordan
UX is not design. The fonts, colors, and silly features like emoji are gravy.

UX includes the cold experience. If you sign up with just one user, Slack
creates a couple rooms and has a bot talk to you.

UX includes history management. Slack makes everything searchable and is good
enough that most people can find what they want.

UX includes ways to level up your proficiency with the tool. Slack doesn't
force integrations, defaults to 1-click OAuth integrations, and lets you
explore writing code to integrate, without getting in your way before you're
ready.

I don't think it's perfect, but having recently switched from Hipchat and
hated on IRC-for-companies for years, they've done a lot of things right.

~~~
berkes
US is also responsiveness and snappy feeling. None of which slack get right
_at all_. The native app is merely a wrapper around their web-view, yet takes
around 15 seconds to load. Then eats > 320 Mb of RAM and continues to eat more
(it leaks somewhere). The web-app itself is far worse wrt speed and resource-
usage.

That is unacceptable, especially when you look at the alternatives it
replaces: IRC, XMPP/Jabber and whatnot.

I guess it mostly comes down to Slack choosing the "wrong" stack here: Web-
technology is, as is shown quite often, simply not ready for such heavy
UX/UIs. Sure, it can be done, but when compared to the simplicity and speed of
"native" it simply does not cut it. Yet.

~~~
dvanduzer
Regardless of which platform you're talking about, the Slack app is
emphatically _not_ merely a wrapper around the web view. The resource
consumption of their various client interfaces can be improved, but what are
you trying to compare it to? In that particular context, a better comparison
of any of the Slack client apps (native/web) would be Outlook.

Slack is not replacing IRC or XMPP at all. Slack _uses_ these protocols as
part of a groupware suite. As discussed elsewhere in the thread, IRC-at-
companies draws mixed reactions. XMPP is a protocol that has seen very wide
adoption in the enterprise, with many implementations from a variety of
vendors, with a variety of resource consumption issues. XMPP is very much a
web technology in the sense you're talking about.

And you are correct that it proved to be a very bad stack for something like
Slack, when Google first tried it in 2009:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Wave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Wave)

If you really think Slack has made poor technology choices, I'd suggest
reading what Stewart had to say on the subject in this interview:
[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/182287/The_story_of_Glitc...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/182287/The_story_of_Glitch_Why_this_odd_MMO_is_shutting_down.php)

~~~
berkes
> but what are you trying to compare it to? > In that particular context, a
> better comparison of any of the Slack client apps (native/web) would be
> Outlook.

This differs for everyone. For me, it merely replaces XMPP/IRC: group-chat.
That is in the last 3 teams where we used slack.

Others, and I guess mostly people who live in their email-inbox, may see Slack
as a replacement for their Mail Suite. Again others may see it as a
replacement for teleconferencing/skype.

It really depends where you come from. Me, I come from a simple, integrated
IRC and XMPP client. Now we all use Slack and I have a poor experience
compared to the Just Works[tm] chat (through empathy) on Ubuntu.

* Slack crashes 2, 3 times per week. Mostly memory issues. Empathy never crashed on me, that I can remember.

* Empathy is, AFAIK always on. I switch off Slack when not working because (1) it abuses resources and (2) it addds another icon to my toolbar (empathy integrates in Ubuntu's message icon).

* Empathy starts whenever I start my OS. Slack can be configured to do so. But when it does, its slow startup time and CPU-gobbling while starting makes my desktop appear sluggish.

I'm comparing it to a well integrated, thin and snappy XMPP client, which is
what Slack replaces for me. And Slack comes out poor. All over.

------
arca_vorago
Not a single one with end to end encrypted DM's...

I use mumble for voice (encrypted to server, server is weakpoint), irc for
chat on open networks (do it from a VPS, and use screen/tmux with irssi/emacs-
erc for persistence), and am using bitmessage more and more. Haven't tried tor
chat yet.

Tried Slack, and even for business purposes, adoption was horrible and it
ended up being a wasteland. Honestly, I think this statement from the Slack
twitter sums it up: "The idea is to have a public-facing channel that a user
can participate in without being a team member!"

To me, webchat plugins for IRC accomplish this just fine, and to me, is more
likely to get a user directly connected with a dev/engineer.

Maybe I'm just a leftover of the 90's though... I mean usenet is disappearing
so fast, even though I still love it... but as a FOSS proponent, I will use a
GPL product over proprietary even if it's harder, unless absolutely necessary.

------
ex3ndr
Please, add ours: [https://actor.im](https://actor.im) We also have Layer-like
SDK for building your own mobile chat applications

~~~
itistoday2
Sure. We'll post a followup review with some of the ones we missed (including
Matrix and Kaiwa).

------
seagreen
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."

~~~
akerl_
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.

~~~
seagreen
In general you're totally right!

In this particular case though, note the title of the article. Wouldn't it be
much more convincing as "A Superior Alternative to Slack (Which Happens to be
Open Source)"?

EDIT: You're second point definitely does apply here though.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I think it should absolutely be noted that being open source is a key mark of
superiority over Slack.

------
hoechst
for bunch of more alternatives, see [https://github.com/cjbarber/hipchat-
alternatives](https://github.com/cjbarber/hipchat-alternatives)

------
hellbanner
I'm seeing "No e2e encrypted DMs" as one of the cons for most of these..
anyone have a solution?

~~~
zokier
For the usecase I see these to be useful, I don't see lack of e2e such a huge
concern. I would assume that in most cases the server would be more or less
trusted in the context they are used in, so TLS style client-server security
would be adequate.

In other words, if I really wanted to have discussion secret enough to warrant
e2e I probably wouldn't be using company/project chat for that no matter what
sort of promises it gives.

That being said, of course e2e chat would be beneficial addition, and might
help especially in larger enterprise deployments.

~~~
squidlogic
For less important things, I agree, run of the mill TLS is enough. But for
things that are critical to the business, trade secrets, strategy, SWOT
analysis of a recent breach, etc, I think every company should have an e2ee
chat/file sharing app in their toolkit.

------
fsiefken
Mattermost has the advantage of being bundled with GitLab, so organisations
opting for GitLab might be tempted to use it as well.

------
lokedhs
Also Potato, which me and a few friends have been developing for our own use
for a while. It will be released as open source soon.

I will make a separate post once the source is released, but for now anyone
that is interested can take a look at a small demo system I set up here:
[http://potato.dhsdevelopments.com/](http://potato.dhsdevelopments.com/)

The server is written in Common Lisp, client in Clojurescript. Storage backend
uses CouchDB, messaging using RabbitMQ and the search uses Solr. More
technical details here:
[http://blog.potato.network/](http://blog.potato.network/)

------
godata1
I wasn't sure when I read the headline if it referred to Slack Linux or Slack
the music service. Apparently there is a communications client called Slack,
just FYI.

~~~
derefr
Those other things aren't called Slack, though. Those are Slackware and Slack-
time.

------
tamebadger
Kudos to author for including sandstorm.io and docker in his pros and cons. I
can see it becoming one of the first things we might wonder about in the
future.

------
ixtli
Is it really open source in spirit if message auth relies on a hosted, closed
source, proprietary application like github?

------
justinhj
I was recently at a small development studio that closed down. We used slack
to communicate and liked it. I set up an alumni team and the whole team joined
up to keep in touch and it's still active months later.

Is anyone going to argue that if I'd sent out the irc channel that anyone
would have tried to connect?

~~~
chris_wot
Why wouldn't they?

~~~
justinhj
Because I worked with people with varying levels of technical ability. Slack
is so much easier to setup and get everyone to use than irc.

------
VoiceOfWisdom
The thing that keeps my company from switching to Slack or any of its
alternatives is read notifications. Not having read notifications makes using
the system a lot more painful. Any one know of a chat system (not Hangouts)
that supports read notifications?

~~~
Jonovono
Slack says it's coming, but no idea when:
[https://twitter.com/slackhq/status/504407968150851585](https://twitter.com/slackhq/status/504407968150851585)

------
nikolay
Slack has some major design flaws. It's not developer-friendly either. I
really don't get why hackers are not pushing for Gitter! It has SSO, it's
developer-friendly, it's cheaper, it's embeddable, etc.

~~~
thejosh
From one closed source system to the next.

~~~
nikolay
True, it's just that Gitter is so much better for development. Yet, developers
are still pushing Slack.

Anyway, wasn't Gitter open-source in the beginning though [0]?

[0] [https://github.com/gitter/gitter](https://github.com/gitter/gitter)

------
netheril96
I find it curious that having a pure JavaScript implementation including the
backend is listed as an advantage.

~~~
bitstacker
That's not listed as an advantage - just highlighting the technology.

~~~
netheril96
My bad. I conflated the _technology_ and _pros_ section in my mind.

------
guylepage3
rocket.chat seems pretty cool. Just signed up however so I will have to dig
deeper. Nice.

~~~
marceloschmidt
Rocket.Chat allows you to deploy your own instance
[https://[my_instance].rocket.chat](https://\[my_instance\].rocket.chat) if
you go to [https://rocket.chat/deploy](https://rocket.chat/deploy).
[disclaimer; I contribute to Rocket.Chat]

------
foklepoint
Could give yammer a chance. Not open but their freemium model is much better
than slacks

------
devit
Why not just use e-mail mailing lists instead?

You get great apps for all devices (e-mail clients), notifications, encrypted
direct messages, ability to send images/binaries/whatever, threaded
communication, search, censorship resistance, filters, etc.

~~~
derwiki
In 2015, it's trendy to use things that aren't email.

~~~
swozey
That hardly started happening just now in 2015. I absolutely loathe using
email, but I don't speak for everyone.

------
nodesocket
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.

~~~
akerl_
"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.

~~~
nodesocket
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](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...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/EBSEncryption.html)).
Should be an easy flag to turn on.

~~~
notacoward
The only thing that's on _your_ radar. Do you speak for everyone else's needs
or interests?

