
GitLab Mattermost, an open source on-premises Slack alternative - sytse
https://about.gitlab.com/2015/08/18/gitlab-loves-mattermost/#
======
brillenfux
Honest-to-god question: Why all those web chat servers? I feel something very
similar to the shift from Usenet to web forums is happening. Is IRC really so
hard to use?

~~~
cwilson
I've worked with two organizations now where Slack has been heavily used.
There is absolutely no chance 75% of the orgs would have used IRC, even if
mandated, the way Slack is used.

Even something as simple as having an avatar next to your name makes all the
difference.

The real question should be what does Slack do that Hipchat did not? The
designs are obviously much different, but other than that, was it just amazing
marketing and word of mouth? Even the Slack founders seemed a bit baffled by
this when asked months back.

~~~
sytse
When Slack was released it was the only one with unread-lines. I love this
feature.

~~~
uxp
Multiple accounts was a huge selling factor for me, though that might not have
been included out of the gate. HipChat only _just_ enabled multiple accounts
two months ago.

[https://blog.hipchat.com/2015/06/08/connecting-multiple-
acco...](https://blog.hipchat.com/2015/06/08/connecting-multiple-accounts-on-
hipchat-is-here/)

------
imaginator
shameless-plug: We've been building the federated/anti-yet-another-silo
version of this/Slack. Instanced interconnect kinda like usenet did and email
does for 30-odd years now.

Our emphasis on being a tool for developers to add federated communication to
their app (vs being another silo like Slack). The UX isn't nearly as polished,
but it does federate with other servers using the XMPP network (e.g a
conversation earlier today
[http://imgur.com/UL34KSF](http://imgur.com/UL34KSF)).

A developer started working on a slack-like UX and we threw up at
[http://buddycloud.org](http://buddycloud.org)
([https://github.com/buddycloud/buddycloud-angular-
app](https://github.com/buddycloud/buddycloud-angular-app) if anyone wants to
help).

~~~
nullz
names are hard, but i implore you to continue your search

------
rdl
Wow. Thank you! And thank you for open sourcing it.

There are so many reasons I won't use a hosted chat system, but all the on-
premise options suck on mobile (otherwise I'd just use ircd), or just suck
(hipchat). This is a great option.

~~~
sytse
Thank you! Just to be sure, Spinpunch
[https://www.spinpunch.com/](https://www.spinpunch.com/) made Mattermost,
we're just working to package it up in GitLab. To enable this they added OAuth
and PostgreSQL support to Mattermost.

------
SEJeff
For those that might not realize, this isn't a new version that gitlab wrote,
but open source doing what it does best! They've extended mattermost[1] and
are including it out of the box with gitlab. Really slick stuff.

[1] [http://www.mattermost.org/](http://www.mattermost.org/)

~~~
sytse
Indeed, this is the work of Mattermost/Spinpunch. As I mentioned before on
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10081462](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10081462)
the Spinpunch team was nice enough to add the OAuth and PostgreSQL support we
needed. We hope it will be a fruitful collaboration.

~~~
SEJeff
Really glad to see this happening in the open with a company (gitlab!) helping
sponsor / work with a bit of it. Great to see

~~~
sytse
Thanks! We're happy to be collaborating with Spinpunch. We're not sponsoring
them, we're just helping to grow Mattermost by bundling it.

------
chinathrow
This is just great. Decentralization is a good thing. Not having your entire
conversations on a third party solution is definitively a bright idea.

------
click170
Thank you!

Too many solutions rely on a centralized off-site hosted server and for some
sensitive environments an on premesis solution is required.

Does this support XMPP federation, and is it based on XMPP? If not, I am
interested in the analysis performed and why you opted to not use XMPP.

~~~
it33
Thanks click170,

When we talked to potential users, XMPP didn't come up as a priority, and we
haven't yet had a feature request filed for it.

Very happy to have it added so XMPP can be upvoted:
[http://mattermost.uservoice.com/](http://mattermost.uservoice.com/)

~~~
001spartan
One of the major reasons my current organization uses Hipchat is that it
supports XMPP. The importance to us is that it allows us to use OTR between
users with clients like Pidgin or Adium. As a security company, that is a very
valuable thing.

------
ghostwreck
I love using Slack and have been looking for an open source alternative. This
sounds great! Anything similar (open source / on premises) for video and
desktop sharing? I am trying to get away from Skype or Google Hangouts in the
same way.

~~~
sytse
We have not found anything good for video calling. Not open source but also
not closed source. Still using Hangouts that uses a lot of CPU with Chrome on
OSX (tip: use Safari to force another codec).

~~~
randall
FWIW you should look into Kurento. It's kind of a pain to set up, but would
likely do the job.

kurento.org

OSS and all that.

~~~
sytse
Thanks, looks interesting!

------
thebiglebrewski
Can this be setup without GitLab?

Also this looks a LOT like Slack. Any infringements?

~~~
sytse
You can set it up without GitLab via
[http://www.mattermost.org/download/](http://www.mattermost.org/download/)

Only the docker install is pretty easy to do, doing it from source is pretty
tedious, one of the reasons we will bundle it with GitLab.

It seems inspired by Slack but we think it is different enough and it will
grow more different over time.

~~~
ztratar
"different enough and it will grow more different over time"

Can you elaborate more? Don't mean any disrespect, but this seems like a
complete copy-paste of their interface.

~~~
sytse
I agree they do look similar. Obviously none of the code was copy pasted and I
hope the products will diverge further over time. GitLab started out with a
pretty similar look but by now it found its own look.

------
icewater0
Slack is really useful but it really bothers me that it's hosted off-site. I
would rather my communications with my team stay within the team, and not with
slack.com.

~~~
sytse
Awesome, that is exactly what GitLab Mattermost will enable.

------
scrollaway
Hey gitlab team - I'm really excited to see that release. Is there an IRC
gateway? If not, is one in the works? I'd love to contribute to it.

~~~
it33
Hi scrollaway, no IRC gateway yet, would love your help designing one. All
contributions welcome--ideas, designs, feedback, code, bug reports:
[http://www.mattermost.org/many-ways-to-
contribute/](http://www.mattermost.org/many-ways-to-contribute/)

First step would perhaps be filing a feature request so the community can
upvote: [http://www.mattermost.org/feature-
requests/](http://www.mattermost.org/feature-requests/)

------
thebiglebrewski
Sorry for being the only Top level commenter but one more question:

One of the big benefits of Slack right now for me is that there are NYCTech
and Philly Tech slacks that I'm active in. Will there be any way to integrate
this with other communities that on Slack, maybe with something like
Slackline?

~~~
sytse
I think [https://slackline.io/](https://slackline.io/) is really interesting,
channels shared between different team. I see the use case for this, in GitLab
issues it is also annoying that it is hard to work with people from outside
the company if the issue is private. But there are no plans to do something
like this at this moment. However, it is all open source, feel free to add
functions. And because you don't have to pay for accounts there is no limit to
the number of people that can join.

~~~
thebiglebrewski
Thanks! Super useful.

------
dattl
Can somebody list all Slack alternatives (and maybe weigh the pro and cons
between each of them)? I really lost track, but I also want to setup (read:
self-host) one for my team.

There is:

    
    
        * Mattermost
    
        * Rocket.chat
    
        * Let's Chat
    
        * Kandan
    
        * ???

~~~
ex3ndr
Take a look after us, we have best mobile apps:
[https://actor.im](https://actor.im)

~~~
spdustin
App's first screen has typo: "please condifm your country code [...]"

Just FYI :)

------
kohenkatz
Why Mattermost over Rocket.chat, Let's Chat, or Kandan (as listed at
[https://about.gitlab.com/direction/](https://about.gitlab.com/direction/))?

~~~
sytse
Nice that you found that page! We considered all of them. Rocket.chat and
Mattermost seemed like the best products. I don't like that Rocket.chat is
made with Meteor and therefore Mongo only, we already ship and love
PostgreSQL. Also, I met Ian from the Mattermost team at YC camp and we hit it
off together.

~~~
engelgabriel
It’s a shame you didn't to talk to us too. There are a lot of benefits of
using Meteor. First, it plans to be DB agnostic, so Postgres support will come
in the next version, and many other DBs. So if that was the main reason, it's
was a bit short sighted. Also, we have already submitted our Mobile apps to
Google Play and Apple Store. Sure the first version is Hybrid, but they work
really well, and the native version is on the making. We are also working with
a team from the US army to implements the DoD Manual 5200.01V2 so they can use
it at government agencies too. On scalability, we are pushing the limits with
a deployment that has 40k users for the Federal University in Brazil.
Hopefully GitLab will not commit to a single option so early, that would be
premature at this point, and maybe we can work together to offer another chat
option?

~~~
kohenkatz
Looking forward to seeing PostgreSQL support! MongoDB is the only reason I'm
not using Rocket.chat at the moment.

~~~
engelgabriel
Meteor 1.2 will ship later this summer with Official SQL support
[http://info.meteor.com/blog/whats-coming-in-meteor-12-and-
be...](http://info.meteor.com/blog/whats-coming-in-meteor-12-and-beyond)

~~~
kabes
That's not what that post says. It says SQL integration will probably come
after 1.2

------
ex3ndr
Nice to see project that opensourced in fear of us. Very early alpha after two
days of our promise to opensource our stuff.

But you are more succeeded in promoting that our project. Congrats.

~~~
sytse
Mattermost has been open source for a while and this announcement has been
worked on for 18 days [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-
com/merge_requests/...](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-
com/merge_requests/858)

~~~
ex3ndr
I mean first mattermost release, not gitlab improvements.

------
ocdtrekkie
Very very cool integration! We're finally starting to see on premises options
that can take on cloud solutions without compromising these sorts of features.

------
thebiglebrewski
As a follow-up will there be a mobile app for this too?

~~~
it33
Yes, we have an iOS app internally, but it needs updating, and also we need to
get push notifications to work for on-prem customers.

We're working on getting our issue tracking system transparent so the
community can see everything that's being worked on.

~~~
pwenzel
Push notifications in Slack are an important feature. It allows me to be
quickly accessible when I am away from my computer.

------
nullz
Gitlab as id/auth provider, eh? What is out there in terms of id/auth
appliances that are sufficiently generic/cross-platform?

~~~
sytse
The Mattermost implementation is based on OAuth, so any OAuth provider will
work. GitLab itself supports LDAP, OAuth, Kerberos and SAML.

------
fweespeech
Honestly, this seems awesome. :)

Mattermost just needs an Android & iOS app selection.

------
lloeki
Any plan for importing data from Slack, thus easing the migration?

~~~
sytse
No, not at this time.

