HipChat is now free for unlimited users(blog.hipchat.com)
blog.hipchat.com
HipChat is now free for unlimited users
https://blog.hipchat.com/2014/05/27/hipchat-is-now-free-for-unlimited-users/
206 comments
I don't see where it says it's already a feature. The note itself (not that post) says it might be available in the future but it's not there right now:
Messages and files shared in 1-1 chats are only browsable and searchable in HipChat by the two people involved.
"While admins do not have access to browse or search 1-1 chats through functionality within HipChat, this is an option we may provide in the future for organizations to opt-in to. If made available, it will not be retroactive, and we will be sure to address how affected users can be notified that their chats are subject to viewing by their admins" http://help.hipchat.com/knowledgebase/articles/358098
It does say the organization can email them and ask for that so while technically possible it's not so easy for the admin to snoop.
Messages and files shared in 1-1 chats are only browsable and searchable in HipChat by the two people involved.
"While admins do not have access to browse or search 1-1 chats through functionality within HipChat, this is an option we may provide in the future for organizations to opt-in to. If made available, it will not be retroactive, and we will be sure to address how affected users can be notified that their chats are subject to viewing by their admins" http://help.hipchat.com/knowledgebase/articles/358098
It does say the organization can email them and ask for that so while technically possible it's not so easy for the admin to snoop.
I mentioned earlier in this thread, privacy was already kind of broken. Given your account was registered with organization email, admin could reset your password and look at your private chats (like when you leave a company). Doing that would perhaps be violation of terms, but I don't think many would care particularly in developing countries where legalities of such things are joke.
if said service is provided by the employer, they own the data/communications and have every right to monitor the service. same goes for work email: employers have access to this. it isn't illegal for them to access these communications done on a work account.
That depends heavily on local laws and you really can't make a blanket statement like that.
And laws be damned, it's often employee moral that takes a hit when employers snoop without consent, and that can be just as costly (if not more so) than a court case in many companies.
largely depends on the industry you work in.
a lot of us work in small dev shops, where we really like our privacy.
a lot of us also work in regulated industries, where if your employer is NOT logging, then your company gets fined by $government or $regulatingbody.
a lot of us work in small dev shops, where we really like our privacy.
a lot of us also work in regulated industries, where if your employer is NOT logging, then your company gets fined by $government or $regulatingbody.
I tried to sign up. I really did.
First I entered in my own details but neglected my lastname... didn't say I had to. It's a single name field. It rejected my submission and zero'd out the fields. Strike one.
Then it asked for my team members names and email addresses. It had a skip button, that was nice. I added their emails and used again their first names... let them add their last name or preferred name. Again it failed and removed all the data I entered. Strike two.
Then I attempted to download the client. It wouldn't let me till I verified my account. It will let me send solicitation emails to team members... but not download a client. Ok. Odd. I downloaded the client to my mac entered credentials and after about 4 minutes it failed to launch with a debug window displayed. Strike three.
I did try.
First I entered in my own details but neglected my lastname... didn't say I had to. It's a single name field. It rejected my submission and zero'd out the fields. Strike one.
Then it asked for my team members names and email addresses. It had a skip button, that was nice. I added their emails and used again their first names... let them add their last name or preferred name. Again it failed and removed all the data I entered. Strike two.
Then I attempted to download the client. It wouldn't let me till I verified my account. It will let me send solicitation emails to team members... but not download a client. Ok. Odd. I downloaded the client to my mac entered credentials and after about 4 minutes it failed to launch with a debug window displayed. Strike three.
I did try.
Maybe I haven't read enough about HipChat, but what is the advantage over google's chat? That you don't need a google account?
EDIT: ah, integration with other Atlassian products. got it.
EDIT: ah, integration with other Atlassian products. got it.
The only reason my team prefers HipChat over Slack is because Slack doesn't have a Windows-client
My company recently started using HipChat and I really like it. I expected to prefer IRC because of the standard, open protocol and the choice of clients, but the HipChat application works much more smoothly on my Linux desktop than any IRC client I've tried, and it's been adopted more widely across my organization than IRC ever was - making it much more useful, even if that really just comes down to marketing it to appear more accessible. It's working really well.
Hipchat runs smoother than XChat for you? That's a first.
Hipchat isn't bad but I vastly prefer IRC, particularly with a good IRC bot.
Hipchat isn't bad but I vastly prefer IRC, particularly with a good IRC bot.
XChat was previously my client of choice, although I don't have much of a need for IRC on a daily basis anymore. Specifically, HipChat's integration with KDE's system tray and general look and feel is much more polished, IMO.
I use bitlbee with hipchat so I can connect from Emacs. It's a bit awkward to set up, but it's a lot better than the official client since it works inside tmux+mosh.
Out of curiosity, what do you do with your IRC bots? I know HipChat can have bots, so I'd assume some similar functionality is possible. But Hipchat doesn't have decades of community developed bots, so IRC has a long head start.
I wrote a hosted bot service, to save you the hassle of maintaining one. Email me if you want to avoid the beta charge thing: https://www.getinstabot.com
HuBot and mmBot (a C#/.NET port) has an adapter for hipchat
And for Jabbr, which is a Jabber implementation on Signalr (a realtime thingy of .Net).
It's actually pretty neat, you can try it out on : https://jabbr.net (+ it's opensource if you want to implement your own team chat )
It's actually pretty neat, you can try it out on : https://jabbr.net (+ it's opensource if you want to implement your own team chat )
I have the opposite experience, HipChat runs like a dog:
http://shiva.pw/hipchat_is_this_normal.jpg
That's HipChat 2.1.1013 running on x64 in Vmware 10.0.2 w/ 8gb of a total of 32gb allocated. Oh yea, I'm doing nothing in HipChat, just idling in a single channel, with two inactive conversations with AFK people open. The chat window contains no animated GIFs or Youtube vids or anything wild either.
I've been strongly considering switching to using a regular XMPP client especially since feature creep seems to be be bringing features I don't want (video chat etc)
Edit: I should add the view is filtered, the CPU load + memory usage in the top is from an encrypted filesystem backup currently running
That's HipChat 2.1.1013 running on x64 in Vmware 10.0.2 w/ 8gb of a total of 32gb allocated. Oh yea, I'm doing nothing in HipChat, just idling in a single channel, with two inactive conversations with AFK people open. The chat window contains no animated GIFs or Youtube vids or anything wild either.
I've been strongly considering switching to using a regular XMPP client especially since feature creep seems to be be bringing features I don't want (video chat etc)
Edit: I should add the view is filtered, the CPU load + memory usage in the top is from an encrypted filesystem backup currently running
IRCCloud is nice and sits somewhere in the middle
HipChat is probably under fire from Slack. That's why I think they are making this change, because I just made the transition a few weeks ago and Slack has been amazing. Once you go Slack, you never go back.
The HipChat native client for OS X has been fantastic, plus there's an iOS client that pairs well with it, giving you push notifications for mentions.
It's not clear if Slack has this too.
It's not clear if Slack has this too.
Slack has nice native clients for OS X, Android and iOS too.
I wouldn't call the OS X client "native". Sure, it's an app, but it's just a wrapper around the web page.
True, but it has dock badges, native Notification Center notifications and keyboard shortcuts for navigating chat. That's close enough to native for me.
I'm still holding out to see if they add Linux and Windows client support. Until then, HipChat is the only option for us.
Why's that? I use Chrome Application Shortcuts for Slack and it essentially creates a task bar shortcut, and works with desktop notifications. It's currently missing background notifications, but aside from that, there's no appreciable differences between it and something truly "native client".
Chrome on Linux is barely usable most of the time. But having something that is native lets you do all the fun things you can do with native apps: auto-start at login, minimize to systray, alt-tab with nice icon, and so on.
Maybe Slack is different, but most rich web apps I've used ends up eating gobs of memory after prolonged usage.
Maybe Slack is different, but most rich web apps I've used ends up eating gobs of memory after prolonged usage.
OS X client appears to be wrapped HTML rather than native.
I wouldn't call Hipchat's OS X client native; it's Flash (Adobe Air). The Slack's desktop OS X and iOS apps, while they are html based, are an order of magnitude nicer to use.
I really liked slack but in the end we went for hipchat for a two main reasons.
1. It's 25% of the cost (although that has now shifted). This may not be a big deal for small teams but if you want to have 100 users on either service, the difference is between $2,400 a year or $9,600 a year. That's a big difference. 2. Hipchat has a self hosted option in the works which should be available within a month or two (per them). This is essential for any company that deals with potential PHI on their IM systems. Slack says they plan to offer a self hosted option but it's a long way out.
Those are two things slack just couldn't overcome, beyond the fact that I generally liked slack better (it's prettier, much better message searching, better integrations, etc). The fact that hipchat also has voice chat is a big plus too though we've not found it reliable. Presumably at some point it will get better though and make it a more valuable feature.
1. It's 25% of the cost (although that has now shifted). This may not be a big deal for small teams but if you want to have 100 users on either service, the difference is between $2,400 a year or $9,600 a year. That's a big difference. 2. Hipchat has a self hosted option in the works which should be available within a month or two (per them). This is essential for any company that deals with potential PHI on their IM systems. Slack says they plan to offer a self hosted option but it's a long way out.
Those are two things slack just couldn't overcome, beyond the fact that I generally liked slack better (it's prettier, much better message searching, better integrations, etc). The fact that hipchat also has voice chat is a big plus too though we've not found it reliable. Presumably at some point it will get better though and make it a more valuable feature.
Any thoughts/justifications for pricing? The only thing holding us back is that Slack costs 4x as much ($8 instead of $2). While this isn't a big spend at the end of the day, we're sort of anchored at $2. There's nothing terribly wrong with hipchat, seems to address all our (simple) chat needs, and switching to slack doesn't seem to give us 4x as much value.
So far the best reasoning I have is that we're a mostly-dev team, and that there's something for non-devs that is appealing in Slack, but surely it's not a prettier interface? I'm genuinely curious, as I'd like to justify switching to the prettier product. :)
So far the best reasoning I have is that we're a mostly-dev team, and that there's something for non-devs that is appealing in Slack, but surely it's not a prettier interface? I'm genuinely curious, as I'd like to justify switching to the prettier product. :)
This is a horrible way to think about it, slack doesn't need to deliver 4x the value, it just needs to deliver $6 worth of extra value per month.
Even at the very cheapest end of the spectrum, a developer is going to cost at least $60 an hour, fully loaded. If slack can make them 6 minutes more productive a month (ie: 12 seconds a day), then slack is worth it. These are productivity differences that aren't even measurable in practice which means the rational thing to do is to just be price insensitive and adopt the tool that works best, regardless of cost.
Even at the very cheapest end of the spectrum, a developer is going to cost at least $60 an hour, fully loaded. If slack can make them 6 minutes more productive a month (ie: 12 seconds a day), then slack is worth it. These are productivity differences that aren't even measurable in practice which means the rational thing to do is to just be price insensitive and adopt the tool that works best, regardless of cost.
It really depends on what you want to get out of chat
$2 is a good price to pay if your team chatting needs are minimal. But as your organization grows, especially if it starts to involve a larger team and projects with larger scope and interdependent pieces, your chat needs evolve into more of a communications need. In such cases it may be worth it to look into a more comprehensive chat tool since it gives you a much more powerful communications platform than your AIM or even email.
If a significant chunk of your company's discussion is taking place in chat rooms, it may be time to look into an upgrade.
You'd want something that gives you some standard next-gen functions: great global chat history search,video conferencing, screen sharing, markdown support, distributed team presence tracker, advanced noise management tools, dedicated integration efforts (integration to basic collaboration tools like asana, trello, etc should take minimal effort)
Keep in mind Slack is hardly the only other alternative in this game. Zapier gave a really good overview the other day, including Kato, who (full disclosure) I work for. https://zapier.com/blog/best-team-chat-app/
also @shalmanese makes a good point about justifying the cost.
If a significant chunk of your company's discussion is taking place in chat rooms, it may be time to look into an upgrade.
You'd want something that gives you some standard next-gen functions: great global chat history search,video conferencing, screen sharing, markdown support, distributed team presence tracker, advanced noise management tools, dedicated integration efforts (integration to basic collaboration tools like asana, trello, etc should take minimal effort)
Keep in mind Slack is hardly the only other alternative in this game. Zapier gave a really good overview the other day, including Kato, who (full disclosure) I work for. https://zapier.com/blog/best-team-chat-app/
also @shalmanese makes a good point about justifying the cost.
Slack has IRC gateway, so you can use irssi for company chat.
It might not be a big deal for you, but when we were briefly using Slack at previous company, I loved that I could just add it as another network to irssi.
It might not be a big deal for you, but when we were briefly using Slack at previous company, I loved that I could just add it as another network to irssi.
Unfortunately, the IRC gateway causes a bad experience, not so much for the people using IRC, but for the people using the real Slack client. Slack apparently doesn't recognize username mentions ("@joe123") coming from IRC, so everyone needs to add their username to their list of highlight words so that the team members using IRC can mention them.
One could use Bitlbee to connect irssi (or any other irc client) to a jabber server and not only.
http://www.bitlbee.org/main.php/news.r.html
http://www.bitlbee.org/main.php/news.r.html
Yes. The integrations. https://slack.com/integrations
This isn't the usual "host your own server" integration. All Slack asks for are credentials for services you use and it seamlessly integrates into an assigned chat room (channel). My CEO did it for the startup I work at and in ten minutes from signup we had: Github, Trello, New Relic, Twitter, and Stripe all integrated.
This isn't the usual "host your own server" integration. All Slack asks for are credentials for services you use and it seamlessly integrates into an assigned chat room (channel). My CEO did it for the startup I work at and in ten minutes from signup we had: Github, Trello, New Relic, Twitter, and Stripe all integrated.
Hipchat does that too
edit: To clarify, we run github freshdesk and jenkins integrations. I'm sure there's plenty more. From what I recall it works in a similar way too.
edit: To clarify, we run github freshdesk and jenkins integrations. I'm sure there's plenty more. From what I recall it works in a similar way too.
Can't speak to all of them, but the Github integration with Slack is better than HipChat. The messages are more useful and easier to customize.
Our 6 person team started using Slack a few weeks ago and we love it. Particularly great - awesome mobile integration.
Can we run multiple organizations from the same client of Slack? That and an ability to refer to a specific comment/message (like Flowdock's threaded messages) are two things that can make me switch from Hipchat.
Honestly I can't imagine how we ever used HipChat. The Linux client is abysmal, and the IRC/Jabber integration is also terrible.
Slack is really the best I've seen.
Slack is really the best I've seen.
Does slack have native clients yet? And by native I mean a native application not a thin wrapper for a browser.
Is there an inherent reason to dislike a thin wrapper around a web app? The Slack OS X app is that, but it doesn't have any problems that are caused by being a wrapped web app.
Yeah, the Android native version is amazing. I know there's an ios one too.
The Android version has not been amazing for me. It crashes several times a day, switching rooms is clumsy and slow, and the push notifications arrive minutes after I've already replied to a message, so the phone is constantly buzzing for things I've already replied.
Additionally, there's no native Windows client.
Additionally, there's no native Windows client.
Would you mind linking to the competing service you mention, or perhaps a review of it? I've been advocating for Hipchat but haven't seen Slack yet.
https://slack.com/
We switched from HipChat recently, so far it's working fine. The only thing we miss are cross team notifications, but apparently they are working on it (can't find the link at the moment).
We switched from HipChat recently, so far it's working fine. The only thing we miss are cross team notifications, but apparently they are working on it (can't find the link at the moment).
@alexcroox can't reply directly for some reason, hopefully you'll see this.
It's possible, see https://slack.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connec... for more details. You'll lose the history though. We've been using native clients more or less, all are working fine.
It's possible, see https://slack.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connec... for more details. You'll lose the history though. We've been using native clients more or less, all are working fine.
Does it integrate with 3rd party chat clients like Adium or are you forced to have their tab/client open too?
Since I've only dabbled with it I can't provide a proper review, but the link is https://slack.com/
If you communicate with more than one team (different emails), I'd look into Hall. It's chat, text, file-sharing on all your devices. Hall.com
Here's a small review of how we use Slack at our company: http://hoistapps.com/blog/tools-we-love-slack/
tl;dr: it's awesome
tl;dr: it's awesome
Not the OP, but here's a link: https://slack.com/
I've used it, and it seems pretty good, but I don't have enough time behind the wheel to provide a review.
I've used it, and it seems pretty good, but I don't have enough time behind the wheel to provide a review.
www.google.com
We were diehard HipChat users at my company, then one day I discovered Slack.com. Within a week it was our dominant messaging platform, not least because we could invite the entire company to use it for free (instead of just the development team).
From a product design standpoint, Slack is streets ahead of the conservative HipChat.
From a product design standpoint, Slack is streets ahead of the conservative HipChat.
Similar for me and mine. We ran out of free users, hired a new guy and couldn't add him in. Someone else suggested Slack, and until this announcement, haven't looked back.
I disagree. We tried Slack on our 26-person team and left it after a week. It had a few fans, but most people found the interface to be more complex and noisy than HipChat. Lots of red icons and blue banners that could not be disabled. No ability to see at a glance who is in a room without clicking the list and scrolling through it. The integrations were nice and the search was amazing, but those things were less important to us than the frictionless communication tools, which HipChat has nailed. Additionally, Slack lacks a distinction between @all and @here, which is frustrating when you want to announce something in a room without emailing everyone present.
Slack's blue "unread messages" banner should be a deal-breaker. I feel like I spend 10% of my day clicking around on Slack trying to get all the channels to realize I have read all their messages. It's such an insane usability nightmare that I can't believe any person or team seriously building a chat app would implement it.
I asked Slack and they told me how to fix it:
Escape closes the blue banner for the current channel.
Shift-Escape closes that blue banner for all channels.
Escape closes the blue banner for the current channel.
Shift-Escape closes that blue banner for all channels.
Yeah, that was their response to my ticket as well. Shift-Escape saves some time, but it's still a useless feature that provides nothing but annoyance.
Similar story. I really liked Slack and the integrations are fantastic, but the UI has way too much going on and the lack of a native Windos client meant even just deploying the app is a hassle. The mobile client has menus that slide from left, right, and top last I checked. I told them they'd have had my business easily if they had a one click windows install and an optional Dummy Mode I could turn on for users by default that makes it work like a simple irc client.
I went to HipChat instead but it's got its own problems. Weirdly you can choose to get notifications for all rooms you're in or none of them, but nothing in between. Very frustrating.
I went to HipChat instead but it's got its own problems. Weirdly you can choose to get notifications for all rooms you're in or none of them, but nothing in between. Very frustrating.
You can connect to Slack through any IRC client, check your settings.
My goal is to make make setup and support easy for my users, some of whom are remote and most of whom have never heard of IRC. I don't literally want to deploy a bunch of mIRC clients.
(That said, if I did it over again I might pick Slack over HipChat. The integrations with e.g. Github really are that much better.)
(That said, if I did it over again I might pick Slack over HipChat. The integrations with e.g. Github really are that much better.)
We just made the switch and I'm in agreement-- too noisy to be a serious tool.
But there is an all/here distinction-- just named everyone/channel.
But there is an all/here distinction-- just named everyone/channel.
everyone/channel is similar but not the same.
In HipChat, you can be in a room but you won't get notifications if people mention "@here" while you're idle. With Slack, this isn't possible; you would get email notifications for all of the rooms you're in every time "@channel" is mentioned. Furthermore, "@everyone" can only be used in the primary chat room, not others.
In HipChat, you can be in a room but you won't get notifications if people mention "@here" while you're idle. With Slack, this isn't possible; you would get email notifications for all of the rooms you're in every time "@channel" is mentioned. Furthermore, "@everyone" can only be used in the primary chat room, not others.
I wrote this:
https://github.com/cjbarber/hipchat-alternatives/
I while back.
This move by HipChat makes me happy.
I've attempted to move over, but HipChat is far superior for my needs.
https://github.com/cjbarber/hipchat-alternatives/
I while back.
This move by HipChat makes me happy.
I've attempted to move over, but HipChat is far superior for my needs.
You could add: https://jabbr.net , it's opensource, so people could customize it (it's on the .Net platform)
I think there is @everyone and @channel.
It's not the same. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7807003
They are definitely feeling pressure as users are demanding and expecting more from their communication tools. Slack's done a good job at bringing more to the table, but we're really just at the start of a renaissance in business communication.
If you think about "chat" in generations, you started with IRC, AIM (which is still used in many companies) and then came HipChat. Not much development there for a couple years so Slack put some lipstick on the last generation of chat product. There's a whole new class of communication platforms being developed now that are taking things even further, by enabling true cross-company communication (meaning both internal & external), things like customer support integrated with internal team communication, etc.
If you think about "chat" in generations, you started with IRC, AIM (which is still used in many companies) and then came HipChat. Not much development there for a couple years so Slack put some lipstick on the last generation of chat product. There's a whole new class of communication platforms being developed now that are taking things even further, by enabling true cross-company communication (meaning both internal & external), things like customer support integrated with internal team communication, etc.
We were looking for something better than campfire and tested slack and flowdock. Settled with flowdock, which in my opinion is much better, but is less hyped.
Is HipChat really a good thing? Constant distractions all day means I get nothing done, so I'm pretty much against any kind of constant stream of communication when you're trying to think. Call me crazy.
On to the service itself:
I can't join in on my client's conversation without creating a whole new account with a different email address. Annoying and incredibly short-sighted. I know that the people over at HipChat never work with anyone outside of their office, but unfortunately this is not the case for most people.
Honestly, I can get an IRC server up and running in the time it takes to get a HipChat account activated. It's annoying that so many people are hyping HipChat, as if it were some groundbreaking thing.
On to the service itself:
I can't join in on my client's conversation without creating a whole new account with a different email address. Annoying and incredibly short-sighted. I know that the people over at HipChat never work with anyone outside of their office, but unfortunately this is not the case for most people.
Honestly, I can get an IRC server up and running in the time it takes to get a HipChat account activated. It's annoying that so many people are hyping HipChat, as if it were some groundbreaking thing.
We use hipchat because previously the constant distraction was somebody walking up to your desk to ask a question. I can disable notifications and somebody can wait for me to respond via hipchat.
There are still desk-walking drive-byers, though far fewer.
There are still desk-walking drive-byers, though far fewer.
Flowdock has pretty much the same functionality, and supports multiple organizations with one login. https://www.flowdock.com/
The way we used it. There was a dev+qa channel and a dev+support channel with no one above tech leads in either group and it replaced Skype for a lot of work the devs did with support. Though we ultimately didn't use it beyond the trial period the key value driver for us was that a dev could step into an ongoing issue and get a of context very quickly even if they didn't have HipChat running. This means that as an IC you don't need to have the client running when you are "trying to think". That, along with the lack of management types in the communication flow meant that it was minimally distracting and mostly used as intended.
You can do pretty much the same thing with IRC, but getting HipChat set up on peoples PCs and phones is dead simple which is nice when you are dealing with remote QA and support teams.
You can do pretty much the same thing with IRC, but getting HipChat set up on peoples PCs and phones is dead simple which is nice when you are dealing with remote QA and support teams.
With IRC, you need a bouncer (e.g. znc) to get the functionality of seeing history without having the client open (and technically the bouncer is just the open client).
I totally agree with new account with new account with a different email address problem. Apart from that one big issue I've is privacy. As such admins can't see private messages, however since you will be registered to HipChat with your organizational email the admins can just reset your email password followed by Hipchat and eventually see all your private messages. I've seen this happen.
Slack surely is putting HipChat on its toes. Competition is really good.
I use and enjoy HipChat. The feature I love about it is the ability to temporarily invite someone (edit: a non organization person) to a room.
It would be nice if it was possible to have it open all day and have it like an IRC. It would be perfect for having support rooms for an app.
One thing i'd like HipChat to improve on is the timeout that happens to their desktop app. As long as it is open, I do not want to have to "reconnect".
Nice one guys. And Nice one Slack. Surely, no slackers.
I use and enjoy HipChat. The feature I love about it is the ability to temporarily invite someone (edit: a non organization person) to a room.
It would be nice if it was possible to have it open all day and have it like an IRC. It would be perfect for having support rooms for an app.
One thing i'd like HipChat to improve on is the timeout that happens to their desktop app. As long as it is open, I do not want to have to "reconnect".
Nice one guys. And Nice one Slack. Surely, no slackers.
> The feature I love about it is the ability to invite someone to a room.
Which really means that you can force people into a room, and there's no way to say "leave this room and don't let anyone force me back into it."
Which really means that you can force people into a room, and there's no way to say "leave this room and don't let anyone force me back into it."
> The feature I love about it is the ability to invite someone to a room.
Wow. Groundbreaking stuff here. There were chatroom perl scripts in 1998 that did this.
Wow. Groundbreaking stuff here. There were chatroom perl scripts in 1998 that did this.
> It would be nice if it was possible to have it open all day and have it like an IRC. It would be perfect for having support rooms for an app.
You can do this. Intercom.io are an example of someone who does - this is their help desk for new customer setup https://www.hipchat.com/gAstw61gT
You can do this. Intercom.io are an example of someone who does - this is their help desk for new customer setup https://www.hipchat.com/gAstw61gT
This is awesome, we've been paying $100+/month for our company but never use video chat or screen share (nor did we want them) and have turned off history retention since day 1. Sounds like we can downgrade and pay nothing now.
We use HipChat at work, and I use Slack for some other projects; both pale in comparison to the simplicity, flexibility and client-options of IRC. But for those less technical it's a fantastic and easy to setup alternative. Pointless in an all-dev company, but anywhere else, priceless.
> both pale in comparison to the simplicity, flexibility and client-options of IRC
I can definitely agree on the flexibility part, but simplicity? No way. HipChat is easy enough for our completely non-technical users to be quite comfortable with immediately. The setup process is entering a username and a password. Ditto for the mobile apps.
I love IRC, but it's a very different thing.
I can definitely agree on the flexibility part, but simplicity? No way. HipChat is easy enough for our completely non-technical users to be quite comfortable with immediately. The setup process is entering a username and a password. Ditto for the mobile apps.
I love IRC, but it's a very different thing.
I've set up an IRC server before and tried convincing a moderately technical team to install Colloquy and jump on. I will happily trade the features of Slack or HipChat for the simplicity of IRC. Persistent rooms alone (with zero config, no bouncers, etc) is worthwhile over vanilla IRC.
I've found Video Chat to be pretty terrible. I find it weird to market that as the upsell. Most of the time, we give up with Hipchat Video and switch to a Google Hangout.
I think their video chat is or was recently in beta. I imagine their biggest upsell in their 'HipChat Plus' package is searchable history which is a pretty important feature.
Just moved our team to slack as well. Has definitely been a better experience.
I think they should learn from Slack and make all the integrations at least as awesome as them, and also have some kind of more modern interface.
Reminder: https://blog.hipchat.com/2014/04/25/hey-were-changing-our-te... and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7649524
Garret from HipChat here. The previous discussion on this topic made a lot of assumptions about this change, so I'd like to quote some additional detail from our help doc (http://help.hipchat.com/knowledgebase/articles/358098) before the same happens here;
In order for an organization to access 1-1 chats occurring
after May 27, 2014 or later, the organization will need to
make a request by emailing [email protected]. As stated
in the HipChat-specific terms, the requesting entity must
have consent from their affected users in order to obtain
access to those users' 1-1 chat history. The typical way
that an entity would have the right to access employee
communications is through the entity's employee policy.
It is standard practice among businesses to state in their
policies that the employer has the right to access
communications occurring on workplace systems. You should
speak with your employer if you have questions about their
specific data access policies.>The typical way that an entity would have the right to access employee communications is through the entity's employee policy.
It's nice of you to drop into this thread, but it's exactly as bad people assumed.
If I was an employer and I didn't cover this sort of breach of privacy in my employee policy, and someone at Atlassian bothered to ask (I'm sure that Atlassian invests in lawyers to vet each submitted request), I'd just add the language to the policy document and fire it off.
It's nice of you to drop into this thread, but it's exactly as bad people assumed.
If I was an employer and I didn't cover this sort of breach of privacy in my employee policy, and someone at Atlassian bothered to ask (I'm sure that Atlassian invests in lawyers to vet each submitted request), I'd just add the language to the policy document and fire it off.
My commendations on how you guys handled this and how well you notified the user base of the change.
So what? If your company ever used Openfire/Spark or any sorts of private IM services they're able to view private messages. Some of you act like this is some mind blowing travesty. You should expect the possibility of your company monitoring their services and communications.
Personally, I'm against their binding arbitration clause. This is a good reference. http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/arbitration-clauses-c...
This was the reason my company moved to Slack. There's no way for our boss to turn off the ability to read our PMs, so there's no way for us to know he's not.
No one in the company wants this—we expect PMs to be private.
No one in the company wants this—we expect PMs to be private.
I was concerned too and sent an email to the HipChat team. They responded nearly immediately and updated the original HN post.
To be able to see "private" communications, the manager would have to send an email to hipchat to request certain access. See above for the exact terms.
To be able to see "private" communications, the manager would have to send an email to hipchat to request certain access. See above for the exact terms.
I just recently compared Slack and Hipchat and Slack seems to be the more advanced of the two at this point.
The magic bullet in collaborative chat like this seems to be presence awareness. We used to use GTalk for this but since moving to hangouts we can't ever tell who is at there desk when we need them.
Here's to hoping one of them gets it right; especially when you install on your desktop and your mobile device.
The magic bullet in collaborative chat like this seems to be presence awareness. We used to use GTalk for this but since moving to hangouts we can't ever tell who is at there desk when we need them.
Here's to hoping one of them gets it right; especially when you install on your desktop and your mobile device.
My biggest issue with HipChat is the inability to run multiple organizations on the same client. The video and audio "premium" features are really a terrible idea as there's Skype, Google Hangouts, UberConference, and similar for that and they are free and core businesses and Atlassian cannot and should not attempt to compete with those!
Have you tried http://Kato.im ? They're the only product which supports multiple organizations in the same client -- and it's done in a really powerful way that doesn't force you to switch between orgs. You could have one or four open and still communicate effectively.
There's isn't much info about it - not even a single screenshot.
http://www.appvita.com/2014/04/29/kato-leverage-group-commun...
http://blog.kato.im/
I guess the website is still getting redesigned ;)
http://blog.kato.im/
I guess the website is still getting redesigned ;)
"multiple organizations on the same client" - that would be a super addition. HipChat ultimately could be used both as a business tool (esp. for contractors) and also a personal closed environment network communication tool.
Yup! This would even put Skype to shame as you can separate personal from business. It also works for people who work on different projects part time, so, you don't have to remember to log out to log in. :)
My company uses HipChat, and my group has been liking the video & audio features. My company also uses gmail & the google suite and traditionally it's always been a pain when trying to do a hangout chat w/ someone who hasn't done it before. Need to download some plugin, install something, blah blah. Not to mention that there are about 58.3 different ways of initiating a video chat w/ someone via google.
Since they've added the video chatting, we've been loving it. There's a single button to click, it Just Works, etc.
Since they've added the video chatting, we've been loving it. There's a single button to click, it Just Works, etc.
I'd love to see multiple organisations also. I think the problem's only going to get worse now that HipChat is free- why wouldn't different work teams etc. adopt it?
See comments above... there are apps that let you have multiple organizations
We moved from HipChat to Slack. HipChat desktop clients on OSX were crashing all the time. Most notably after waking up from a suspend. Slack is much more stable. The transition was pretty smooth.
I don't get the point of HipChat. It's a closed, proprietary Jabber server, with closed-source clients, intentionally no OTR support but the explicit ability to spy one-on-one conversations instead.
And people used to pay for that?
And people used to pay for that?
I haven't used Slack, but I've used all sorts of xmpp/jabber servers such as Openfire, generic jabberd, etc. Hipchat blows those away. I can quickly see what links and files I've posted or have been posted to me. I can open unlimited rooms, invite members to them and if I have a new employee start all I need to do is make them an account and they have everyones contact information. We previously used g-chat which was an absolute pain. Half of the employees I have on gchat I have their personal emails.
And it was about $3/mo per user. Not bad at all.
And it was about $3/mo per user. Not bad at all.
We pay for HipChat because it makes team communication easy and painless on every device our employees own.
I'm sorry, I don't speak marketing. Care to translate what you just said for us non-initiated?
Which words are you having trouble with? That's pretty straight forward, but I'm assuming you're wanting to know more about the across devices thing... This is actually one of my favorite features. Their system keeps track of where you're logged in from and whether you're active or idle on that platform, then if you are sent 1-1 messages or mentioned in a room it will find you, delivering to a computer client first, then push notifications, then email--which is really valuable for us.
>it makes team communication easy and painless on every device our employees own
Is this sentence really that hard to understand?
Is this sentence really that hard to understand?
Team communication: Teams need to interact in a variety of different ways: public groups/private groups, fixed groups/ad-hoc groups, groups/1-2-1. HipChat supports a variety of different ways of interacting, and does so in a way that's easy to use.
People nowadays use a variety of different devices (and classes of device). HipChat has a range of native clients, plus a web based one, and so can be used on most of the devices that people want to use it on.
(We use Slack, but I've tried and liked HipChat too)
Not everyone needs open-source tweakable tools, and siloing private conversations into an OTR capable client isn't that weird. Hipchat worked great when I convinced TC to switch to it back in the day - I've had less luck with NBC, which still uses Campfire. Not everything needs to cross every t and dot every i — if it works for the people who use it and people are comfortable with it, what's the problem?
Yeah bro, chill out. Not every product needs to 'work' or be 'good'.
Yes, you clearly don't get the point.
A functioning business doesn't want to arse around setting up a Jabber server, building integration with Jira, creating clients optimised for group IM, or that sort of thing. It's not impossible to do, but it takes time and other resources.
On the other hand, we can use Hipchat - it works pretty well, integrates with anything we want, and somebody else is doing the development work. It's an obvious win.
A functioning business doesn't want to arse around setting up a Jabber server, building integration with Jira, creating clients optimised for group IM, or that sort of thing. It's not impossible to do, but it takes time and other resources.
On the other hand, we can use Hipchat - it works pretty well, integrates with anything we want, and somebody else is doing the development work. It's an obvious win.
What exactly do you mean by 'spy'?
Edit: Looks like OP was referring to this: https://blog.hipchat.com/2014/04/25/hey-were-changing-our-te...
Edit: Looks like OP was referring to this: https://blog.hipchat.com/2014/04/25/hey-were-changing-our-te...
Probably because it integrates with Jira/Confluence/Bitbucket and because it "Just Works". Sure we could do all that stuff with irc or whatever open source tools but that costs development hours which costs money, or we could just use something that it extremely cheap(or free if you don't want video chat) and works great with no effort on our part.
I agree with you, but current open source alternatives (XMPP and it's clients) are lacking really good clients for the osx/ios/android/linux/windows/web which share some common functionality (embedding images, videos, keeping a tab of sent files, search, ...).
I would give money for somebody to work on this problem and open source it.
I would give money for somebody to work on this problem and open source it.
Still do. Point me at the Jabber server that gives us cross platform/device group and individual IM, easy integration, it's hosted elsewhere so if our work network is ever hosed we can still communicate and doesn't require any mucking around to set up. No?
I know it sounds ridiculous but for me the one thing HipChat's got over Slack is the ability to have custom emoticons https://blog.hipchat.com/2012/05/21/custom-emoticons-everywh.... Admittedly we use it mainly for banter and fun but its a sticky feature currently keeping me migrating over to Slack...
Slack lets you add custom emoji too: https://twitter.com/SlackHQ/status/437028458627989504
Oh cool, thanks I missed that update
This is possible in slack: https://twitter.com/SlackHQ/status/437028458627989504
It's not ridiculous. People like eye candy! And even pay for it (stickers and other ridiculous things)!
You can setup custom emojis in Slack!
I wonder if this has at least a little bit to do with the recent post about HackerChat [1], since even though it wasn't by the people at Slack themselves, but by someone else (Gianluca and Steven), it's pretty much a very good way to get the word out about Slack. I actually couldn't think of a better way than what HackerChat did to show to developers, entrepreneurs and people that would need such tool "Here's how it works!". I don't think any landing page can do that.
I think it's what some smaller businesses might do, or some people applying for a job: look what the startup/client does or needs, make something that's relevant to demo your skills/features and show it to them.
[1]: http://hackerchat.co/
I think it's what some smaller businesses might do, or some people applying for a job: look what the startup/client does or needs, make something that's relevant to demo your skills/features and show it to them.
[1]: http://hackerchat.co/
People are making the valid comparison of Hipchat and Slack, which is to be expected. But, this is a deeper move by Atlassian.
Atlassian's business model is still "All roads lead to JIRA/Confluence." It's why so many of their products are free. This isn't as much a Hipchat v. Slack/IRC/Google/Campfire move, as adding another road to JIRA.
Atlassian's business model is still "All roads lead to JIRA/Confluence." It's why so many of their products are free. This isn't as much a Hipchat v. Slack/IRC/Google/Campfire move, as adding another road to JIRA.
What absolutely killed HipChat for our team was the fact that its not possible to use HipChat for multiple teams. Need to be logged into multiple accounts at the same time (i.e your own team and your client's team)? Not possible.
Their suggested solution is to use multiple different clients (i.e. one native, one browser) at the same time, which is beyond ridiculous.
I dont think that I have seen any uservoice votes above 6000 for any other product request before (see http://help.hipchat.com/forums/138883-suggestions-ideas/sugg...).
With no solution in sight, moving to slack or flowdock was a no brainer.
Their suggested solution is to use multiple different clients (i.e. one native, one browser) at the same time, which is beyond ridiculous.
I dont think that I have seen any uservoice votes above 6000 for any other product request before (see http://help.hipchat.com/forums/138883-suggestions-ideas/sugg...).
With no solution in sight, moving to slack or flowdock was a no brainer.
For anyone else running into the same problem, I just copied my HipChat.app in /Applications, and ran the second hipchat next to the first hipchat (you can also change the second hipchat's icon for easy distinguishment). It's not perfect (upon logout/restart it still remembers the preferences for the other instance), but it solved 90% of my hassle.
This has been driving me crazy for months, I had one version of the old buggy Adobe Air app running and one of the new Native app. Somehow just creating a copy of the new native app just never occurred to me. You just made my day substantially better.
You can also do in the terminal:
hipchat --detach &Or for even any app:
open -n /path/to/application.app
-n Open a new instance of the application(s) even if one is already running.That's smart. But still, it's crazy that something like multiple organizations would require you to do this on your end. There are better options out there :)
I just switched our team to JIRA for this exact reason. We were already on Bitbucket for repos and using Sourcetree for git access, so might as well get issue tracking from the same place.
Honestly my feelings on it are mixed so far. Doing a "good" job of administering projects and issues seems to have a pretty steep learning curve if you want to use more than about 10% of JIRA's functionality.
Honestly my feelings on it are mixed so far. Doing a "good" job of administering projects and issues seems to have a pretty steep learning curve if you want to use more than about 10% of JIRA's functionality.
Basic ticket management is easy to get going. Users of the system can also mostly get away dragging tickets between status and logging some work as long as the Greenhopper plugin is turned on.
JIRAs biggest win is integration with so many other tools. Bitbucket is an obvious one, but then 3rd party tools like bugsnag will auto-create tickets for any snags your app issues.
JIRAs biggest win is integration with so many other tools. Bitbucket is an obvious one, but then 3rd party tools like bugsnag will auto-create tickets for any snags your app issues.
Doing a "good" job of administering projects and issues seems to have a pretty steep learning curve if you want to use more than about 10% of JIRA's functionality.
That's why I like Youtrack more. It's far less complex and driven by search plus keyboard shortcuts.
That's why I like Youtrack more. It's far less complex and driven by search plus keyboard shortcuts.
The beauty of Slack, IMO, is in the nice integrations with everything I already use. Does Hipchat/JIRA/Confluence do that? (I honestly don't know)
For a small team, there's no reason (for us at least) to move away from Trello, GitHub issues, etc.
For a small team, there's no reason (for us at least) to move away from Trello, GitHub issues, etc.
HipChat has a nice API that allows us to shoot notifications from TribeHR, our Linux production boxes, code commits, Salesforce, etc. to our company-wide channels. It's a nice communication tool to use to keep the whole team on the same page.
The integrations that Atlassian tools provide are optimized for large businesses. One bill, SSO, bulk administration of users, etc. From a usability perspective, I'm not a fan of the Atlassian platform over other stacks, but they cater to the people who tend to call the shots.
HipChat integrates with Jira/Confluence/BitBucket/Bamboo et al. It is the only reason we are using it vs a host of tools sticky taped together with different interfaces.
As your team growths you will see the value in having a single unified set of tools that cover a majority of your needs vs a host of different tools chained together each providing a different experience, education and logins.
As your team growths you will see the value in having a single unified set of tools that cover a majority of your needs vs a host of different tools chained together each providing a different experience, education and logins.
Yes, sorta. http://help.hipchat.com/knowledgebase/topics/10037-integrati...
It's a shorter list and the Slack ones might be just better.
It's a shorter list and the Slack ones might be just better.
[deleted]
Does Slack support local hosting?
Yep, and that's not a bad thing. I'm not convinced that there would be much of a profitable market for a group chat tool, but if it convinces a couple of organisations to look more closely a Jira, then it's worth it for them.
Do you guys worry about confidentiality with these services?
Yes. Every company I've worked for that had established (read not startups/not tiny) companies as customers could never use any thing like this due to contracts saying we won't be storing/transmitting their "stuff" on servers we do not control. [everyone hand waves email delivery but we can't use something like gmail].
These are tools for small / startup companies were you need something to just work and don't have resources to spend on anything but getting "established".
These are tools for small / startup companies were you need something to just work and don't have resources to spend on anything but getting "established".
They have a behind the firewall version of hipchat for security concious corp customers.
That's pretty much what happened with us. We ended up rolling our own thing and deploying it on our VPN with LDAP authentication: https://github.com/sdelements/lets-chat
It's been working pretty nicely.
It's been working pretty nicely.
They do offer an internal hipchat server as a beta: https://www.hipchat.com/server Not total confidentiality but better.
Hard to imagine that Google isn't going to weigh in soon with its own offering.
We just use Hangouts and everything integrated into Google Apps. What is the advantage here?
Hangouts are really annoying for persistent rooms that others can join and leave at will. We found we had lots of different combinations of people in different hangouts, and the conversations were really fragmented.
We use hangouts for group video, and hipchat for everything else.
We use hangouts for group video, and hipchat for everything else.
I'm still with Slack. Can't make a webhook with HipChat, it shouldn't be hard this much.
It feels like they are pulling a amazon, ala diapers.com fiasco. *
Only issue is, they are doing it to their core business vs amazon who was doing it with just one segment and could afford to cannibalize profits in that sector
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/10/amazon_bo...
Only issue is, they are doing it to their core business vs amazon who was doing it with just one segment and could afford to cannibalize profits in that sector
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/10/amazon_bo...
It would seem that you don't know much about Atlassian, JIRA and Confluence is their core business, not HipChat.
We switched to Flowdock and never looked back. The SNR advantages of the integrated conversation threads and "email-like" inbox model are amazing. I never knew what I was missing with IRC/hipchat.
Same here. We "inbox" everything from support, to social media shares, some analytics, as well as code pushes. Love the way Flowdock handles those items and lets you make reference to them while talking in the main thread.
Yep - the way that flowdock handles multiple "flows" and the nice simple interface was the selling point for us. Slack has a bit of a nasty interface that is just not "clean" enough.
I came here to say exactly this. Flowdock is my favorite groupware chat I have used so far.
Two questions, if I may:
What are HipChat's advantages over other chat services?
What's a good, mainstream-ish, secure/encrypted chat service?
What are HipChat's advantages over other chat services?
What's a good, mainstream-ish, secure/encrypted chat service?
[deleted]
I wonder what the hosted pricing will be when it comes out of beta. At my work we will not even entertain something that cannot be hosted by us.
Hipchat has saved 3 members of our 15 man team countless hours by integrating it into our workflow.
I if slack could be self hosted I would consider it but Hipchat has our support.
I if slack could be self hosted I would consider it but Hipchat has our support.
Has anyone checked out Hall? It's chat, text, and file-sharing for teams. Free for teams for an unlimited time. But with the added bonus of being able to talk with ANYONE from ANY email address, instead of switching in and out of teams like on Slack. Try it out: hall.com
That's great HipChat. Now can you do emoji autocomplete?
Last I tried HipChat, it was a terrible experience simply because I wanted to not run yet another application and instead use Adium. They do support XMPP but to get it working you have to do magic. After I did the magic, I had chat up and running but lo and behold: file transfers did not work. Thankfully, this is when our team decided the experiment was over. We went back to using IRC. What fundamental problem do these new chat protocols solve that are not already addressed by IRC and XMPP?
HipChat is incredible compared to IRC.
Out of the box you get:
Edit: And custom emoticons. Can't forget those. That's the best part of HipChat.
Out of the box you get:
1. 1-on-1 messaging
2. Private and public chat rooms
3. A client that works on mobile, desktop, and web.
No matter where I am, I'm connected to my team.
4. Persistent and searchable history.
5. Real-time notifications if someone mentions
you while offline.
6. You can copy and paste screenshots directly into
the room. We use this all of the time for gui
mockup discussions.
7. Integration with most online services like
GitHub, etc...
8. Easy file transfers.
9. No servers to manage.
10. Easy user management.
11. Video calls.
12. Voice calls.
13. Screen sharing.
Edit: And custom emoticons. Can't forget those. That's the best part of HipChat.
Some of those are legitimate points, but quite a few apply equally to IRC. Namely, 1, 2, 3, and 9.
I've found using hipchat with coworkers to be much nicer than using XMPP with coworkers mostly for it being closer to IRC: there are rooms where most discussion takes place, so you can get to know people by lurking there, and when you need to 1:1 message someone, you probably have some context about who they are, which makes a world of difference to an introverted new hire. The realtime team-wide chat just makes everything feel much more friendly, imho.
I'm sure it's possible to get that setup with XMPP, and it's definitely possible to get an equivalent setup with IRC (which I have an external server running ZNC for), but it's not out of the box, and there is something to be said for having a good configuration set up and working for everyone out of the box.
I'm sure it's possible to get that setup with XMPP, and it's definitely possible to get an equivalent setup with IRC (which I have an external server running ZNC for), but it's not out of the box, and there is something to be said for having a good configuration set up and working for everyone out of the box.
Persistence. It's nice to be able to see what conversations you missed while offline or overnight, especially if you have teammates distributed across the globe.
Persistence also allows you to search through or link people to old conversations.
Persistence also allows you to search through or link people to old conversations.
Overnight is covered by leaving a client running, with logging. Offline is covered by using a BNC[0]. These solutions are years old, but perhaps less user-friendly than hipchat.
There are a plethora of IRC clients to choose from one various platforms, but there's only the one hipchat. IRC is also an open protocol.
So, hipchat's only real chance is trying to be the Apple of IRC--they must nail UX and marketing to the tech-hapless to have a real chance.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNC_(software)
There are a plethora of IRC clients to choose from one various platforms, but there's only the one hipchat. IRC is also an open protocol.
So, hipchat's only real chance is trying to be the Apple of IRC--they must nail UX and marketing to the tech-hapless to have a real chance.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNC_(software)
That's pseudo-persistence, and it's only as stable as the client or bouncer. HipChat and Slack provide actual, stateless history, so you can reboot, logout, sign in from a mobile device, whatever, and pick up where you left off, with notifications in the meanwhile.
irc is great for a company that consists solely of developers + devops who've been bearding it up for 10+ years.
however, for the rest of the world, if you work with a non-dev team (think sales, marketing, customer support), you will really frustrate them when you tell them: "the question you just asked was answered at 3am last night, if you just scrollback..."
...god forbid you lose power (like san francisco in a heat wave last week)
or you could just choose to really frustrate your IT person(s) by telling them they need to install and maintain irc clients + bncs across multiple operating systems for your users, that automatically start up and join the right channels when the user logs in.
or you could just frustrate all of your mobile users by draining their battery (and potentially their data plan) by telling them to stay connected to irc 24/7 from their phones via a mobile irc client, or hold a companywide training session on how to install an ssh client + screen-reattach + navigate irssi from a touchscreen phone.
or you could further frustrate your users by telling them irssi includes search as long as they learn the syntax of /lastlog.
i'm not even going to touch screenshots.
user-friendly > neckbeard.
pay the $X/mo per user for slack/hipchat
-versus-
paying $XX to $XXX/hour per user to provide them with the requisite knowledge foundation and ongoing support to use your arcane chat methodology that hates noobs.
however, for the rest of the world, if you work with a non-dev team (think sales, marketing, customer support), you will really frustrate them when you tell them: "the question you just asked was answered at 3am last night, if you just scrollback..."
...god forbid you lose power (like san francisco in a heat wave last week)
or you could just choose to really frustrate your IT person(s) by telling them they need to install and maintain irc clients + bncs across multiple operating systems for your users, that automatically start up and join the right channels when the user logs in.
or you could just frustrate all of your mobile users by draining their battery (and potentially their data plan) by telling them to stay connected to irc 24/7 from their phones via a mobile irc client, or hold a companywide training session on how to install an ssh client + screen-reattach + navigate irssi from a touchscreen phone.
or you could further frustrate your users by telling them irssi includes search as long as they learn the syntax of /lastlog.
i'm not even going to touch screenshots.
user-friendly > neckbeard.
pay the $X/mo per user for slack/hipchat
-versus-
paying $XX to $XXX/hour per user to provide them with the requisite knowledge foundation and ongoing support to use your arcane chat methodology that hates noobs.
We've had chat + persistence for decades, and called it email (or perhaps usenet or listserv, for groups).
So XMPP lets you do this too. Why invent a new protocol?
Because a company feels there is money to be made by offering a simpler solution to interested customers.
Does every product really need a technical justification? If every person at your company is comfortable setting up email clients, IRC bots, and bouncers, then this isn't a product for you.
If you would rather just pay someone $2/person/month to set this up for you, then this is the product for you.
Does every product really need a technical justification? If every person at your company is comfortable setting up email clients, IRC bots, and bouncers, then this isn't a product for you.
If you would rather just pay someone $2/person/month to set this up for you, then this is the product for you.
It needs some kind of justification, otherwise it will die. HipChat being offered for free may extend it's life, but I still don't see a point. Everyone has access to GChat, so 99% of the problems are already solved. The dev shops would probably rather use IRC especially since the experience for power users is so terrible. That does not leave room for HipChat in this world.
My company just moved from a GChat-centric XMPP system to an all-in HipChat system. We don't have Google Apps because we have our own Exchange server, so not everyone gets a sane email address that can also be used as their GChat handle, so we've all relegated to using personal or work-specific personal Gmail accounts.
Just last week we onboarded a new developer and instead of having to spread her personal GChat address all over the company and make sure that everyone has authorized her to speak to them, and worked out the kinks for the few (like me) who run their own XMPP server that play russian roulette on whether Google is going to allow federation today... we just sent her a link to a URL which allowed her to create a user and immediately started downloading a client that once authenticated, connected her to the entire company.
Granted, we could have used our internal IRC server (we actually do have one set up), but the maintenance behind it really started to get to us. In order to use it we had to VPN in and connect, and backlog wasn't available to people that aren't technical enough to understand shell clients (like our project managers). When we did decide to open up the security permissions we had spam bots connecting 24/7 trying to get into our channel, which we then had to password protect, which ended up being another piece of tribal knowledge that "you just had to know".
Still, I continue to have Campfire (Flint.app), HipChat, Adium with XMPP for OTR, Google Hangouts for multi-person conferencing, Email, irssi and Twitter open all day. I wish I could consolodate them all into one, but I can't because they all have specific use cases. If HipChat was to allow an OTR plugin and multi-person video chats and screen sharing, that'd get rid of 4 of my communications^W daily distractions, but it wouldn't get rid of all of them because they serve different purposes.
At the very least, HipChat being free is a much better argument against using Lync now.
Just last week we onboarded a new developer and instead of having to spread her personal GChat address all over the company and make sure that everyone has authorized her to speak to them, and worked out the kinks for the few (like me) who run their own XMPP server that play russian roulette on whether Google is going to allow federation today... we just sent her a link to a URL which allowed her to create a user and immediately started downloading a client that once authenticated, connected her to the entire company.
Granted, we could have used our internal IRC server (we actually do have one set up), but the maintenance behind it really started to get to us. In order to use it we had to VPN in and connect, and backlog wasn't available to people that aren't technical enough to understand shell clients (like our project managers). When we did decide to open up the security permissions we had spam bots connecting 24/7 trying to get into our channel, which we then had to password protect, which ended up being another piece of tribal knowledge that "you just had to know".
Still, I continue to have Campfire (Flint.app), HipChat, Adium with XMPP for OTR, Google Hangouts for multi-person conferencing, Email, irssi and Twitter open all day. I wish I could consolodate them all into one, but I can't because they all have specific use cases. If HipChat was to allow an OTR plugin and multi-person video chats and screen sharing, that'd get rid of 4 of my communications^W daily distractions, but it wouldn't get rid of all of them because they serve different purposes.
At the very least, HipChat being free is a much better argument against using Lync now.
The fundamental problem they "solve" is to be more hip and cool than the last, since no regular human being has heard of IRC, let alone many "hardcore programmers" that I know.
I wish IRC was overhauled SOMEHOW and made more accessible to the common person.
I wish IRC was overhauled SOMEHOW and made more accessible to the common person.
I never understood how IRC was somehow not accessible. Connect to a server, join a room, (usually from a helpfully provided list), enter text and other people see it. Those are the basics, and my gran could understand them.
It's no more difficult than browsing the web.
It's no more difficult than browsing the web.
Is Slack cloud based? If so it's a big problem for a lot of compagnies, most of them don't want to host their chat service to an external provider, that's where Hipchat is very useful. You can host your own server in-house.
We moved from Hipchat to Kato, mainly due to the bugs and frequent servers going offline.
I like HipChat but I really really wish it integrated with an irc client. I've spent hours trying to get a good experience with BitlBee and, well, it's anything but smooth. The single biggest thing they could do to help me and my coworkers out would be to allow our IRC clients to connect to the service. Other than that I love it.
We use a bunch of Atlassian products (Jira, Bitbucket, Tempo, Sourcetree, IDE Connector, Jira Agile, ) but while HipChat never caught on with us, Slack hit a home run.
That said, once someone includes video group chat (a la Skype) for free we will likely jump for whoever offers it.
That said, once someone includes video group chat (a la Skype) for free we will likely jump for whoever offers it.
> That said, once someone includes video group chat (a la Skype) for free we will likely jump for whoever offers it.
Hangouts in G+?
Hangouts in G+?
We were using hangouts and google chat exclusively until we finally made the jump to HipChat. We still use hangouts for group video (morning scrum mostly), and hipchat for everything else.
Group video in hipchat would be a killer feature.
Group video in hipchat would be a killer feature.
HipChat is great, but I've found myself much more often on JabbR (https://jabbr.net/) to be honest. Might be because I am a sucker for SignalR.
JabbR is also free to use, you can have private team rooms if you so like and it integrates with a bunch of auth services.
JabbR is also free to use, you can have private team rooms if you so like and it integrates with a bunch of auth services.
The biggest feature HipChat lacks is chat room sounds. That was my favorite feature of Campfire. Otherwise, HipChat is pretty cool, I guess.
I really miss chat sounds.
/sadtrombone
I really miss chat sounds.
/sadtrombone
this still doesn't fix the fact that there is no longer private 1 on 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7649524
Slack has a problem with retrieving deleted team URLs, seems like they have not covered all the test cases for the signup process..
What would be best HipChat alternative for self-hosting?
At my organization we are not allowed to use any external service.
HipChat Server
https://www.hipchat.com/server
https://www.hipchat.com/server
This could be a significant issue for some, both morally and legally.
If you are using / are going to use Hipchat with this enabled, at least make sure you are aware of any legalities you need to conform to because of this. E.g. gather consent from employees.