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Slack has raised our charges by $195k per year

(skyfall.dev)
1502 points JustSkyfall | 5 comments | 18 Sep 25 01:37 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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p0w3n3d ◴[18 Sep 25 05:20 UTC] No.45285730[source]▶
We're using teams in my new company, which is awful for textual communication (lacks threads in chats, groups are more like old forums than new IM). I've been experimenting with self-hosted Mattermost but it seems that it also requires paid license in some situations (e.g. does not have groups for some reason in the free version).

I was unable to find another system. Would anyone recommend me something?

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jwrallie ◴[18 Sep 25 05:37 UTC] No.45285847[source]▶
I was considering moving from Slack (free version) to Teams (paid) for a new project starting in October because my workplace already have a license for that. Seems like it will have less features but no 90 day retention annoyances.

You seem to have some experience with both, do you think I am making a bad decision for a ~30 person team?

Others suggested Matrix, but I have a feeling they are implicitly assuming self-hosting. I do think Element works quite well, but I have only used it personally with matrix.org for basic chat, never for work. It does work on both Android and iOS as well as Linux, which is why I use it.

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1. zuhsetaqi ◴[18 Sep 25 06:11 UTC] No.45286074[source]▶
I use Element in an organisation of around 300 people, most of which are non technical. 98 % of them really dislike Element and I really understand why. Even for the most technical people it just does not work reliably like WhatsApp, Telegram or iMessage, which are some apps those people use privately. I really hoped that it'll all get better with Element X, both on Android and iOS, but it's not. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone really.
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2. Arathorn ◴[18 Sep 25 06:43 UTC] No.45286304[source]▶
This would make sense if you were talking about the old Element app, but Element X is generally seen as a night and day improvement. Can you say what the problems are on Element X?

Trying to speak dispassionately as someone who lives their life in Element X iOS, I find it is way more reliable than WhatsApp (where I get way more “waiting for message…” e2ee bugs than Element X these days), and more featureful than iMessage. You can’t compare with TG given TG isn’t E2EE.

I am not disputing the lived experience on your side, but something big must be different. Is the server underpowered or misconfigured or something? Or is it using a beta server like Dendrite?

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3. zenmac ◴[18 Sep 25 06:54 UTC] No.45286381[source]▶
While I agree with you. Element is tooo heavy! I know there is Element X, but it has a lot issues working with others who has different clients. I would rather not use element if possible. There is a lighter weight Hydrogen seems more pleasing on code and front end.

https://hydrogen.element.io/#/login

So on the up side about matrix is if you don't like you can roll your own.

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4. zuhsetaqi ◴[18 Sep 25 07:05 UTC] No.45286474[source]▶
I don't know about the server being underpowered or misconfigured.

I compared it with those Messengers because that's what we as users are used to. I know that TG is not E2EE and therefore not comparable on a technical level, but that's still what users of Element are used to.

I personally use iMessage the most as my Messanger and in the last >10 years I never had any problems with a message not being able to be decrypted. And iMessage not being as featureful as Element is not an excuse for having more bugs especially in key areas of the service. Again, iMessage being just an emxample.

5. Arathorn ◴[18 Sep 25 09:59 UTC] No.45287721[source]▶
(unfortunately Hydrogen is no longer being developed; nobody funded it. Instead, focus is on Aurora, aka Element X Web: https://element.io/blog/hacking-for-a-sovereign-digital-euro... etc)