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But did you _actually_ try the alternatives? I've been using mumble for more than a decade now, and I've pushing it into 3 working places as a substitute to sk
by usernam 10y ago
But did you _actually_ try the alternatives?
I've been using mumble for more than a decade now, and I've pushing it into 3 working places as a substitute to skype, asterix and lync (the microsoft voip solution).
It's not really oriented for 1-1 conversation, which is odd to use at first, but once people start to use channels and the built-in chat you hardly go back.
The latency and voice quality is stunning, even across lousy links. There's simply no match. The built-in mic wizard is also well designed. If people follow the setup correctly, you can have hour-long conversations across the globe with 10 people and it's absolutely fantastic. I work in research, and I've aggressively pushed to do long phone conferences over mumble for exactly this reason.
With some colleagues we even setup some channels that broadcast with PTT, and it's genuinely fun if you're spread across offices. You can decide if you want to participate by joining or not the right hierarchy. This is something is often done for lan parties, but turns out you can find other uses too ;)
Like I said, the main shortcoming is that mumble was never designed for 1-1 conversations as you would expect in skype. We hack it around by creating temporary channels. I've always meant to improve the UI in this regard, but we found that the temporary channel approach has advantages as well [you can invite other people in a call - for one].
With outdated hardware we still manage to hold >100 of conversations over a single server, as basically it's only network bound.
You have a point that mumble does only audio, but fortunately this is what I care the most. We (unfortunately) still have to use other software for desktop sharing, but generally still use mumble for audio.
- davidlumley 10y agoI don't know if Mumble (or Ventrilo, or Teamspeak, or Discord) are really comparable. They require you run your own server (although Discord abstracts that), that everyone know the server details, and that everyone be authenticated for your server in some manner. They're great for playing video games, but Skype matches up a lot better with what a lot of people use it for – making phone calls.
- usernam 10y agoTrue, but I'd like to mention that these are still valid options for companies and teams. Not to mention that latency will inevitably be superior with a local server. I'm not sure there's a way around it. Skype is pretty much centralized now. Alternatives using NAT-piercing solutions never worked as reliably for me, and the ID still needs a central directory anyway. What we ended up doing for flexibility is letting our mumble server open (passwordless access), but speaking is disabled in the root channel, so it's useless for strangers. Secondary channels are password protected, guests cannot join, but teams can set up their hierarchy as they see fit. When we invite a guest, we just point him to the mumble installer and our server. When he pops up, we drag him into the right channel. No password necessary. It's a fairly smooth experience. Definitely not as fast as a skype group call the first time, but just as good after that. In fairness, this beats pretty much any dedicated conference system I had to use elsewhere. The channel permissions in mumble are pretty flexible, so there are multiple workflows possible.
- alkonaut 10y agoNope - didn't try them after reading the spec list to see if they check the boxes. They didn't as far as I could see, or they made terrible marketing! The problem with replacing Skype within an organization is that it can't just be better at some things, it needs to at least do all the things. We also already use other software for desktop sharing, and dont call to phones, so that's handled - but the biggest hurdle when evaluating alternatives is to get a good app for 1-1 chat, group chat, 1-1 calls and group calls, that handles persistent groups (e.g per project, recurrent meetings,..), persistent (server based) chats, and does all of this without requiring multiple contact lists for different tasks (e.g one for voice and one for chat would be a complete no-go) Also, the fear of crap software in a large corporation is zero, and the switching cost would be nonzero, so the alternative would also have to save money through efficiency or provide some other very tangible benefit such as reduced risk of Trojans, otherwise there would never be a switch. Hangouts is the best candidate I have found yet, but it's google, and not really better than Skype. This is a "non computer business" so hosting anything would likely be out of the question, as would anything other than a "run this msi and install the app from AppStore on your phone" kind of setup for each client.
- usernam 10y agoI understand your position, but I cannot see things change in your favor anytime soon. This leaves you only to web-based solutions, and most of those will invariably suck for a long time to come (if not forever).