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We gave Zulip (and Mattermost, Element/Matrix, Rocket Chat etc) a try when our company was looking for self hosted alternatives to Slack. Zulip seemed like tech

by eis 5y ago

We gave Zulip (and Mattermost, Element/Matrix, Rocket Chat etc) a try when our company was looking for self hosted alternatives to Slack. Zulip seemed like technically the most polished product. Smooth and easy get-running experience (Element was the polar opposite). Lightweight UI that doesn't feel buggy. I'd have liked to see a bit bigger font but what ended up being the showstopper was that new users were very confused about how to write in a channel (or stream how they call it). Everything needs to be in a second level "topic". In pretty much every other chat app one can just select a channel on the left and get a text input field where you can write your message. In Zulip though you don't get the text input. You have to either create a completely new topic which new users really don't understand or click on any of the past messages in the stream to create a reply to that topic (but not that specific message). I suppose it works well after you understand the messaging model but it represents such a high initial point of friction that we had to give up on it. Non-technical users had a really hard time and the switch from Slack was not high enough on the priority list to push through with it. tabbot: if you happen to see this, please please consider some kind of easy-mode which: - by default always shows the text input no matter if you clicked on a stream or topic - doesn't put the cursor in the "topic" input but the actual message input - allows sending a message by pressing enter - scrolls the window down when sending a message - scrolls the window all the way down when clicking on a stream - has a slightly bigger font size - maybe also some simplification of the UI. You don't need the name of the stream above every message (see https://i.imgur.com/oeBY5yk.png ) I'm convinced with a bit of work to make it easier for new users you'll have a big boost in growth.

jdiez17 5y ago
I had a similar experience with Zulip when I tried to set up a chat tool for our research group. I liked the ideas of topics and such, but other people weren't so enthusiastic to learn about a whole new chat paradigm. In the end we switched to Mattermost and we are quite happy with it.
- mekster 5y ago
  Mattermost doesn't seem to be improving at all for years. I just don't get how it's difficult to reply or quote someone's message when it's such a basic chat feature. Instead they invent weird code like "shrug" thinking it's funny during business chat. Also I often get logged out of mobile app and notifications stop reaching which makes it very unreliable as a business tool. They need to fix where it matters.
  - eis 5y ago
    That is also the impression we got when we tried Mattermost. It came as a big surprise because we are using a selfhosted Gitlab instance and Mattermost is supposed to have great integration with Gitlab but it really didn't work well. Maybe it is due to us having set up Gitlab within Docker, I don't know. In the end we got it working but it still didn't recognize a user from Gitlab. It really felt like they had some good start and ideas but then something changed and came to a halt.
    - it33 5y ago
      Mattermost CEO here, thanks for the mention and the feedback! Just curious, have you enabled the GitLab-Mattermost plugin? https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost-plugin-gitlab#configuration https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost-plugin-gitlab#confi... If it wasn't easy to find, that's on us, and we need to do a better job in making things more discoverable.
    - Eremotherium 5y ago
      The bundled Mattermost was a bit flaky IIRC but with a separate instance (in Docker) using Gitlab SSO was no problem. Using SSO for Sentry was a bit more problematic as it's an unofficial plugin but IIRC it was due to Gitlab not sending the correct scope.
  - it33 5y ago
    Mattermost CEO here, highly appreciate the feedback, On logging out of mobile apps, often that's from an IT security policy to have sessions last only a fixed number of days from the last login. We added a feature to automatically extend the session length based on the last login of a user--so inactive users get their sessions expired for security, and active users don't. If you're a long time user of Mattermost you might need your IT admin to switch on the setting: https://mattermost.com/blog/session-expiry-experience/ https://mattermost.com/blog/session-expiry-experience/ It was set to be on by default in Mattermost v5.24. Regarding replying, we've been working with our community on adding different options for threading: https://mattermost.com/blog/dev-sneak-peek-collapsed-reply-threads/ https://mattermost.com/blog/dev-sneak-peek-collapsed-reply-t... From the blog post you can join the discussion on the topic if you like as well. We're very open to your feedback,
- it33 5y ago
  Mattermost CEO here, thanks @jdiez17! Very glad to hear!
cloogshicer 5y ago
The fact that Zulip is threaded (and this threading is enforced) is what makes it so valuable, at least to me. Your proposals would get rid of its main feature and go completely against one of its core ideas.
- eis 5y ago
  I kinda agree. Actually what I wanted to say is I see where you are coming from but I disagree that my proposal would get rid of its main feature. I just want some way to have easy defaults for new users. I wouldn't propose to remove any features. You should still be able to do whatever is possible right now and for the advanced users nothing would change. I suggested an additional easy mode to help new users. This could be set as default by the organization admin or just make it opt-in. Nobody should be forced of course. I am confident that it would be still possible to push users into using threads/topics but without the considerable friction that currently exists. The fact that Zulip has to include these little tutorial bubbles for new users to show them how to write a message and other chat apps don't need it shows that Zulip is more complicated to understand and use as a newbie.
  - cloogshicer 5y ago
    Right, I can see that, thanks for clarifying.
benhurmarcel 5y ago
On a similar note, my company switched to Google Chat which has threaded rooms (not commenting on the implementation here). A lot of new users, probably a majority even, always post messages in the latest thread, instead of creating a new one. They just find the only text field there is and type there.
rkangel 5y ago
I don't think the paradigm needs to change, I think the UI does (although I'm admittedly not clear what should be different). To me the proof that the paradigm is good and it's a 'just' a UI problem is MS Teams. Teams has basically the same thread system - every message in a Teams channel is in a 'conversation'. When a whole org adopts Teams sometimes it takes some people a little time to learn not to create a conversation for every reply (my partner's company is non-technical and had this for a couple of people) but once you're going the system is clear to a new joiner. At my company (an engineering org) the thread system is universally used, works extremely well, and I've never encountered anyone who wasn't clear how it worked. The big difference is that in Teams you don't have to name your 'conversation'. You can optionally give it a title if you want, but it's not necessary and that "what do I call it" step was always a bit of a mental speedbump in Zulip for my team.
- eis 5y ago
  Yes I agree that is pretty much purely UI issues. I don't want the paradigm to change. I guess I could have made that a bit more clear in my initial post.
fragileone 5y ago
All it really needs is default topics for each stream when you click on the stream. Like Discord's #general
tabbott 5y ago
Thanks for the feedback! It's much appreciated. We are actively working on several ideas in this space. (One of the most important that was released in 4.0 is the redesign of the Reply button to make starting a reply feel like it does in other chat tools). I expect we'll be able to get into a really nice place with a combination of new settings with some mixture of "Easy mode" defaults, design changes, and onboarding adjustments. (We will do this while carefully preserving model/paradigm, in case anyone's worried). Feel free to stop by chat.zulip.org if you want to discuss specifics. FWIW, we regularly hear from large organizations, including some with thousands of nontechnical users, about their having great luck migrating to Zulip. Usually they tell us they did a 30-minute training and then things went smoothly from there, or they didn't and it took a couple weeks for some users to get the hang of it. In the scheme of things, doing a training is a pretty minimal investment to be able to use a better product for hundreds of hours a year. But of course Zulip would grow a lot faster if nobody worried whether their nontechnical users will thrive on it, so this area is a priority for us.

by eis 5y ago

jdiez17 5y ago

I had a similar experience with Zulip when I tried to set up a chat tool for our research group. I liked the ideas of topics and such, but other people weren't so enthusiastic to learn about a whole new chat paradigm. In the end we switched to Mattermost and we are quite happy with it.

mekster 5y ago
Mattermost doesn't seem to be improving at all for years. I just don't get how it's difficult to reply or quote someone's message when it's such a basic chat feature. Instead they invent weird code like "shrug" thinking it's funny during business chat. Also I often get logged out of mobile app and notifications stop reaching which makes it very unreliable as a business tool. They need to fix where it matters.
- eis 5y ago
  That is also the impression we got when we tried Mattermost. It came as a big surprise because we are using a selfhosted Gitlab instance and Mattermost is supposed to have great integration with Gitlab but it really didn't work well. Maybe it is due to us having set up Gitlab within Docker, I don't know. In the end we got it working but it still didn't recognize a user from Gitlab. It really felt like they had some good start and ideas but then something changed and came to a halt.
  - it33 5y ago
    Mattermost CEO here, thanks for the mention and the feedback! Just curious, have you enabled the GitLab-Mattermost plugin? https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost-plugin-gitlab#configuration https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost-plugin-gitlab#confi... If it wasn't easy to find, that's on us, and we need to do a better job in making things more discoverable.
  - Eremotherium 5y ago
    The bundled Mattermost was a bit flaky IIRC but with a separate instance (in Docker) using Gitlab SSO was no problem. Using SSO for Sentry was a bit more problematic as it's an unofficial plugin but IIRC it was due to Gitlab not sending the correct scope.
- it33 5y ago
  Mattermost CEO here, highly appreciate the feedback, On logging out of mobile apps, often that's from an IT security policy to have sessions last only a fixed number of days from the last login. We added a feature to automatically extend the session length based on the last login of a user--so inactive users get their sessions expired for security, and active users don't. If you're a long time user of Mattermost you might need your IT admin to switch on the setting: https://mattermost.com/blog/session-expiry-experience/ https://mattermost.com/blog/session-expiry-experience/ It was set to be on by default in Mattermost v5.24. Regarding replying, we've been working with our community on adding different options for threading: https://mattermost.com/blog/dev-sneak-peek-collapsed-reply-threads/ https://mattermost.com/blog/dev-sneak-peek-collapsed-reply-t... From the blog post you can join the discussion on the topic if you like as well. We're very open to your feedback,
it33 5y ago
Mattermost CEO here, thanks @jdiez17! Very glad to hear!

cloogshicer 5y ago

The fact that Zulip is threaded (and this threading is enforced) is what makes it so valuable, at least to me. Your proposals would get rid of its main feature and go completely against one of its core ideas.

eis 5y ago
I kinda agree. Actually what I wanted to say is I see where you are coming from but I disagree that my proposal would get rid of its main feature. I just want some way to have easy defaults for new users. I wouldn't propose to remove any features. You should still be able to do whatever is possible right now and for the advanced users nothing would change. I suggested an additional easy mode to help new users. This could be set as default by the organization admin or just make it opt-in. Nobody should be forced of course. I am confident that it would be still possible to push users into using threads/topics but without the considerable friction that currently exists. The fact that Zulip has to include these little tutorial bubbles for new users to show them how to write a message and other chat apps don't need it shows that Zulip is more complicated to understand and use as a newbie.
- cloogshicer 5y ago
  Right, I can see that, thanks for clarifying.

benhurmarcel 5y ago

On a similar note, my company switched to Google Chat which has threaded rooms (not commenting on the implementation here). A lot of new users, probably a majority even, always post messages in the latest thread, instead of creating a new one. They just find the only text field there is and type there.

rkangel 5y ago

I don't think the paradigm needs to change, I think the UI does (although I'm admittedly not clear what should be different). To me the proof that the paradigm is good and it's a 'just' a UI problem is MS Teams. Teams has basically the same thread system - every message in a Teams channel is in a 'conversation'. When a whole org adopts Teams sometimes it takes some people a little time to learn not to create a conversation for every reply (my partner's company is non-technical and had this for a couple of people) but once you're going the system is clear to a new joiner. At my company (an engineering org) the thread system is universally used, works extremely well, and I've never encountered anyone who wasn't clear how it worked. The big difference is that in Teams you don't have to name your 'conversation'. You can optionally give it a title if you want, but it's not necessary and that "what do I call it" step was always a bit of a mental speedbump in Zulip for my team.

eis 5y ago
Yes I agree that is pretty much purely UI issues. I don't want the paradigm to change. I guess I could have made that a bit more clear in my initial post.

fragileone 5y ago

All it really needs is default topics for each stream when you click on the stream. Like Discord's #general

tabbott 5y ago

Thanks for the feedback! It's much appreciated. We are actively working on several ideas in this space. (One of the most important that was released in 4.0 is the redesign of the Reply button to make starting a reply feel like it does in other chat tools). I expect we'll be able to get into a really nice place with a combination of new settings with some mixture of "Easy mode" defaults, design changes, and onboarding adjustments. (We will do this while carefully preserving model/paradigm, in case anyone's worried). Feel free to stop by chat.zulip.org if you want to discuss specifics. FWIW, we regularly hear from large organizations, including some with thousands of nontechnical users, about their having great luck migrating to Zulip. Usually they tell us they did a 30-minute training and then things went smoothly from there, or they didn't and it took a couple weeks for some users to get the hang of it. In the scheme of things, doing a training is a pretty minimal investment to be able to use a better product for hundreds of hours a year. But of course Zulip would grow a lot faster if nobody worried whether their nontechnical users will thrive on it, so this area is a priority for us.