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I remember reading about the performance-first development of Linen here on HN a few weeks ago. In that thread I also heard about Zulip for the first time. Bot

I remember reading about the performance-first development of Linen here on HN a few weeks ago. In that thread I also heard about Zulip for the first time. Both look good. I am not sure which to proselytize to my groups. Most groups I'm in just use Discord because of its momentum, but I really don't like Discord that much - it feels chaotic (I've learned it does have threading and maybe even forum mode now, but nobody seems to use those...), and it's not open-source. Indexability is an interesting feature, of obvious use for public or semi-public groups, but certainly not something I'm interested in for private groups. Can it be disabled? I also really like that Linen has two-way sync. This would massively reduce friction in switching. However, the lack of mobile apps could be a bigger source of friction. How is Linen as a PWA?

cheeseblubber 3y ago
We do have private teams/communities. It is actually what we use internal for work. Mobile app is on the roadmap!
- bravura 3y ago
  Mobile should be at the top of the roadmap, TBH. No mobile is a complete show-stopper. I think it's commendable to build a chat alternative that is snappy. But right now, it's basically going to be a sync-ed mirror with Slack for everyone. "It is actually kind of tricky to self host since there are quite a few services that needs set up and we could use quite a bit of work in our documentation." Uh... a second-degree showstopper for people looking for Slack alternatives. We have one-click deploys for rocket.chat and Zulip on digital ocean, vercel, render, etc. Where do you believe your adoption will come from? I ask this sincerely. What is the burning pain that will lead people to adopt linen right now? The whole "SEO" your community is such a red herring in my opinion. There are already many Discord, Slack, etc. bots that make public discussions readable and indexable. And LLM-integrated bots that automatically summarize discussions. Why not prioritize what's really needed in this space: a) Super easy self hosting. Make the devops/infra team happy. b) Super snappy chat clients on desktop AND mobile. Make the users much happier than the alternatives. c) API compatability with Slack, maybe also Zulip and rocket.chat. Make the devs happy and eat the lunch of your competitors by making it super easy to port apps to linen. (And, get SEO + autosummarization features for FREE)
dijit 3y ago
I feel obligated to extoll enormous praise on Zulip. I was the person who forced us to try it for a week (so, take a pinch of salt), and people were apprehensive, but I floated the idea of going back to slack recently and was met with open hostility due to how nice Zulip is to use. It even exceeded my expectations, having only used it briefly with the rust community prior to the trial; basing the trial solely on others on hackernews extolling similar praise to me now. The thread first model is really great for finding information, the search works decently and integrating with random things is much nicer than with Slack. its not all sunlit uplands, the UX feels a bit weird sometimes (there is a strong keyboard shortcut system for power users but you can be in the wrong context to use the common hotkeys with no visual indicator) and the mobile app is mediocre at best. Additionally; a few business people have referred to it as a “nerd tool” and do not put any effort at all into getting over the relatively minor learning curve, but I also believe that they wouldn't truly engage with slack either. But holistically: its a fantastic system and is a much better use of inefficiencies of electron based messenger clients. Jitsi is also extremely nice by the way and the pair of Jitsi and Zulip is extremely nice.
- Shared404 3y ago
  > Jitsi is also extremely nice by the way and the pair of Jitsi and Zulip is extremely nice. I'm a big fan of Jitsi. Haven't used it in any business settings, but do 5 person calls every so often for my TTRPG group and it works great.
  - dijit 3y ago
    I’m trying to get it to replace our Teams usage, but having Teams be the default when you create meeting invites is just too strong.

cheeseblubber 3y ago

We do have private teams/communities. It is actually what we use internal for work. Mobile app is on the roadmap!

bravura 3y ago
Mobile should be at the top of the roadmap, TBH. No mobile is a complete show-stopper. I think it's commendable to build a chat alternative that is snappy. But right now, it's basically going to be a sync-ed mirror with Slack for everyone. "It is actually kind of tricky to self host since there are quite a few services that needs set up and we could use quite a bit of work in our documentation." Uh... a second-degree showstopper for people looking for Slack alternatives. We have one-click deploys for rocket.chat and Zulip on digital ocean, vercel, render, etc. Where do you believe your adoption will come from? I ask this sincerely. What is the burning pain that will lead people to adopt linen right now? The whole "SEO" your community is such a red herring in my opinion. There are already many Discord, Slack, etc. bots that make public discussions readable and indexable. And LLM-integrated bots that automatically summarize discussions. Why not prioritize what's really needed in this space: a) Super easy self hosting. Make the devops/infra team happy. b) Super snappy chat clients on desktop AND mobile. Make the users much happier than the alternatives. c) API compatability with Slack, maybe also Zulip and rocket.chat. Make the devs happy and eat the lunch of your competitors by making it super easy to port apps to linen. (And, get SEO + autosummarization features for FREE)

dijit 3y ago

I feel obligated to extoll enormous praise on Zulip. I was the person who forced us to try it for a week (so, take a pinch of salt), and people were apprehensive, but I floated the idea of going back to slack recently and was met with open hostility due to how nice Zulip is to use. It even exceeded my expectations, having only used it briefly with the rust community prior to the trial; basing the trial solely on others on hackernews extolling similar praise to me now. The thread first model is really great for finding information, the search works decently and integrating with random things is much nicer than with Slack. its not all sunlit uplands, the UX feels a bit weird sometimes (there is a strong keyboard shortcut system for power users but you can be in the wrong context to use the common hotkeys with no visual indicator) and the mobile app is mediocre at best. Additionally; a few business people have referred to it as a “nerd tool” and do not put any effort at all into getting over the relatively minor learning curve, but I also believe that they wouldn't truly engage with slack either. But holistically: its a fantastic system and is a much better use of inefficiencies of electron based messenger clients. Jitsi is also extremely nice by the way and the pair of Jitsi and Zulip is extremely nice.

Shared404 3y ago
> Jitsi is also extremely nice by the way and the pair of Jitsi and Zulip is extremely nice. I'm a big fan of Jitsi. Haven't used it in any business settings, but do 5 person calls every so often for my TTRPG group and it works great.
- dijit 3y ago
  I’m trying to get it to replace our Teams usage, but having Teams be the default when you create meeting invites is just too strong.