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Are they better than their competitors? In what way? I've been using Slack in a pretty casual way recently as my company switched to it. It seems, you know..

Are they better than their competitors? In what way? I've been using Slack in a pretty casual way recently as my company switched to it. It seems, you know... fine. Like it has the same features that all the other messaging products have. What's the compelling feature of Slack?

dshanahan 12y ago
We just left HipChat for Slack and love it. The file sharing includes previews, the drag and drop to upload immediately is great. Search includes the content of uploaded files. Search on HipChat is a joke, IMO. It's more fun to use, and more intuitive for non-technical people.
baddox 12y ago
They're not. Between Slack and HipChat it's a wash. Both work reasonably well and have their own quirks. I'm more cognizant of Slack's quirks at the moment, because that's what I currently use. For instance, most URLs don't work on iOS Slack, because ampersands get HTML escaped into &. I sent feedback, and someone quickly responds that they know about and they intend to fix it.
- stock_toaster 12y ago
  As a hipchat using company, we got a slack account to give it a test drive, and I was ... surprised how much of a wash it is vs hipchat. I had a "this is what all the fuss is about?" reaction. I actually seem to prefer the hipchat UI personally, and apparently so do many of my colleagues. The fact that hipchat is cheaper only made it clearer to us. note: only using and comparing the osx desktop app for both services.
  - baddox 12y ago
    Actually, it sounds small, but the biggest advantage of HipChat over Slack is that HipChat allows you to change the background color of bot messages (like incoming exceptions, deploys, etc.). It is incredibly frustrating that Slack can't allocate an engineer to just do this. Slack's custom message styling options are virtually nonexistent. Yeah, yeah, I know we programmers shouldn't say "it will only take a few minutes," but come on!
    - indeed30 12y ago
      Although you can't change the bg color, you can certainly change the coloured left-border.
  - burger_moon 12y ago
    I've used both and currently use slack. I prefer the simple ui of hipchat to slack for sure. In my area slack seems to be becoming the more popular chat tool but maybe I just have too small of a pool to be accurate.
- justsee 12y ago
  Slack executes so much better at every level that stating it's a wash between Slack and HipChat just doesn't compute. One key example is the multiple teams feature: the ability to have multiple accounts logged in at the same time, and the ability to easily swipe between them on iOS or toggle on desktop is a huge advantage. A quick look at HipChat indicates this still isn't possible [1]. Considering more and more people wear different startup / company / organisation hats not having this feature is a great way to limit participation / growth in a communications platform. That Slack had this feature at the outset for me meant I've already spread use of Slack to multiple orgs and participate in all of them at the same time. [1] https://help.hipchat.com/forums/138883-suggestions/suggestions/2716912-let-me-be-a-member-of-and-sign-in-to-multiple-acco https://help.hipchat.com/forums/138883-suggestions/suggestio...
  - micmcg 12y ago
    "A quick look at HipChat indicates this still isn't possible" Not currently possible, but officially confirmed as being worked on. "It’s official: Development is underway for multiple account support in the HipChat clients. Stay tuned because updates are just around the corner."
    - tonyarkles 12y ago
      I waited for it for several years before switching (and switching my clients) to slack.
  - vacri 12y ago
    Slack executes so much better at every level Nonsense. Slack is very beautiful with everything around the core feature, but the core feature is awful. The main chat window wastes incredible amounts of space, even in the compressed mode. The least visible items on the screen (apart from timestamps) are the chat messages from users - instead their names, icons, channel names, navigation elements are HUGE. Cute niceties like emotes are screwy due to the standard layout. We're using the Jira integration, and it wastes so much space that one entire page is taken up by a mere 3 Jira ticket updates. Stick it into 'compressed' mode and now every chat line starts at a different point, depending on the user name. Hipchat has none of the problems I've listed here, though it has it's own - generally they're issues outside the core feature. For people used to chat elsewhere, these issues are pretty obvious. But Slack seems to be marketing to people who've never used chat, so they get to set their expectations from scratch.
serve_yay 12y ago
I really liked it immediately upon using it, that almost never happens to me. If you want a feature checklist I'm afraid I won't be reciting one. It's well designed in my opinion, I care about that a lot. Other productivity tools like JIRA and Jive are awful, I enjoy using Slack. But if you're right, it's no good and there's no switching costs, then I guess they'll die. Right?
- aetherson 12y ago
  You're ascribing agenda to me that's not there -- and maybe conflating me with my GP poster. I'm asking an honest question. I don't dislike Slack and I'm open to there being something that they genuinely do really well, I just haven't noticed such a thing as a casual user.
taternuts 12y ago
I've only used Slack, not some of the alternatives like HipChat, and I really like it. I'd be interested in hearing about how some of the competitors stack up feature-wise
pbreit 12y ago
Not a Slack defender but if you are unable to see that it is better crafted, you're just not looking very hard.
lmm 12y ago
It's not an advantage in features, it's just that little bit more polished than everything else. Everything works, and works how you'd expect it to. The UI subtly guides you towards doing the right thing. There's nothing you can't do in other clients, but everything's just that little bit better.

dshanahan 12y ago

We just left HipChat for Slack and love it. The file sharing includes previews, the drag and drop to upload immediately is great. Search includes the content of uploaded files. Search on HipChat is a joke, IMO. It's more fun to use, and more intuitive for non-technical people.

baddox 12y ago

They're not. Between Slack and HipChat it's a wash. Both work reasonably well and have their own quirks. I'm more cognizant of Slack's quirks at the moment, because that's what I currently use. For instance, most URLs don't work on iOS Slack, because ampersands get HTML escaped into &. I sent feedback, and someone quickly responds that they know about and they intend to fix it.

stock_toaster 12y ago
As a hipchat using company, we got a slack account to give it a test drive, and I was ... surprised how much of a wash it is vs hipchat. I had a "this is what all the fuss is about?" reaction. I actually seem to prefer the hipchat UI personally, and apparently so do many of my colleagues. The fact that hipchat is cheaper only made it clearer to us. note: only using and comparing the osx desktop app for both services.
- baddox 12y ago
  Actually, it sounds small, but the biggest advantage of HipChat over Slack is that HipChat allows you to change the background color of bot messages (like incoming exceptions, deploys, etc.). It is incredibly frustrating that Slack can't allocate an engineer to just do this. Slack's custom message styling options are virtually nonexistent. Yeah, yeah, I know we programmers shouldn't say "it will only take a few minutes," but come on!
  - indeed30 12y ago
    Although you can't change the bg color, you can certainly change the coloured left-border.
- burger_moon 12y ago
  I've used both and currently use slack. I prefer the simple ui of hipchat to slack for sure. In my area slack seems to be becoming the more popular chat tool but maybe I just have too small of a pool to be accurate.
justsee 12y ago
Slack executes so much better at every level that stating it's a wash between Slack and HipChat just doesn't compute. One key example is the multiple teams feature: the ability to have multiple accounts logged in at the same time, and the ability to easily swipe between them on iOS or toggle on desktop is a huge advantage. A quick look at HipChat indicates this still isn't possible [1]. Considering more and more people wear different startup / company / organisation hats not having this feature is a great way to limit participation / growth in a communications platform. That Slack had this feature at the outset for me meant I've already spread use of Slack to multiple orgs and participate in all of them at the same time. [1] https://help.hipchat.com/forums/138883-suggestions/suggestions/2716912-let-me-be-a-member-of-and-sign-in-to-multiple-acco https://help.hipchat.com/forums/138883-suggestions/suggestio...
- micmcg 12y ago
  "A quick look at HipChat indicates this still isn't possible" Not currently possible, but officially confirmed as being worked on. "It’s official: Development is underway for multiple account support in the HipChat clients. Stay tuned because updates are just around the corner."
  - tonyarkles 12y ago
    I waited for it for several years before switching (and switching my clients) to slack.
- vacri 12y ago
  Slack executes so much better at every level Nonsense. Slack is very beautiful with everything around the core feature, but the core feature is awful. The main chat window wastes incredible amounts of space, even in the compressed mode. The least visible items on the screen (apart from timestamps) are the chat messages from users - instead their names, icons, channel names, navigation elements are HUGE. Cute niceties like emotes are screwy due to the standard layout. We're using the Jira integration, and it wastes so much space that one entire page is taken up by a mere 3 Jira ticket updates. Stick it into 'compressed' mode and now every chat line starts at a different point, depending on the user name. Hipchat has none of the problems I've listed here, though it has it's own - generally they're issues outside the core feature. For people used to chat elsewhere, these issues are pretty obvious. But Slack seems to be marketing to people who've never used chat, so they get to set their expectations from scratch.

serve_yay 12y ago

I really liked it immediately upon using it, that almost never happens to me. If you want a feature checklist I'm afraid I won't be reciting one. It's well designed in my opinion, I care about that a lot. Other productivity tools like JIRA and Jive are awful, I enjoy using Slack. But if you're right, it's no good and there's no switching costs, then I guess they'll die. Right?

aetherson 12y ago
You're ascribing agenda to me that's not there -- and maybe conflating me with my GP poster. I'm asking an honest question. I don't dislike Slack and I'm open to there being something that they genuinely do really well, I just haven't noticed such a thing as a casual user.

taternuts 12y ago

I've only used Slack, not some of the alternatives like HipChat, and I really like it. I'd be interested in hearing about how some of the competitors stack up feature-wise

pbreit 12y ago

Not a Slack defender but if you are unable to see that it is better crafted, you're just not looking very hard.

lmm 12y ago

It's not an advantage in features, it's just that little bit more polished than everything else. Everything works, and works how you'd expect it to. The UI subtly guides you towards doing the right thing. There's nothing you can't do in other clients, but everything's just that little bit better.