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Choosing a chat platform for public online comm...

Wahib Ul Haq
November 26, 2019

Choosing a chat platform for public online communities

My motivation to talk on this topic was to highlight that IMHO Slack is not the ideal platform for public communities because there are serious restrictions with the free plan. I researched some alternates to Slack and shared them through this talk.

Wahib Ul Haq

November 26, 2019
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  1. Domains of Chat Platforms Internal Organization Teams Slack, Microsoft Teams

    And many other... Customers Community around your website, brand or digital service Running an Online course community Offering paid help, mentorship or consultancy Paid memberships Do checkout: https://www.mightynetworks.com/
  2. Domains of Chat Platforms Internal Organization Teams Slack, Microsoft Teams

    And many other... Customers Community around your website, brand or digital service Running an Online course community Offering paid help, mentorship or consultancy Paid memberships Do checkout: https://www.mightynetworks.com/ Communities Side projects, Knowledge sharing, Open-source etc.
  3. Slack is great for internal teams, but it just isn’t

    built for large public communities
  4. Must have Hosted Free for unlimited messages and members count

    Easy to use Threads Easy to invite and join Markdown Code highlighting 3rd party app and bot Integrations Browser support Admin and Access management
  5. Good to have Opensource Posts are Discoverable Easier to share

    posts with outside world and easily accessible Emoji reactions One account instead of account per community Client apps for desktop Client apps for mobile Option to integrate with Slack (help with migration and inviting existing members) Analytics Real names (less trolling)
  6. Paid but Good Options Available Rocket.Chat (need to host) Zulip

    Chat (free tier up to 10k message history) Matrix.org Mattermost (free with self-hosted) Riot.im
  7. Free & Hosted Options Available - Facebook Groups - the

    noise, clutter, and questionable practices - frustrating things about running a Facebook Group is the algorithm that sits between you and your members - Spectrum.chat - Discord - Discourse - KeybaseIO - Gitter
  8. Open-source Strong backing: Spectrum joined Github last year Content is

    accessible without any wall, via link as well Easy to join with just one account needed Robust search, and Indexed online Thread based But still a young company: some bugs, stability issues and less fancy interface
  9. Spectrum Look less mature but minimalist Different interface than Slack

    Mac app but No mobile app Threads Indexed and discoverable Discord Older, Mature and More fancy Similar interface as Slack Mobile apps + Desktop client No Threads Impression is that is is for gamers Not indexed by Google