Ask HN: What remote collaboration software is everyone using? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What remote collaboration software is everyone using?

23 pointsgt565k25 comments

I work for an industrial material handling company and we're currently trying to rapidly transition our older folks to be able to work from home.

Currently evaluating different remote collaboration software platforms. We use microsoft teams for a subset of the platforms, but need to ability to receive phone calls from customers.

View on HN

I gotta say I really don't like Zoom, at all. I think their software is buggy, unstable, and completely unfit for a developer team. I'm guessing their windows version sucks less than MacOS or Linux.

Skype has not really let me down, ever.

At a previous job I had good experiences with Bluejeans as well and it never gave us trouble. Best A/V quality as well.

Never had an issue with Zoom on Mac while Skype and Hangouts have been regularly troublesome

We used to use Skype several years ago. Linux was buggy as all get out. I had a crib that checked if Skype was hanging every minute and killed and restarted it if it was.

Now I'm on Mac with Zoom. Not a high bar for video conferencing, but Zoom does well enough.

We’re still using Slack, only now we use the audio calls and screen sharing.

GoToMeeting/Zoom/TeamViewer has always been part of the sales/support team arsenals, so they’re still using those as well.

Checkout AirSend(https://www.airsend.io). It brings team chat, built-in file, task management and notes in one space. One big downside of slack/team is that they are built for team communication within the organization. But if you want work with clients they are not as good (need to switch the workspace and select the channel). AirSend is good for both internal and external communication.

> need to switch the workspace and select the channel

Meh, there's the notion of guests in Slack, in case you have missed it: https://slack.com/intl/en-se/help/articles/202518103-Multi-C...

Works great while still letting you retain control.

The thing is multi-channel guest users are counted as your internal users for billing purposes. If you work with lot of clients (accounting firms, realtors) it is not really affordable. Also, in scenarios where the clients have their own workspace than they need to switch the workspace and then access the channel.

Teams primarily. Still getting used to using calls but it's been pretty slick so far. Wish we were using Slack however, simply because I find it much more intuitive

I'm really liking teams. The integration and all-in-one solution is appealing, as is the price relative to slack / zoom. And, it's evolving quickly.

I wish teams had the screen drawing like slack. Teams also gives me issues when trying to share my wide monitor with team.

It does. Whiteboard - https://support.office.com/en-us/article/whiteboard-in-a-tea...

Sharing oversized monitors or when you are vertically oriented is a problem. I often have to resize the window.

At work we use Teams as our primary communication tool. It’s been able to handle the increase in calls, video chatting, etc, pretty well so far, and we’ve even added some channels so people can share a bit about their personal lives and interact that way to decrease some of the loneliness factor.

On the personal front, I chat with some friends via Slack, and then we play games in the evening on PS4 (does Apex Legends count as personal collaboration?).

At work we are using Slack, but the video calls only work on a physical computer, which is just an insane idea in 2020 where even entry level smartphones have better cameras than my laptop and where you might need to show a screen or pin board to a remote team member.

In Toastmasters we mostly use Zoom. The disadvantage is that it is not free (if you need more than one to one and more than 40 minutes) and that you can't have a standing meeting, somebody needs to host it and when the host leaves, the meeting is over. Upside is that it works, and that you can have basic things like push to speak, mute all participants, etc.

If somebody is looking for a start-up idea, a zero setup, click here to generate an url and send it to others to have a video meeting would be a god-send. Slack gets it right by continuing the call as long as at least one person is still connected, even if the person who started the call has left.

I'm doing remote work for over thirty years, and email works fine. Much better than telephone calls. Everything real-time is a massive waste of everyone's time.

Websites, like github or jira, are also OK.

You need both synchronous (chat, audio/video call) and asynchronous (email,discourse, wiki) tools to get work done. There is a place for both.

I got more work done without constant interruptions. There is no place for constant interruptions. Either you trust your workers or you do it by yourself.

Zoom lets people call in and it works very well.

We moved to Zulip after trying Slack then Teams. Currently use Teams for video calls mostly.

Interesting no one here mentions VOIP through either native dialler app or IP phones. Works fantastically and for the older generation gives them a sense of familiarity.

Anyone using secure high quality self-hosted collaboration software that supports chat, file transfers and video chat all-in-one?

Although it isn't as full-featured as most of the aforementioned applications, Keybase is a great privacy-focused tool.

Skype,teams. Works great although the usual microsoftisms. Used hangouts, webex and zoom in the past, skype+o365 beats all.

I manage my team using todoist. So satisfied.

HouseParty is kicking it in Spain's App Store Rankings...

Good for +4 people videocalls

www.zoho.com/remotely

Reply on news.ycombinator.com