Hacker News Reader

Comment by dasil003 | Hacker News Reader

So the author hasn't even used Slack but assumes that a web version of WhatsApp will be its equivalent?

Slack is already more expensive than HipChat, Campfire, IRC, yet it is dominating those, why? Because it's worth it. The implementation and UX for company teams (especially technical teams) is so far beyond what other apps offer that the cost is a minor bullet point.

WhatsApp is great as a personal instant messenger, but for them to be better than Slack at what Slack does they would have to design for two radically different use cases, and the result would almost assuredly be mediocrity.

View on HN

You can't join multiple groups/teams with HipChat, which is one of the most absurd design assumptions I've encountered. This was completely unusable for us, and many others. For reference, have a look at their uservoice thread, which has been running for a few years and has a few thousand votes

IMO, the only way that WhatsApp could even compete with the value created by Slack would be by giving away the product to its international user base. And on top of that, you'd have to assume that the same user base is too lazy to download a free app for their phone, which I think is pretty safe to assume isn't the case in the slightest.

We've used Campfire and are now using HipChat. What are the things that Slack offers over these?

I use it everyday and it helps a lot when you connect it to various services (github, trello etc.) It offers dozens of them: https://slack.com/integrations

love to understand why slack is better - is it primarily because of integrations? or is it something more?

Ditto this, the integrations are really the icing on the cake for Slack.

We've even written notifications from our own applications to push into Slack, so we get notified on everything from continuous integration test results and deployments through to analytics and sales figures.

Used Hipchat at my last gig, Slack now at my fully remote startup position. You could not pay me to go back to Hipchat.

It's not just the UX. Slack is more reliable on mobile, and Slack search is incredibly good compared to Hipchat (archives, context in the Mac GUI, etc).

I use both HipChat and Slack everyday. Honestly, I don't feel Slack is as massive of an upgrade as people claim it to be. A few things that make Slack stick out:

1. It's got a SlackBot that does a lot of functions for you (like /hangouts etc). You can do all of this with GitHub's Hubot if you want, but it requires your own maintenance.

2. It's "media" posting (sharing links) and search are slightly better. But these are simply more cosmetic preferences than total usability upgrade.

3. I find Slack's mobile app much better (responsive, less buggy) but that's more of a technical implementation. I think HipChat's dev team has simply become less focused on supporting it (speculation).

4. Slack has built-in private groups and #hashtags for organizing conversations and topics better.

My general conclusion is that Slack has a much higher value for non-tech folks. I'm technical, so I'm fairly indifferent. There are some quirks that I don't like about Slack, and I personally prefer some of the elements of HipChat over it.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg. There is an impressive level of polished UX spanning every aspect of Slack that is matched by very few apps anywhere. Everything from the on-boarding to the way mobile push notifications happen when you're afk, to the way it automatically gives you discounts for inactive users is just incredibly well designed.

You didn't even mention the integrations, which are where Slack makes everything else look like amateur hour. There are over 50 turn-key integrations, each of which is impeccably designed and offering comprehensive coverage of the service's features that you might want to wire into Slack. Then there are another half-dozen more flexible integrations ranging from webhooks to full API access that give you more granular control and customizability.

Saying that the media posting and search are merely cosmetic is an understatement. Imagine the delight of posting a link to a Google doc, then finding the content of the document indexed and available in search. This goes far beyond cosmetic, Slack is executing on the vision of being the actual go-to communication platform for a whole team, potentially taking a major bite out of email in a way few things have been able to in a professional setting.

I also find it very strange that you think it's higher value for non tech folks. For me, having GitHub (commits, PRs), CI, exception notification, system monitoring, and ticketing system all wired in, and the quality of the presentation of that information is what puts Slack head and shoulders above HipChat which does most of the same things, just not nearly as well.

> push notifications happen when you're afk

HipChat does this.

> it automatically gives you discounts for inactive users

HipChat is free/cheaper.

> You didn't even mention the integrations

I have BitBucket, GitHub, Heroku and Papertrail all integrated and took me 15 minutes to set up. Not sure what else Slack gives me out of the box. Ok, /hangouts isn't built into HipChat (my biggest gripe). We use Trello obsessively for both of my accounts and the integration in both cases is pretty worthless.

> Imagine the delight of posting a link to a Google doc, then finding the content of the document indexed and available in search.

Except it needs to be posted in Slack in order to be indexed right? There is this weird personal desire to want to search every document/email/app/account you have connected for information until ultimately, you don't.[0]

> For me, having GitHub (commits, PRs), CI, exception notification, system monitoring, and ticketing system all wired in,

People have been doing this for years on HipChat via Hubot. GitHub itself uses it obssessively https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCVvYCjvoZI As I mentioned, the one huge benefit of Slack is Slackbot comes pre-bundled and doesn't require you to maintain your own bot. Hence my comment why non-technical people love it.

Please note, I very much think Slack is a superior product, but I think that notion is slightly overstated. If there is one thing Slack got right, is that it made much of it's functionality seem like magic to it's users (whereas HipChat did not)

[0] - http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/14/greplin-grabs-4-million-fro...

I use HipChat and Slack everyday, and to be honest, they are not that much different at the moment for my use cases. The biggest thing Slack has over HipChat right now is the media postings, they are much easier to navigate. However, I can see Slack improve so much faster than HipChat has HipChat did not really add much new features much after getting acquired. And HipChat's Android app is the worst (bad reconnecting policies).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com