Chat application thoughts?

[marcusquinn]

@robi everything has dark-mode if you use darkreader.org or webcatalog.app. I've not found an app yet it doesn't work as well or better than an apps own dark styling.

[robi]

@marcusquinn rocket chat, desktop app.

[marcusquinn]

@robi Didn't know there was one. I'm guessing it's an Electron wrapper like almost every other "app" nowadays? In which case, I already roll my own with WebCatalog for the extra features.

[Sam_uk]

Is anyone still enjoying Rocketchat?

Did you move to Element or Mattermost? How has that been?

Considering a Rocketchat > Mattermost move, but Matrix also a contender..

[girish]

We moved to element/matrix. Can't say we miss rocket.chat as such. Can be a bit confusing when getting started though.

[DanTheMan]

We used to be on RocketChat. But with al the changes in the app and restrictions on pop up notifications, we decided to change to Matrix 2 years ago.

Since the change to Matrix everyone is more satisfied with the usage off it. Last I opened up a poll for everyone with the question "should we go back to Rocketchat or should we stay with Matrix?" The outcome was 100% Matrix.

[jdaviescoates]

Same. Was on Rocket Chat but now use Matrix (and Nextcloud Talk)

[marcusquinn]

@Sam_uk Never looked back at Rocket Chat, although it is a decent app for the website chat integration. Much happier with Nextcloud Talk now, though. There's extra benefits from the integration with shared files etc. Apps work very well, including for native multi-person video calls. Happy to recommend it.

[jdaviescoates]

@marcusquinn said in Chat application thoughts?:

native multi-person video calls

I had a little play with Matrix's new beta video call feature recently too, worked OK considering it's still a beta

[crazybrad]

Having an awful time getting a Rocket.Chat workspace off the ground. Stuck in "Wizard" mode, now their registration portal won't grant me access using either password or email (passwordless). Is this typical experience with them? Any recommendations for simple website chat? (Matrix is too much for my user community.)

[girish]

@crazybrad By website chat, do you like the 'Live chat' that you embed on a website?

[Sam_uk]

@crazybrad I'm not a fan of Rocketchat.

Mattermost is working OK for us.

[BrutalBirdie]

@Sam_uk my big problem with Mattermost is that OIDC and LDAP is behind the paywall.

[crazybrad]

@girish I was looking at both embedding a chat widget on a website (for customer support) and also for a group chat platform like Matrix. Since hitting the wall on RocketChat, I turned to ChatWoot. The Cloudron implementation is excellent, was able to tweak some env parameters as needed and it looks great so far. @Sam_uk @BrutalBirdie Thanks for sharing your experience with Mattermost. For the user community I need to support, something as simple as Telegram is what I am hoping to find. In your opinions, is Mattermost really simple for end users?

[Sam_uk]

@BrutalBirdie Yeah, for nonprofits the paywall is low. I think we paid $200 for three years, unlimited users.

There are some workarounds using Gitlab auth for me the $200 was worth it.

[robi]

Zulip.com has some nice integrations including WP, is self-hostable but has not been packaged yet.

[girish]

Zulip is quite different UI-wise from other chat applications. It's concept of threads/topics may or may not be confusing depending on what previous chat application you used. https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/ is rust lang's zulip instance if you want to check it out.

Does anyone have experiences to share about Zulip here?