Perhaps it is time to think about alternatives

[Sam_uk]

@nebulon Is there an easy way to go back to an older version without losing recent chats?

I can restore from backup, but I assume I lose recent chat history then?

[nebulon]

@Sam_uk there is no easy way, as often with updates the database schema changes and thus code and data become incompatible.

[micmc]

@marcusquinn said in Perhaps it is time to think about alternatives:

@micmc Notifications settings at /settings/user/notifications might offer the options you need?

No, I've checked that already. There doesn't seem there's a way to concise that, I thought I was maybe missing something.

[AartJansen]

I was just reading this...
https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/18a2624/now_that_rocketchat_65_limits_to_25_users_or_less/
Looks like the new 25 user limit can be config'ed back to community edition (no user limit), don't use it myself, thought it might be of interest to those that do.

[Sam_uk]

I stopped using Rocketchat some time ago personally. Getting on OK with Mattermost

[robi]

It's time for Zulip

[RazielKanos]

Well, I guess they think they are the biggest fish and can start all this shitty behavior. For me, I was already out after I installed it on Cloudron and then a day later I got a mail from a rocket chat employee, trying to get me to buy a license.

[Sam_uk]

If I didn't have to care about GDPR compliance I'd certainly have gone Element/Matrix

[girish]

@Sam_uk what about Matrix is not GDPR compliant? Is it the federation angle?

[RazielKanos]

@girish
https://matrix.org/blog/2018/05/08/gdpr-compliance-in-matrix/

[RazielKanos]

it's still possible, but you have to make sure ppl give their consent before they join your server

[foliovision]

Very interesting conversation. We are RocketChat users on Cloudron (the app which first brought us in). More and more annoyances (lack of notifications), slowly but surely. Microsoft style Embrace-Extend-Extinguish, except this time it's the RocketChat management team suffocating their own open source version.

Perhaps it's time to freeze the RocketChat updates or even to offer a forked long term version where notifications actually work?

[robi]

Anyone aware of any apps built using https://swellrt.org ?

[foliovision]

@robi How is swellrt.org relevant to RocketChat?

[robi]

@foliovision it's an alternative

[foliovision]

Doesn't look like much of an alternative to me.

I must say the link spam to your paid healing business and buy me a coffee and paypal me seems a bit weird. You're a regular member so it's not up to me to judge.

[robi]

@foliovision said in Perhaps it is time to think about alternatives:

Doesn't look like much of an alternative to me.

Then you must not be a developer or someone who envisions investing in developing a chat solution for your needs.

Thanks for the screenie, those stats look great!

Although I prefer dark mode.

[foliovision]

@robi said in Perhaps it is time to think about alternatives:

someone who envisions investing in developing a chat solution for your needs.

No I don't want to invest in developing a chat solution. I'd like to replace RocketChat with a reliable and perhaps less-featured open source alternative. I would definitely be up to contribute to such a project (donation) and some code fixes where we find rough edges, if the app is mostly PHP/JS.

What really bothers me about open source projects like RocketChat is when they use AWS infrastructure for their paid hosting. We seek and support non-US jurisdiction open source apps as we would like to retain our privacy, not have it secretly undermined by tying directly back into big data. I.e. at one point we were subscribers to the paid service but the AWS infrastructure annoyed us enough along with the constantly changing prices and business model to leave.

Ah well, at least RocketChat's weirdness prompted me to look hard enough to find Cloudron, and we now run about five of nine core services on open source software. We've loved no more mandatory updates (except with RocketChat, which really should be locked down on the last privacy friendly version with just security fixes). We would be very happy to look at something simpler. NextCloud alas is not it. There's just too many moving parts and updates and creaky joints there, it almost requires a full-time admin.

[LoudLemur]

To pile in on Rocket.chat, I read recently, but didn't take time to investigate, that they are also restricting numbers to 20. Users in a call, something like that.

When I was looking at Rocket.Chat a while ago, I compared it against Zulip, and found Zulip (and particularly their nice developers) to be the winner.

https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/1220/zulip-powerful-open-source-group-chat?_=1701894962066

The call quality on Nextcloud is excellent. Thanks for recommending that earlier.

[marcusquinn]

@foliovision Happily moved from RocketChat to Nextcloud Talk, been fast, reliable, well-liked by all users, and the least admin of any system I know. Don't know what your expectations are from FOSS, but there's some real-world experience with a few hundred users to include in your consideration.