[Steem.Community] A Slack alternative for team chat based on Mattermost
DISCLAIMER: steem.community isn't intended to be a competing project to steemit.chat! Just a pilot run to compare the differences between two open source Slack alternatives.
Edit: Follow this link to sign up! https://steem.community/signup_user_complete/?id=d44w91po9tfcuypn1qbr6q6h1w
Edit #2: If you can't find your verification email when you try to register, be sure to check your spam folder. DNS has been updated to fix the issue. It could still take a few hours to propagate but I flushed the records out of Google's DNS cache. Mail delivery should be working as expected now. Please let me know if you're still having trouble./h2>
Edit #3: Mattermost has been upgraded to the latest release v3.2.0. Custom emoji are here!
I spent some time last night setting up a Mattermost server at https://steem.community so that the Steemit community can take it for a test drive. This is basically what you'd expect from an open source Slack alternative: less features and free software.
I've never used Mattermost or Rocket Chat before this week, but I figured it would be good to have each of them set up so we can collectively determine which one performs better. I know I'm not the only one that has had problems with the Rocketchat OS X client crashing repeatedly. And the interface seems to be sluggish in my experience. Being in the general channel seems to bog down the entire client. Granted, there is over 1000 users on that chat.
Certainly, these issues could be hardware bound due to having too many users for the amount of hardware, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to test another Slack clone software out and see if it has a little more polish or if it suffers from the same issues.
So, why another chat server?
- To compare performance and feature-set vs. RocketChat.
- Mattermost supports importing users, channel archives, and themes from Slack.
- Built with golang, react, postgresql; and comes with a full test suite.
- If the other steemit.chat gets bogged down by having too many new users, they can overflow into https://steem.community.
- I'll implement a karma bot!
What about the team that put work into steemit.chat?
If the community converges on https://steem.community due to higher performance, then I am happy to turn over the administration reins to the awesome team that took the initiative to get steemit.chat up and running ( @cass, @riverhead, probably others?). The main reason I'm doing this is to give the Steemit community an opportunity to pilot an alternative to Slack and RocketChat. Who knows, it may even be worse! As I see it, there's no harm in taking it for a test drive, though. Maybe it'll end up being a good way to handle load as new members join Steemit and seek help in these chats.
Great initiative! The performance issues with Rocket Chat are client side which is why some people seem fine and others are wading through mud. Will be interesting to see how different software addresses this.
Also, Rocket Chat does support the importing of exported Slack data however one of the reasons we wanted to migrate off slack was to ditch the compromised accounts. We were reluctant to just import them back into a new service.
For this test to work a lot of people will need to migrate over to test which given Rocket Chat's poor client side performance should be an easy sell :).
As a comparison I run a Rocket Chat service for another project with about 700 users and about 1/10th the traffic (it's a financial services project rather than social media). We've been on it for about four months without issue.
Let the testing begin!
Steem, I assumed was going to become the successor to Facebook, Instagram etc. But if the new developments take hold it will surpass them!! Steem is a truly groundbreaking social platform that is making "waves" of its own; it's an awesome concept to reward its contributors and to encourage a larger community feel to actually cement the "social" element of the platform. As well as compound its integrity and create more worthwhile user experience.
Bravo!!
I think I agree
lets start :)
Hey robrigo,
this is what I call enrichment! Thank you for your effort. Giving us alternative is a very reasonable. In case the slack goes down we still can communicate over the new chat. Every option we have gives us more freedom.
My respect and upvote sir
I agree that the alternatives should be researched. I've noticed the unresponsiveness of rocket chat myself. SO I will certainly give your Mattermost install a try.
Interestingly, we face the same dilemma at my office. We are using Slack but are really annoyed of the history limit of the free version. We won't buy the licences. T0o expensive for the number of users and their activity. So we are considering swapping it with Mattermost .
Joined :)
I think steem.community could be a beneficial player that helps Decentralized Steemit Marketplace get off the ground allowing users to easily talk to one another. Would be happy to hear your thoughts. I enjoy the many innovations done here already! You've made steemit a better place with your work
Thanks for setting this up @robrigo! I just signed up and am checking out the boards now. Looks good! Cheers!
Thanks @randyclemens. I hope you stick around. :)
Can't wait to check it out. Steem.chat is nice but I guess there is usually always something better out there.
can't get my verification email :(
Hey @etz, sorry about that. Have you checked your spam folder? I'm going to tweak the mail stuff tonight so that mail isn't filtered out as spam (hopefully).
Ok, mail has arrived. sorry for concern
If the performance is better than what we see in Rocket chat, it will be a slam dunk.
So far so good. We need more users to load test it!
Good luck with this project. I'll be keeping an eye on it for sure.
lovely to have multi places to chat in case something goes down, thanks!