from RocketSocket@programming.dev to privacy@lemmy.ml on 14 Mar 2025 09:49
https://programming.dev/post/26910765
cross-posted from: programming.dev/post/26910708
My small company (less than 30 employees) has been using Skype for internal group meetings and messaging. Since it’s closing, we’re looking for alternatives.
I think few people in the company are privacy minded (one of the higher ups had to get scolded to stop using some random AI to listen to all his meetings and write summaries), so we need something with a low barrier to entry.
We have basically no IT department, so self hosting would be a challenge. We do self host a redmine server via docker, and we have to connect to it via VPN when we’re off-site (we have several full time remote employees).
Our feature requirements are: Group and individual messaging Screen sharing Meetings up to 2 hours Inexpensive Meetings with up to 10 participants Windows (some people use Skype from their phones also, but not a requirement) Minimal friction to setup and use Minimal bugs (mature)
Some of the ideas floated: Teams Discord Google Meet Signal Telegram Jami
I really don’t think we could pull off Matrix, but am I wrong? Which of these ideas bothers you the least? Is there something else I’m overlooking?
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Matrix
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Zulip or Mattermost if you want basically a free (as in freedom) and open source alternative to Teams and slack But as you mention self-hosting isn’t really an option it can become expensive.
Maybe a mix of Signal and Jitsi Meet (there is several public free instances) if you want a good balance between privacy, price and efficiency
Maybe look at the kSuite from Infomaniak it’s not the best but might be a good balance too for your team.
I don’t see privacy listed in your requirements so I’m not sure why you’ve posted here. Self hosting would be necessary for that in any case.
Teams would probably be the best option given your requirements. It does everything, and for the most part it just works. Sometimes it doesn’t, but when that happens, you’ve got entire departments at Microsoft working to fix it, as opposed to when a local service you’re at the mercy of the one guy who knows a bit about computers (or worse, his nephew).
Thank you. I was about to say the same. Subscribe to office 365 and get the business version of Teams. Even if privacy is a requirement, what’s wrong with teams?
I’m in the same predicament here. What industry are you in? You might want to look into your regulatory requirements.
My current top pick is Nextcloud Talk.
Jami seems to be designed as a drop-in Skype replacement, even with account management for corporations, we are in a similar boat and that was the top alternative that rose up in checks but we’re still far from decided
I will definitely check them out. Seeing how I’m in the Medical Device Manufacturer field choosing any software is an absolute hassle. With Nextcloud I can push a lot of the validation on Nextcloud since they have already published a lot to verify their claims. If Jami can hold up I will definitely choose it. Sadly time is running out quickly. I want to avoid even starting to use Teams. If we don’t switch before the 5th of May I doubt we’ll switch at all.
Oh yeah, same thing, by that day we should be already running whatever else we choose, or we will likely go to Teams 😬
I did take a look at Jami now. It doesn’t really win me over. If I choose them it looks like I will have to completely validate everything myself. Given I will likely need a host server to make sure I don’t run into any issues with their p2p network and their fairly small community forum, I don’t see myself choosing them. Nextcloud really shapes up to be the best alternative
Source? I’ve never heard of nor experienced this. In my experience as a longtime Signal user, it’s Signal Desktop that sometimes misses messages while phones never do (unless you botched a transfer).
I used the client of Linux for some time. It always told me it can only sync the messages from the previous 3(?) days from my phone. I need a longer chat history and I can’t afford to always have to check my phone when U want a proper chat history
Weird, I had no idea that there was such a sharp restriction on the Linux platform! Well, what about using scrcpy to access your phone on the computer?
I guess I’m more of a KDE Connect kind of guy 😅
I could not get that thing to transfer files… but I also see it’s had multiple updates this month, so maybe it’s resolved my issues…
Yeah it’s always an up and down funnily if you simply choose a version that works you will never have to update. It will just continue to work. My Home PC runs a Version from 2021 and can still communicate with my updated Android Version without any issues. In the meantime the Gnome Extension has not been working for 2 Months
Huh, then I wonder if I may need to go older. Ironic. Well, I’m just using Bluetooth for now lol… I know, not the best…
Mattermost, wire, jitsi, Zulip
www.rocket.chat
The software itself is free for less than 50 employees. Has all the features you need. You can very easily host it for cheap (From $4.0/month ) on pikapods.com/apps#chat
Less than 30? Self-host an Ejabberd server on an old desktop under some desk for private message & multiuser chats + Jitsi which handshakes over the same protocol as the chats, XMPP. If you need some unified UI for everyone & a bit of posts, Movim can also sit on top of the XMPP server. If need need some low-latency, low-resource audio chat, let folks idle in a Murmur server.
Matrix uses way too many resources & is way too slow/inefficient at the protocol level.
If you are not looking to selfhost, how about a Matrix provider?
For example, etke.cc has offers from 15 USD/month. There are plenty of options, see etke.cc/order
I am not affiliated with them, I just happen to have heard of them because they are well-known and have an excellent reputation. There are others. See e.g. matrix.org/ecosystem/hosting
Thanks for all your advice. Here’s a report on my experiences for anybody that may have a similar question. I demo’d Zulip with Jitsi, Jami, and Nextcloud Talk today.
I’ve actually used Signal desktop for years, and love it, but don’t really want to mix work with personal, and if I didn’t already use it, I’d squirm about the required mobile app on my personal phone. Telegram might be a little easier that way-- I don’t think you have to have an app to make an account, just a phone number.
I liked Zulip, but I didn’t like Jitsi. It required a google account or a github account to host a meeting, it ran in browser instead of embedded in the Zulip app somehow, and the Jitsi desktop app seemed to be from 2003.
Jami was ok. I was able to set it up pretty easily, but I didn’t know if others in the org can handle that it’s P2P so you can’t leave messages for others off hours. Also there seemed to be a lot of complaints about its reliability in its own forum.
NextCloud talk on the free servers didn’t really work. I could get voice and text, but screen sharing just errored. I think I’d have to set up a TURN server or something like that. So if that requires hosting anyway, might as well do Matrix. Also the free servers were really slow.
So next test for me is Matrix. Is there a way I can try it out for free to see if I can recommend it to the rest of the company? Without spending hours on it? I’ve probably wasted more company time on this project than I would’ve saved in subscriptions.
I’ve been using cal.com for a while and it’s pretty good. I think you can self host it too.