Free Slack Alternative

Slack is all the rage these days. Twitter is full of excited slackers. Net is full of Slack vs HipChat articles. VentureBeat says Slack will change the workplace. TechCrunch praises Slack. So does pretty much every other media outlet. HipChat and Flowdock must be losing customers left and right, I imagine. Is there anything out there, that’s better than Slack? 

I think so. To me, the best Slack alternative is Bitrix24. Not because it’s free for small teams and has affordable unlimited user plans, but because it offers tools that Slack should be offering. These are:

1.     Solo and group videocalls

 

Chat is fine and dandy, but sometimes you want to talk to a person. WebRTC makes video and audio calls from/to PCs and smartphones fairly easy to integrate into your collaboration platform and this is exactly what Bitrix24 did but Slack did not (yet). 

2.     True file management

 

File sharing is fine. But I expect Dropbox-like file sharing. I want files to be available in the cloud, on my PC and mobile devices. I want them to sync and update automatically when someone from my team edited shared file. I want to be able to edit documents directly inside the discussion. Again, not that hard to do and something that Bitrix24 makes available even in the free plan. Strike two, Slack (and HipChat, and Flowdock, and Campfire).

3.     Group tasks and projects

 

I can write a message “Mike, can you please do …” and get a reply “Sure”, but chances are, everyone will forget, myself included. Project management needs instant messaging (I am looking at you, Asana) and team chat absolutely needs tasks and todos. And shared calendars for easy coordination.

4.     Self-hosted version

 

I love cloud, you love cloud, everyone loves cloud. It’s cheap and requires no setup. But then paranoia creeps onto you. What if Slack goes bankrupt? What if NSA is reading all my messages with funny gifs? If only I could can my hands on the source code and put the damn thing on my server, it would do everything I want. Another major Bitrix24 advantage in my view.

5.     Extranet

 

Collaboration is addictive. Team chats are for teams, but very soon you’ll want to use it for talking to clients, freelancers and others who are not employees at your company. This poses serious challenge. You DO want to collaborate with these people, but you DON’T want them to have access to sensitive data and have the same access rights as employees. The solutions? Extranet.

Do you know any other good free Slack alternative? Let me know.