Skype Replacement for Small Business
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If you didn't have the screen sharing requirement, I would suggest Mumble.
The right tool for the job as described is definitely Matrix, but it does take some advanced troubleshooting (in my experience) to get it working. Some folks I know say the Ansible playbook just works, but I've been part of three deployments and that's NEVER ONCE been my experience.
IMHO, when compared with the ease of install of Mumble (or even Lemmy), the difficulty on installing Matrix is somewhere in between a joke and something that should be a mild point of embarrassment to the dev team (who built a great tool, so I'm not out to shame them here).
But right now, we have a situation in America where activists and organizers BADLY need alternatives to third party hosted apps... and the team has built this great tool that only fairly hardcore sysadmin / devops folks can get working.
Mumble is great for audio chat, but I would not wish its text chat on everyone. For an audio application it is light on your resources, but not good enough to leave on perpetually since it will keep checking the mics which makes it great for idling in when you want to audio chat, but not good if you don’t want that noise. I run & use my server regularly, but I log out when I need to focus or to save battery. I think it works better as an auxiliary place to chill or for meetings & is better paired with a different application for text chat & keeping on more or less always (where that other chat probably shouldn’t be Matrix—not just for installation but the resources required to run it).
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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?
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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 -
cross-posted from: https://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
JamiI 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?
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
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cross-posted from: https://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
JamiI 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?
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.
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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
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cross-posted from: https://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
JamiI 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?
I've been using cal.com for a while and it's pretty good. I think you can self host it too.
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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...
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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 -
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 MonthsHuh, 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...
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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. As a business can subscribe to office 365 and get the business version of Teams.
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