HipChat (discontinued) vs. Jive

Well suited for

Cross-teams communication.

Webhooks support. Easy integrations with Atlassian products and other systems as well. File sharing directly or in a group. Video/Audio calls.

Not suited for:

Lacks apps integration like Slack.

Lacks quality with video calls.

Slow file transfer for large files.

Frequent downtime due to app instability.

Incentivized

It's definitely worth considering Jive for the type of application we've developed i.e. a central shared repository for all employees to host and discuss information. I can't say I have ever used a superior tool, but they may exist. I'm just not sure I would want to use it exclusively for file hosting, though. It does integrate with various other tools, so perhaps it would be fine if used in conjunction with another tool for that purpose.

Incentivized

• HipChat is very stable and reliable. I have never had issues with not being able to connect or being able to communicate with others on HipChat.
• HipChat integrates quite well with other applications, such as Jira and Stash. This is a main selling point for my team. It provides a convenient feed of actions on a JIRA story or Stash pull request.
• HipCat does a good job of allowing 1-1 and group chats. It is simple to start a new conversation and it is easy to hold a group conversation and keep track of who is in the room.
• I like how HipChat has away/here/on mobile statuses. This makes it easy to see if a person is available to be contacted.

Incentivized

• Individual design
• Presence of Russian language (localization can be independently established)
• You can configure several information tapes with different themes. One for work, the second for communication
• A newly-arrived network user immediately receives a prepared block for beginners. After completing several game tasks, the user will receive the basics of using Jive.
• There is a template for each scenario. There is even a template for planning R&D, and there are more than twenty of them.
• Integrates with MS Office, Google Drive, Google Docs
• There are all platforms (even Winphone and blackberry)
• You can create forum threads

Incentivized

• Mobile app is not very responsive on iOS. Sometimes connection to Hipchat servers is taking too long even on good networks.
• Both mobile and desktop versions have no alphabetical or recent sorting for groups and chat rooms.
• Video and audio calls are pretty useless, they're slow and not always work.
• The whole user interface is simple but very outdated - apparently Atlassian didn't focus too much on Hipchat even though they tried in the last 2 years.

Incentivized

• Search functionality is very weak
• The information architecture and taxonomy doesnt allow for easy discoverability of content
• It's hard to navigate the and find spaces/groups that I already know about
• The main profile/interface does not allow easy access to key tasks or common tasks.

If they fix the bugs the last update gave that are causing hipchat to crash more often.

Incentivized

There are always external factors that can impact this decision but currently, the Jive platform is maintaining its lead in the market place in this area. If the innovation in this space by Jive continues, then this number will remain high. Integration with other systems and adaptability to changes in the market or in client needs will also make this decision hard to predict more then 6 months into the future

The app itself had a pleasant if not generic interface. As a user experience expert and engineer I can say the interface is fairly intuitive if not bland. It does what you expect it to do and it's available on iOS and Android devices. If I recall it was generally pretty light weight in terms of installation size.

Incentivized

It was harder to use that expected. The admin needs to be code savvy to truly customize the system. And users need to trained on the system and the setup. Trainings and monitoring need to continue to enforce use.

Uptime was OK. But there was one day that the system crashed for a whole day. Our company was unable to operate. And all the plugins to word/excel froze causing those systems to freeze.

Jive posted a statement to the media saying all customers were up, but we were not.

The product worked as designed. It just didn't work for our needs.

HipChat support is good . Responds in timely manner when ever we have raised the request via email , phone and gives us continue update on the request .Though most of the questions are answered by HipChat FAQs , but they can still improve it and add more to the knowledge base .

Incentivized

They did an OK job when I needed them. Except for the one day the system went down. Jive pointed the finger at the hosting company, and the hosting company pointed the finger at Jive. No reliable information came to us.

Jive online training is there. It is OK/average. I feel some other companies are doing better. It is not a piece that is required to have a successfully implementation, but it could be useful to improve it

I don't have insights as I was not a part of the implementation. However, I love the end product

Incentivized

If I did this over, I would hire out the implementation. They know the best practices and could have guided us to make an easier to use setup.

We tried a lot of chat clients before choosing HipChat. The Skype for Business UI on the Mac side was 5 years old and terrible. Mac users hated the app including our CTO. Cisco Jabber was expensive to license and maintain; Skype was open to the public which took time away due to users dealing with spam and could allow viruses and malware. HipChat being a closed product, centrally managed and available to try without an upfront investment was perfect for our environment. All our Agile teams have their own room, chat and can communicate with others quickly and easily.

Incentivized

We had a Google phone number set up before and Jive was a lot better option than that. It is more consistent and can be configured much easier and with more advanced settings. Additionally, based on the pricing as well as working with the rep on our account, it was a perfect option for us

Incentivized

Actually I never shared of HipChat using with more than 25 persons in team simultaneously, but I believe it can be scaled for much largest collaboration teams. At least it works flawlessly for us, with transparent integration with Jira, and I am not see any reasons for some troubles for work at big scale.

Incentivized

• HipChat has increased the effiency with which I am able to communicate with my coworkers, particularly those who work out of other offices. Having a light, portable messaging solution has been beneficial for checking in on small things without the need to send emails or schedule phone calls.

Incentivized

• reduce email traffic
• reduce amount of files/documents scattered & lost across shared drives
• increased discovery, awareness and interaction of historically more separated individuals & team functions across the organisation
• from an IT perspective, we've benefited from improved IT operations (e.g. troubleshooting info shared and easily searched/found with all team members - such that even junior team members can solve technical problems outside of business hours, lessening the burden for standby/call-in for more senior team members)

Incentivized