HipChat (discontinued) vs. Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
HipChat (discontinued)
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
Hipchat was discontinued by Atlassian. Users are being migrated to Slack.
$0
per user
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Social Squared is a SharePoint Discussion Board App that can be deployed across SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams. Social Squared improves productivity and efficiency by providing structured discussion forums for employee and student discussions. For Microsoft SharePoint Social Squared is a SharePoint discussion board application where users can post questions within relevant forums and receive answers to their questions from subject matter experts. The…
$1,950
per year per installation
Pricing
HipChat (discontinued)Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Editions & Modules
HipChat Basic
$0
per user
HipChat Plus
$2
per user
Social Squared Discussion Board
From $1950
per year per installation
Social Squared Discussion Board Plus (includes Charts / Data Viewer)
From $2500
per year per installation
Social Squared Discussion Board Enterprise Edition
POA
per year per installation
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HipChat (discontinued)Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFor Server pricing info please visit https://www.hipchat.com/server (Only $1.20/user/month at the highest user tier!)Prices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. Enterprise editions can be amended to suit business needs if deemed necessary, additional costs incurred and TBD. All packages include free technical support. Free upgrades available to latest versions of tool as they are released.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HipChat (discontinued)Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

No answers on this topic

Features
HipChat (discontinued)Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
HipChat (discontinued)
7.3
106 Ratings
8% below category average
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
-
Ratings
Mobile Access7.397 Ratings00 Ratings
Search7.2103 Ratings00 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
HipChat (discontinued)
7.3
132 Ratings
9% below category average
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
-
Ratings
Chat7.7132 Ratings00 Ratings
Notifications7.7130 Ratings00 Ratings
Discussions6.5110 Ratings00 Ratings
Surveys7.834 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase7.043 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with GoToMeeting7.023 Ratings00 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
HipChat (discontinued)
6.3
95 Ratings
25% below category average
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
-
Ratings
Video files6.585 Ratings00 Ratings
Audio files6.873 Ratings00 Ratings
Access control6.660 Ratings00 Ratings
Advanced security features5.949 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive6.027 Ratings00 Ratings
Device sync6.055 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
HipChat (discontinued)Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Small Businesses
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.9 out of 10
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.7 out of 10
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HipChat (discontinued)Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Likelihood to Recommend
6.8
(133 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.8
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.2
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.1
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.4
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.6
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.2
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
HipChat (discontinued)Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Likelihood to Recommend
Atlassian
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.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Pros
Atlassian
  • 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.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Cons
Atlassian
  • 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.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Likelihood to Renew
Atlassian
If they fix the bugs the last update gave that are causing hipchat to crash more often.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Usability
Atlassian
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.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Atlassian
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 .
Read full review
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Atlassian
I don't have insights as I was not a part of the implementation. However, I love the end product
Read full review
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Atlassian
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.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Atlassian
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.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Atlassian
  • 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.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
ScreenShots

HipChat (discontinued) Screenshots

Screenshot of HipChat is with your team, whenever, wherever. Try it on your desktop, web, mobile, tablet, & wearable.Screenshot of Give your eyes the respite they deserve from your blaring white screen with HipChat dark mode!Screenshot of HipChat becomes your command center by integrating with over 100 awesome apps/tools your team already loves (like Uber!).

Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board Screenshots

Screenshot of MODERN, RESPONSIVE SHAREPOINT DISCUSSION BOARD
Discussion Forums can be created for a variety of different reasons. This example is a Forum Group for the Microsoft 365 technologies such as Teams, Planner, and SharePoint. Forums are then created within the Forum Groups for more specific discussions. Under the SharePoint Forum Group, there is a Forum for SharePoint On-Premises and SharePoint Online. Anyone looking to ask a question regarding SharePoint 2019 for example would be able to post their question under SharePoint On-Premises rather than SharePoint Online. This also allows subject matter experts to focus more on the questions that they can respond to and provide value.Screenshot of SHAREPOINT DISCUSS BOARD – TOPICS VIEW
When navigating into a forum, the topics and discussions that are taking place are shown. Any new topics that not yet read will be highlighted. It also displays whether topics have been answered, their average ratings, how many views and posts are within the topic, and also provides the ability to subscribe to the forum to be notified of new posts within it.Screenshot of READING DISCUSSIONS AND PROVIDING FEEDBACK
Social Squared offers a threaded discussion view with the ability to provide feedback to other users.

Posts can be rated, voted upon, or liked by users in order to give feedback to the user creating or responding to a post. Additionally, replies can be marked as answered or marked as featured, which gives readers of forums assurance that the response they are reading is validated to be the correct answer.

Users also receive feedback through the earning of badges. The more users post or mark posts as answered, the more points are rewarded. This makes it easy to spot subject matter experts.Screenshot of SUGGESTED TAGS
Social Squared provides a rich text editor for creating and replying to topics. The Rich Text toolbar provides functionality such as inserting images, YouTube videos, Stream Videos, Formatted Code Inserts, as well as font formatting.

While typing, suggestions on how to tag a post appear. Selecting an existing tag will provide consistency in the tags used making it easier for other users to discover the post.Screenshot of SOCIAL SQUARED TAG CLOUD VIEW
The Social Squared Tag Cloud view makes it easy to navigate to posts within a specific category even if they span multiple forums. The more a tag appears in different posts, the more prominent it will be in the tag cloud. Users can navigate to posts with the tag in one click.Screenshot of DISCUSSION BOARD WITHIN MICROSOFT TEAMS TAB
Social Squared is a Discussion Board App for Microsoft Teams Tab’s and Microsoft Teams Personal Apps. Social Squared provides information workers the ability to post questions within relevant forums, and receive answers from their team. The Discussion Board layout for posts makes it easier to find answers to questions that may have already been asked before. Through features such as “Mark as Answered”, “Forum Moderation”, “Post Rating”, “Post Likes”, “Post Voting”, users will be assured that the answers they are reading are validated.