HipChat (discontinued) vs. Spike

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

Spike makes it simple to remain in touch with your peers and teams. It is simple, and searching for team members in the search tab is quick. Moreover, this tool makes screen sharing easier for presentations. The software is incredibly user-friendly and simple to use. Spike's versatility is enhanced via instant texting through this app. The visual and audio call quality is outstanding. Except for cloud storage, Spike does not connect with other applications. While there is a solid rationale for this, since everything - calendar, notes, tasks, team communication - can be made in the app, it loses some value if you prefer, for example, Microsoft To-Do and OneNote or Google Projects and Keep to organize your tasks and notes. I'd like to see a less costly email, calendar, and contacts-only subscription for solitary users.

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

• There is an uniform experience because it consolidates email accounts.
• Spike's chat-like interface is its main selling feature.
• Files may be easily shared by connecting to cloud services.

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• The whole user interface is simple but very outdated - apparently Atlassian didn't focus too much on Hipchat even though they tried in the last 2 years.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

• I wish the calendar was more robust and provided a comprehensive look. I'd also want to have multiple windows open.
• The inability to sync settings across devices. Configuring several devices with the same settings takes effort, particularly when it comes to custom IMAP.
• Email Signature in HTML is still not taught as the capability, which I'd love to see.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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

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

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

Incentivized

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

The first one to use after google calendar is spike, after all the features that I've already mentioned,like the possibility to send a voice message, videos,photos etc... And the possibility to chat in real time and a good organization and planification and the priority feature is my favorite

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

• However, the app is too tiny to accurately quantify its return on investment (ROI).
• Multiple times, I've gotten to zero emails in my inbox.
• It was easy to communicate without exchanging long texts.

Incentivized