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HipChat (discontinued) vs. Higher Logic Vanilla

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    HipChat (discontinued)

    Score9.7 out of 10
    N/AHipchat was discontinued by Atlassian. Users are being migrated to Slack.N/A

    Higher Logic Vanilla

    Score5.5 out of 10
    N/AHigher Logic Vanilla is a customizable and themable forum software. It can be used for support communities, Q&A Communities and more. There are numerous integrations, including SSO, and connectors to popular software such as Mailchimp, WordPress, Zendesk and Salesforce.N/A
    Pricing
    HipChat (discontinued)Higher Logic Vanilla
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Essential
    Contact sales team
    Corporate
    Contact sales team
    Enterprise
    Contact sales team
    Enterprise Plus
    Contact sales team
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    HipChat (discontinued)Higher Logic Vanilla
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    HipChat (discontinued)Higher Logic Vanilla
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of HipChat (discontinued) and Higher Logic Vanilla
    Feature
    HipChat (discontinued)
    7.3
    106 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Higher Logic Vanilla
    -
    Ratings
    Mobile Access7.397 Ratings00 Ratings
    Search7.2103 Ratings00 Ratings
    Communication
    Comparison of Communication features of HipChat (discontinued) and Higher Logic Vanilla
    Feature
    HipChat (discontinued)
    7.3
    132 Ratings
    9% below category average
    Higher Logic Vanilla
    -
    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 HipChat (discontinued) and Higher Logic Vanilla
    Feature
    HipChat (discontinued)
    6.3
    95 Ratings
    24% below category average
    Higher Logic Vanilla
    -
    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)Higher Logic Vanilla
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    Flock
    Score9.5 out of 10
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    Score8.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Troop Messenger
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Khoros Communities
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
    Verint Community
    Score10 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    HipChat (discontinued)Higher Logic Vanilla
    Likelihood to Recommend
    6.8
    (133 ratings)
    9.0
    (10 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.8
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    7.2
    (8 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.1
    (7 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 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)Higher Logic Vanilla
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Discontinued Products
    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
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    For companies that want to customize almost anything and make the forum look like your site, Vanilla Forums is the one for you. Customization and automation of the data via the API with other systems is more than possible and they serve to be great as a hosting provider, dealing with all the upgrades, deployments and maintenance and threat management well. I would say they might be less turn key for a small application but the fact they have an open source community, the ability to find help and information can lower the barrier of entry for most.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Discontinued Products
    • 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
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    • Gamification: The ability to incentivise community members to get involved with ranks and badges is one of the main reasons that we purchased the tool.
    • Support: The Vanilla support team are incredible, often responding to issues very late at night and proactively fixing issues as soon as they occur.
    • Customisation: Vanilla can be completely styled with css allowing us to match it to the branding of the rest of our website.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Discontinued Products
    • 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
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    • There are some features I wish Vanilla would implement that could improve ease of use in our specific community, but some of the ideas we have are not necessarily something that would benefit all of the forums that Vanilla works with.
    • In the past, we've had issues with releases breaking some of our specific site features they built for us, but this has improved drastically recently.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Discontinued Products
    If they fix the bugs the last update gave that are causing hipchat to crash more often.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Discontinued Products
    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
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    It is very intuitive and simple to operate. Our customers immediately came up with the curve and began contributing content.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Discontinued Products
    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
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    They did an amazing job transferring our content from GetSatisfaction. We had almost 100% success in the transfer of 8 years worth of content.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Discontinued Products
    I don't have insights as I was not a part of the implementation. However, I love the end product
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Discontinued Products
    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
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    From a footprint standpoint, Vanilla has less technical bloat than vbulletin or InVision, and it outdoes Lithium as far as features and service go. The bloat of other services and ability to use new ways of engaging communities such as through Reactions are part of the reason Vanilla was selected. However, the features are better on a couple more seasoned platforms and more equipped to deal with issues and technical problems.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Discontinued Products
    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
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Discontinued Products
    • 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
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    • Increased uptime and overall speed in the forum (compared to our previous phpbb solution)
    • Increased usage by users which resulted in a higher pages/session in a short amount of time
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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!).

    Higher Logic Vanilla Screenshots

    Screenshot of Looks great on any device, including desktop, tablet or mobile device.Screenshot of We offer over 60 plugins that can add functionality to your community.Screenshot of Many different themes to choose from, which you can further customize as you like.Screenshot of You have full access to edit HTML and CSS of your theme, to make any changes you need.