Socialtext (discontinued) vs. Stack Overflow for Teams vs. Zimbra by Synacor

We use Social Text as a platform to air our issues with different departments. We voice our concerns and suggestions so we can help find a solution to the problems we incur on a daily basis. We need to have social text as an app so we can communicate in real time not only during work hours.

In my opinion, Stack Overflow for Teams is well suited for an organization that is on a hiring spree for the engineering teams. The reason for it is because instead of catering to doubts of new joinees individually, they can be asked to refer to the Stack Overflow and hence will save a lot of time for both new joiners as well as the existing employees.

Incentivized

Zimbra is great for an email system for a medium or large organization with appropriate IT staffing. The system is easy to use for end-users, and has a fantastic web interface. Unfortunately, it is overly complex, when considering staffing requirements and price, when compared with Office 365 or Google Apps for smaller organizations. For other education customers, it is hard to compete with Microsoft and Google providing their services for "Free" now though

Incentivized

• Version history - Always keeps the edited versions and one can revert back any time
• Creating and Editing an article is very easy and intutive
• Sharing the articles with peers

• Sharing technical solutions to problems we encounter in our internal development environment.
• Sharing best practices we find in external resources.
• Discussions on design patterns and conventions we can use in our projects.

Incentivized

• Filter emails with specific information required.
• Very good storage capacity.
• Has a mobile version and another web.
• It has a friendly and modern graphic interface.
• It is compatible with all operating systems.

• Search needs a ton of improvements. It was very slow a year ago
• Search result quality was also not that good
• I know they have improved their UI recently but when i used it last year it did not really have any design elements which could be used to make the articles look more presentable. It was important for us as we used it for external communication as well.

• I would recommend an increased engineering focus on the Microsoft Teams integration.
• It would be nice to make more medals.
• Easier ways to earn points.

Incentivized

• Zimbra's mobile application leaves much to be desired; it is its weakest point.
• This forces the use of third-party applications on smartphones, which only offer a more or less complete integration with the ActiveSync protocol.
• Zimbra allows for an on-premise scenario, which is not for everyone, especially considering that the trend nowadays is to outsource email; in any case, it also offers this alternative.
• The cost of Zimbra as a SaaS solution comes too close to that of more widely adopted competing options.
• Zimbra lacks a robust integrated chat system, which its competitors offer.
• It lacks AI integration.

Incentivized

We have a lot of info in Socialtext already. It would be hard to get all that info out and port it to a different system

The web usability of the solution is adequate, with all functions integrated into a single interface. However, it is important to note that in the desktop environment, it lacks its own application and relies on ActiveSync synchronization with reference solutions like Outlook or Thunderbird. Some features, such as the briefcase, will be excluded. The same happens on smartphones.It is also common for competing solutions to include integrated chat or video call tools, which Zimbra lacks. These shortcomings are among the most frequently requested by users.

Incentivized

Overall, we were satisfied with the implementation. We perhaps should have spent more time consulting with Zimbra or others regarding best practices but as we got to know the system better we were able to make changes relatively easily after the fact.

Incentivized

I frankly like Confluence better than socialtext because of the speed and the quality of search. They also have better design elements which can help make the articles pleasant to the eyes.

It's easier to use Stack Overflow for Teams Q&A to maintain our knowledge base over time, over the Confluence wikis that we also maintain. You don't need to bother about folders, filenames, templates - just ask a question and answer it or get it answered. It feels less formal, so developers feel more free to add content.

Incentivized

Zimbra is a significantly cheaper option than one of the Microsoft solutions, such as Exchange. It is able to run in a free environment, as it is in the case of Linux. It offers the advantages of a powerful mail manager, such as indexed searches and the integration of contacts and notes, all in one platform. It is constantly updated and the operation of its connection in mobile equipment is remarkable and very efficient. Additionally, it is able to easily integrate with Outlook solutions with its connector, which brings all the benefits of Zimbra to the user under the interface known as "mail manager." So far, I have been using Zimbra for several years and I have not missed my previous work platforms.

Incentivized

• We get solutions to concerns much faster
• We promote interactions with the other depts
• We listen and have discussions

• It makes the search for answers more efficient, so devs can focus in more important things.
• Knowledge is not lost, even if people leave the company.

Incentivized

• Zimbra is a cheaper email service than other similar platforms and in my point of view offers better features, that's why the company migrated services to this platform several years ago and without a doubt, it has been the best investment.
• Zimbra has a more user-friendly interface for employees, this has improved response times to external customers of the company.
• The implementation of Zimbra in the company motivated the IT engineering department to make improvements in open source to adapt it to the needs of the company.

Incentivized