Alternatives to Blink logo

Alternatives to Blink

Slack, Microsoft Teams, HipChat, Telegram , and Mattermost are the most popular alternatives and competitors to Blink.
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What is Blink and what are its top alternatives?

It empowers and protects your most important people with the information and tools they need. Its Direct & Group Messaging means you can reach anyone, anytime, without the need for email addresses or phone numbers.
Blink is a tool in the Group Chat & Notifications category of a tech stack.

Top Alternatives to Blink

  • Slack
    Slack

    Imagine all your team communication in one place, instantly searchable, available wherever you go. That’s Slack. All your messages. All your files. And everything from Twitter, Dropbox, Google Docs, Asana, Trello, GitHub and dozens of other services. All together. ...

  • Microsoft Teams
    Microsoft Teams

    See content and chat history anytime, including team chats with Skype that are visible to the whole team. Private group chats are available for smaller group conversations. ...

  • HipChat
    HipChat

    HipChat is a hosted private chat service for your company or team. Invite colleagues to share ideas and files in persistent group chat rooms. Get your team off AIM, Google Talk, and Skype — HipChat was built for business. ...

  • Telegram
    Telegram

    Users can send messages and exchange photos, videos, stickers, audio and files of any type. It provides instant messaging, simple, fast, secure and synced across all your devices. ...

  • Mattermost
    Mattermost

    Mattermost is modern communication from behind your firewall.

  • RocketChat
    RocketChat

    Rocket.Chat is a Web Chat Server, developed in JavaScript, using the Meteor fullstack framework. It is a great solution for communities and companies wanting to privately host their own chat service or for developers looking forward to build and evolve their own chat platforms. ...

  • Stream
    Stream

    Stream allows you to build scalable feeds, activity streams, and chat. Stream’s simple, yet powerful API’s and SDKs are used by some of the largest and most popular applications for feeds and chat. SDKs available for most popular languages. ...

  • Gitter
    Gitter

    Free chat rooms for your public repositories. A bit like IRC only smarter. Chats for private repositories as well as organisations. ...

Blink alternatives & related posts

Slack logo

Slack

117.6K
94.1K
6K
Bring all your communication together in one place
117.6K
94.1K
+ 1
6K
PROS OF SLACK
  • 1.2K
    Easy to integrate with
  • 876
    Excellent interface on multiple platforms
  • 849
    Free
  • 694
    Mobile friendly
  • 690
    People really enjoy using it
  • 331
    Great integrations
  • 315
    Flexible notification preferences
  • 198
    Unlimited users
  • 184
    Strong search and data archiving
  • 155
    Multi domain switching support
  • 82
    Easy to use
  • 40
    Beautiful
  • 27
    Hubot support
  • 22
    Unread/read control
  • 21
    Slackbot
  • 19
    Permalink for each messages
  • 17
    Text snippet with highlighting
  • 15
    Quote message easily
  • 14
    Per-room notification
  • 13
    Awesome integration support
  • 12
    IRC gateway
  • 12
    Star for each message / attached files
  • 11
    Good communication within a team
  • 11
    Dropbox Integration
  • 10
    Jira Integration
  • 10
    Slick, search is great
  • 9
    New Relic Integration
  • 8
    Great communication tool
  • 8
    Asana Integration
  • 8
    Combine All Services Quickly
  • 7
    Awesomeness
  • 7
    This tool understands developers
  • 7
    Google Drive Integration
  • 7
    XMPP gateway
  • 6
    Replaces email
  • 6
    Twitter Integration
  • 6
    Google Docs Integration
  • 6
    BitBucket integration
  • 5
    GREAT Customer Support / Quick Response to Feedback
  • 5
    Jenkins Integration
  • 5
    Guest and Restricted user control
  • 4
    Gathers all my communications in one place
  • 4
    Clean UI
  • 4
    GitHub integration
  • 4
    Excellent multi platform internal communication tool
  • 4
    Mention list view
  • 3
    Perfect implementation of chat + integrations
  • 3
    Android app
  • 3
    Visual Studio Integration
  • 3
    Easy to start working with
  • 3
    Easy
  • 3
    Easy to add a reaction
  • 3
    Timely while non intrusive
  • 3
    Great on-boarding
  • 3
    Threaded chat
  • 2
    Eases collaboration for geographically dispersed teams
  • 2
    Message Actions
  • 2
    Simplicity
  • 2
    So much better than email
  • 2
    It's basically an improved (although closed) IRC
  • 2
    Great Channel Customization
  • 2
    Great interface
  • 2
    Intuitive, easy to use, great integrations
  • 2
    Markdown
  • 1
    API
  • 1
    Easy remote communication
  • 1
    Get less busy
  • 1
    Targetprocess integration
  • 1
    Better User Experience
  • 1
    Multi work-space support
  • 1
    Travis CI integration
  • 1
    It's the coolest IM ever
  • 1
    Dev communication Made Easy
  • 1
    Community
  • 1
    Integrates with just about everything
  • 1
    Great API
  • 1
    Very customizable
  • 1
    Great Support Team
  • 1
    Flexible and Accessible
  • 1
    Finally with terrible "threading"—I miss Flowdock
  • 1
    Archive Importing
  • 1
    Complete with plenty of Electron BLOAT
  • 1
    Watch
  • 1
    I was 666 star :D
  • 0
    Easy to useL
  • 0
    Platforms
CONS OF SLACK
  • 13
    Can be distracting depending on how you use it
  • 6
    Requires some management for large teams
  • 6
    Limit messages history
  • 5
    Too expensive
  • 5
    You don't really own your messages
  • 4
    Too many notifications by default

related Slack posts

Lucas Litton
Founder & CEO at Macombey · | 24 upvotes · 261.1K views

Sentry has been essential to our development approach. Nobody likes errors or apps that crash. We use Sentry heavily during Node.js and React development. Our developers are able to see error reports, crashes, user's browsers, and more, all in one place. Sentry also seamlessly integrates with Asana, Slack, and GitHub.

See more
Yonas Beshawred

Using Screenhero via Slack was getting to be pretty horrible. Video and sound quality was often times pretty bad and worst of all the service just wasn't reliable. We all had high hopes when the acquisition went through but ultimately, the product just didn't live up to expectations. We ended up trying Zoom after I had heard about it from some friends at other companies. We noticed the video/sound quality was better, and more importantly it was super reliable. The Slack integration was awesome (just type /zoom and it starts a call)

You can schedule recurring calls which is helpful. There's a G Suite (Google Calendar) integration which lets you add a Zoom call (w/dial in info + link to web/mobile) with the click of a button.

Meeting recordings (video and audio) are really nice, you get recordings stored in the cloud on the higher tier plans. One of our engineers, Jerome, actually built a cool little Slack integration using the Slack API and Zoom API so that every time a recording is processed, a link gets posted to the "event-recordings" channel. The iOS app is great too!

#WebAndVideoConferencing #videochat

See more
Microsoft Teams logo

Microsoft Teams

2.3K
1.6K
138
Chat-based workspace in Office 365
2.3K
1.6K
+ 1
138
PROS OF MICROSOFT TEAMS
  • 28
    Work well with the rest of Office 365 work flow
  • 23
    Mobile friendly
  • 19
    Free
  • 12
    Great integrations
  • 11
    Well-thought Design
  • 10
    Channels
  • 8
    Easy setup
  • 6
    Unlimited users
  • 5
    Strong search and data archiving
  • 4
    Multi domain switching support
  • 4
    Easy to integrate with
  • 3
    Same interface on multiple platforms
  • 3
    Web interface
  • 2
    Great voice quality
CONS OF MICROSOFT TEAMS
  • 17
    Confusing UI
  • 12
    Bad performance on init and after quite a use
  • 10
    Bad Usermanagement
  • 6
    No desktop client (only fat and slow electron app)
  • 6
    Can't see all members in a video meeting
  • 5
    Unable to Mute users
  • 5
    No Markdown Support
  • 4
    You don't really own your messages
  • 4
    MIssing public channels
  • 4
    Forced WYSIWYG
  • 3
    Stubborn, unused friendly
  • 3
    Challenging Onboarding
  • 3
    No linux support
  • 1
    Audio support problems

related Microsoft Teams posts

Jon Waite
Scrum Master at Costco Wholsale · | 3 upvotes · 80.8K views

Looking for the pros and cons for a tool we can use best for cross-team collaboration (software development). Has anyone compared Google Hangouts Chat with Microsoft Teams? What were the advantages of either??

See more
Jack Graves

We use Microsoft Teams as our primary workplace collaboration tool. It enables our team to work remotely and still collaborate on projects - with integration to JIRA and Confluence, the tool enables us to create War Rooms when problems occur and also provides information-sharing capabilities. Replaced HipChat.

See more
HipChat logo

HipChat

1.3K
890
684
Supercharge team collaboration with group chat and IM
1.3K
890
+ 1
684
PROS OF HIPCHAT
  • 144
    Integrates well with a lot of developer tools
  • 96
    Developer-friendly
  • 85
    Clients for every major platform
  • 70
    Free unlimited users
  • 70
    Mobile-friendly
  • 40
    Extremely easy to use for non-tech guys
  • 39
    Good api integration
  • 38
    Irc-like
  • 28
    Reliable
  • 26
    Feature rich
  • 13
    Affordable at $2/user
  • 6
    Email notifications
  • 6
    Text Messages
  • 4
    More developer-friendly than Skype
  • 3
    Full text search
  • 3
    JIRA integration
  • 3
    Integrates with Atlassian products
  • 2
    Team Chat Rooms
  • 1
    Intergration with all the things
  • 1
    gitlab
  • 1
    tagia
  • 1
    256-bit SSL encryption to transmit your data
  • 1
    Fast
  • 1
    On-Premise deployment
  • 1
    Trello integration
  • 1
    salt
CONS OF HIPCHAT
  • 1
    Purchased by and merged with Slack
  • 1
    Discontinued with the Atlassian Stack

related HipChat posts

Mark Nelissen

I use Slack because it offers the best experience, even on the free tier (which we're still using). As a comparison, I have had in depth experience with HipChat, Stride, Skype, Google Chat (the new service), Google Hangouts (the old service). For self hosted, Mattermost is open source and claims to support most Slack integrations, but I have not extensively investigated this claim.

See more
Jack Graves

We use Microsoft Teams as our primary workplace collaboration tool. It enables our team to work remotely and still collaborate on projects - with integration to JIRA and Confluence, the tool enables us to create War Rooms when problems occur and also provides information-sharing capabilities. Replaced HipChat.

See more
Telegram  logo

Telegram

736
619
44
A cloud-based instant messaging and voice over IP service
736
619
+ 1
44
PROS OF TELEGRAM
  • 14
    Lightweight
  • 7
    Unlimited history
  • 7
    Free
  • 7
    Great bot API
  • 3
    Media editor
  • 3
    Can hide phone number
  • 2
    Delete without a trace
  • 1
    Great bot
CONS OF TELEGRAM
  • 3
    Requires phone number
  • 3
    Notification customisation is limited
  • 2
    No video call

related Telegram posts

Mattermost logo

Mattermost

480
577
302
Open-source, self-hosted, Slack alternative
480
577
+ 1
302
PROS OF MATTERMOST
  • 60
    Open source
  • 41
    On-premise deployment
  • 26
    Free
  • 22
    Built using golang
  • 21
    Fast and easy to use
  • 14
    Docker image provided for easy setup
  • 14
    Full text search
  • 12
    Built using react
  • 11
    Supports multiple teams
  • 11
    Search and data archiving
  • 11
    Very professional
  • 8
    Keeps us focused, effective, concise
  • 7
    Clean and simple look
  • 7
    Integration with Gitlab
  • 7
    Webhooks support
  • 6
    Well documented
  • 6
    Use #Hashtags like Twitter
  • 3
    Import Slack logs
  • 3
    Reactive community and ease of use
  • 2
    Self managed data
  • 2
    On-premises Deployment
  • 2
    Secure
  • 1
    Markdown support
  • 1
    On premise installation
  • 1
    Kanban
  • 1
    Checklists
  • 1
    Slack-compatible integrations
  • 1
    Easy webhook integration
CONS OF MATTERMOST
  • 2
    Less integrations and plugins than slack
  • 2
    Many basic features are enterprise only
  • 2
    Custom sidewide themes only in enterprise
  • 1
    Basic permissions only in enterprise edition
  • 1
    Not compatible with Telegram keys, which used by FSB

related Mattermost posts

Mark Nelissen

I use Slack because it offers the best experience, even on the free tier (which we're still using). As a comparison, I have had in depth experience with HipChat, Stride, Skype, Google Chat (the new service), Google Hangouts (the old service). For self hosted, Mattermost is open source and claims to support most Slack integrations, but I have not extensively investigated this claim.

See more
rishig
Head of Product at Zulip · | 5 upvotes · 155.4K views

I use Zulip instead of Slack, Mattermost, or RocketChat because of its first class threading. One week after switching to Gmail (in 2004) I realized I was never (willingly) going to use an unthreaded email product again. I had that same experience the first time I saw Zulip.

Zulip is also fully open-source, with a well-maintained (e.g. 90+% test coverage, fully static python), easily extensible code-base. In many companies, your communication platform (chat or email) is the center of the workplace -- no one asks for a chat integration into their calendar, they ask for a calendar integration into their chat. A fully open-source codebase means you can customize Zulip to your needs, and are never at the whim of a corporate maintainer who can't or won't fix simple bugs, or who will charge you tens of thousands of dollars for making minor customizations.

See more
RocketChat logo

RocketChat

373
540
324
Open source slack alternative
373
540
+ 1
324
PROS OF ROCKETCHAT
  • 72
    Open source
  • 38
    Can be deployed on premise
  • 32
    Byos (bring your own server)
  • 30
    Faster than Slack
  • 21
    Mobile app for iphone, ipad, and ipod touch
  • 19
    Built using meteor
  • 19
    Desktop client for mac and windows
  • 13
    Easily deployed on Cloud Services (Heroku, etc)
  • 10
    Screen Sharing
  • 9
    Video and audio
  • 9
    Excellent support & service, bar-none
  • 6
    Web client
  • 5
    Amazing product, fast moving development, and BYOS
  • 5
    Multiple Security integrations - LDAP etc
  • 5
    Docker Image for easy setup
  • 5
    Open source
  • 5
    Mobile app for android phone, tablet, and tv stick
  • 4
    Datacontrol
  • 4
    Great development team
  • 4
    Free
  • 2
    Love it - running on R Pi 2
  • 2
    Open source server
  • 1
    Broadcast & Readonly channels
  • 1
    Slack bridge
  • 1
    Linux Client Support
  • 1
    Flexible Integrations
  • 1
    Ldap integration
  • 0
    Threading model
CONS OF ROCKETCHAT
  • 1
    No full markdown support
  • 1
    Mobile app in Enterprise version only
  • 1
    Many basic features require plugins
  • 1
    Visioconference support is external
  • 1
    No screen recorder
  • 1
    Few options for user customization
  • 1
    Limited message history on SaaS
  • 1
    Poor user customization
  • 1
    Hard to upgrade
  • 1
    Not as well-known as others like it

related RocketChat posts

rishig
Head of Product at Zulip · | 5 upvotes · 155.4K views

I use Zulip instead of Slack, Mattermost, or RocketChat because of its first class threading. One week after switching to Gmail (in 2004) I realized I was never (willingly) going to use an unthreaded email product again. I had that same experience the first time I saw Zulip.

Zulip is also fully open-source, with a well-maintained (e.g. 90+% test coverage, fully static python), easily extensible code-base. In many companies, your communication platform (chat or email) is the center of the workplace -- no one asks for a chat integration into their calendar, they ask for a calendar integration into their chat. A fully open-source codebase means you can customize Zulip to your needs, and are never at the whim of a corporate maintainer who can't or won't fix simple bugs, or who will charge you tens of thousands of dollars for making minor customizations.

See more
Pradeep Sreeram
Shared insights
on
MattermostMattermostRocketChatRocketChat

We need to develop a social media like chat in which users can message each other or create a channel. We are planning to use RocketChat or Mattermost under the hood to develop a custom UI. How do notifications work in that case? Has anyone done it? Or is there any better way to implement it.

See more
Stream logo

Stream

271
223
54
Build scalable feeds, activity streams & chat in a few hours instead of months.
271
223
+ 1
54
PROS OF STREAM
  • 18
    Up and running in few minutes
  • 18
    Integrates via easy-to-use REST API
  • 18
    It's easy to setup with the minimum coding
CONS OF STREAM
    Be the first to leave a con

    related Stream posts

    Gitter logo

    Gitter

    234
    258
    277
    Messaging for people who make software. Integrated with your team, projects and your code.
    234
    258
    + 1
    277
    PROS OF GITTER
    • 63
      Github integration
    • 55
      Free
    • 45
      Markdown support
    • 19
      Markdown
    • 17
      Graceful integration
    • 16
      Project-oriented
    • 15
      MARKDOOOOWN
    • 12
      IRC bridge
    • 9
      Integrates with everything
    • 8
      LaTeX
    • 4
      Apps available for most platforms
    • 2
      Cross-repository issue reference
    • 2
      Github login
    • 1
      IRC support
    • 1
      My new fav'rite thing is on it
    • 1
      Very fast work
    • 1
      Very open
    • 1
      Now open source
    • 1
      Open source
    • 1
      Free unlimited archives
    • 1
      Open access (no invitation needed)
    • 1
      Single account for all communities
    • 1
      Free, open & free hosting
    CONS OF GITTER
    • 2
      Sends data to US Gov

    related Gitter posts

    Josh Dzielak
    Co-Founder & CTO at Orbit · | 19 upvotes · 428.2K views

    Shortly after I joined Algolia as a developer advocate, I knew I wanted to establish a place for the community to congregate and share their projects, questions and advice. There are a ton of platforms out there that can be used to host communities, and they tend to fall into two categories - real-time sync (like chat) and async (like forums). Because the community was already large, I felt that a chat platform like Discord or Gitter might be overwhelming and opted for a forum-like solution instead (which would also create content that's searchable from Google).

    I looked at paid, closed-source options like AnswerHub and ForumBee and old-school solutions like phpBB and vBulletin, but none seemed to offer the power, flexibility and developer-friendliness of Discourse. Discourse is open source, written in Rails with Ember.js on the front-end. That made me confident I could modify it to meet our exact needs. Discourse's own forum is very active which made me confident I could get help if I needed it.

    It took about a month to get Discourse up-and-running and make authentication tied to algolia.com via the SSO plugin. Adding additional plugins for moderation or look-and-feel customization was fairly straightforward, and I even created a plugin to make the forum content searchable with Algolia. To stay on top of answering questions and moderation, we used the Discourse API to publish new messages into our Slack. All-in-all I would say we were happy with Discourse - the only caveat would be that it's very helpful to have technical knowledge as well as Rails knowledge in order to get the most out of it.

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    From a StackShare Community member: “We’re about to start a chat group for our open source project (over 5K stars on GitHub) so we can let our community collaborate more closely. The obvious choice would be Slack (k8s and a ton of major projects use it), but we’ve seen Gitter (webpack uses it) for a lot of open source projects, Discord (Vue.js moved to them), and as of late I’m seeing Spectrum more and more often. Does anyone have experience with these or other alternatives? Is it even worth assessing all these options, or should we just go with Slack? Some things that are important to us: free, all the regular integrations (GitHub, Heroku, etc), mobile & desktop apps, and open source is of course a plus."

    See more