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einpoklum

500 KB + Tens of millions of lines of code of a browser + a bunch of backend code.

Want a lean Slack alternative? Use IRC. Want a fancy Slack alternative? Use Matrix.

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I don't want to host a server and I want my messages to be synced between multiple devices including mobile ones.

I want rich messages, images, links.

I want threads.

> I want threads.

Anyone has usable threads yet? For the life of me I can't follow Slack threads.

Zulip does. But you can't ignore them, you need to embrace them and use them all the way.

> I don't want to host a server

Given that we're talking about search-engine-visible logs - just use an existing, public server.

> I want my messages to be synced between multiple devices including mobile ones.

I actually believe it's better for people _not_ to have Slack on their mobile, so as not to be pestered, but if that's what you want, then you want the "fancy" alternative. Matrix clients can offer you that.

> I want rich messages, images, links.

So, Matrix.

> I want threads.

If that's the case, maybe what you really want is a Discourse web-forum rather than Slack.

Matrix does support threads.

Linen looks kinda neat though. I wonder if it could be morphed into a good Matrix client. :thinking:

I'm a big fan of IRC and have used it for many years, but one thing I notice about younger generation of techies is, they won't tolerate poor/low tech UI/UX. I see this in gaming all the time as well ... old classic games, esp. RPGs, dont get love because of the graphics and UX (keyboard controls).

I would half-agree with you. In much of the younger generation, there is a fetish for a certain kind of UX: The kind that reminds you of a smartphone; low density; anti-keyboard-orientation; maybe I could add a few more characterizations maybe. The thing is, though - that UX is often inferior - in itself, or because of it relies on very heavy infrastructure like a browser engine.

There's also Mattermost which seems a reasonable Slack alternative (and self-hostable.)

What about a Google-searchable alternative to any of these? I think this would be one of the main selling points of Linen.

I believe several (most?) IRC servers support logging channel transcripts; and those can be easily made web-accessible. If you're not running the IRC server, you can use a logging bot to do that.

See discussion 7 years ago on serverfault.com, and the links therein:

How to set up a IRC server that logs all messages? https://serverfault.com/q/190069/113898

How to Offer Searchable IRC logs? https://serverfault.com/q/36886/113898

The bot option should be valid for Matrix as well, although there I'm not sure the bot world is well-enough developed to be 100% sure that a bot exist for every common desire like saving channel logs.

For Matrix – view.matrix.org, as noted elsewhere in the thread. Instead of a bot, it's a lightweight Matrix client which doesn't support auth, and renders everything server-side.

It's not too pretty though, but definitely usable: https://view.matrix.org/room/!SzcRUxcpYurpoctOzk:matrix.org

Yeah. Matrix, your choice of client (e.g. gitter.im), view.matrix.org if you care about search engine crawlability.

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