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Flock — Real-time team messenger tool
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Replies
Neeraj Thakur
Hunter
Flock is free to use for as many users and for as long as you want.
Features:
- Real time direct and group messaging, synced across devices
- Video and audio calling with hassle free screen sharing capabilities
- File sharing on personal and group chats
- Viewing polls and to-dos created from your desktop app
- Integrations with your favourite tools like Trello, Twitter, Hubot and GitHub
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Wow, to see Flock hunted on Product Hunt is so exciting! Thanks @neerajt4 for the hunt.
Flock was created with the sole purpose of simplifying the way teams communicate and collaborate.
Apart from being a team messenger, Flock is also a virtual workplace that brings teams together and provides them with all the productivity hacks they need to breeze through their work day.
Flock also lets you integrate apps that you use at work, through the Flock Appstore - apps.flock.co or build custom applications on the FlockOS - dev.flock.com
I'm open to feedback and would love to answer any questions you may have about Flock.
More about Flock:
and FlockOS:
@coffeeandjunk @neerajt4
Flock is different from Slack in several ways, and this video perfectly explains those differentiators:
I’m confident this will make a strong case for Flock.
Flock can be used by all teams across the board - be it a small team or department within a company, a community of like minded individuals working towards a common goal, or an entire enterprise. We are actively marketing Flock’s benefits to all these segments, and Flock has seen massive traction in each of them. Some of our existing customers were previous users of competitor services like Slack, and they’ve seen tremendous value in making the switch.
To amplify our reach, we’ve also started showcasing Flock at premiere events. Most recently we were at Techcrunch Disrupt, NY and SF and TNW Momentum.
With the most recent launch of our platform, FlockOS, we want to start reaching out to developers across the globe. Currently, we’re participating at external hackathons as well as conducting our very own ‘Flockathons’. We’ve partnered with Devpost, Hackerearth and AWS for the same. You’ll find more information about the Flock platform here - dev.flock.com
Hey @coffeeandjunk, @liamboogar, @_jacksmith and @imkarthikk. I've addressed your queries in a single answer below since they were quite similar. :)
To start of with, since we get asked a lot about how Flock is different from Slack, we've summed up the differences in a simple video:
In addition to this, Flock also gives you a world of flexibility when designing custom apps for Flock - allowing you to leverage elements of the Flock’s UI. Flock’s apps are deeply integrated into the UI, allowing users to interact with them through a wide variety of ways. As opposed to this, users can only interact with a Slack app through bots and notifications.
We know of quite a few teams who've moved from Slack to Flock. Here are a few testimonials:
https://twitter.com/_LukeRodrigu...
https://twitter.com/mananshah212...
https://twitter.com/flockchat/st...
https://twitter.com/flockchat/st...
@bhavintu it doesn't answer my question/statement as to why you're making unquantifiable claims like it's 'the fastest team messenger'. it seems that the title on product hunt has been updated now at least
@_jacksmith Now that they got rid of the superlatives in the description on ph, what do you think of how it compares to Slack?
@andrewwarner I can't really see any differences that would make me want to invest time trying to evaluate it vs Slack. I'm not really much of a Slack user; but if I was a user of a product in that space, I'd probably just keep using Slack, even if something else was incrementally better, due to the likelihood of Slack continuing to be dominant in the long run (due to large amount of funding and traction).
from my experience, something like a chat app has large switching costs. you don't want to "test out" new products internally, as a team will quickly get 'app fatigue' every time you try out something new. most people just want something that works and only switch if something is drastically better. It would also be bad if you switched your whole team and then the smaller app you switched to shut down.
There are tens of thousands of companies that haven't heard of Slack, this isn't a platform for getting people to switch.
Perhaps the better question is why would a company consider this over Slack when evaluating their first internal communications app?
@ujjwaltrivedi What are those features? And Slack is free for unlimited users.
@liamboogar You shouldn't. Slack is an established company, with a working business model, run by people with a track record of building successful companies, like flickr etc.
@andreasduess slack eats up your messages after 10k messages and you loose all the precious discussions and links you have talked about.
We use Slack heavily with a ton of custom integrations. What would make me switch from Slack? Was looking for a tool which has better UX than Slack, but Flock seems to have the same as Slack.
Also, are your desktop apps native apps or a hybrid app?
@imkarthikk the desktop apps are hybrid apps, and are available on web, OSX, windows desktop & chrome extension.
If your underlying question is about the performance of the apps, do give our apps a spin - startup time, file sharing etc are fast - you won't be disappointed.
Amazing Tool for internal team communication by @bhavintu @flockchat
Have been using it for few years now, the new update brings a fresh wave of functionality to the messenger.
I would definitely give this a shot if it were easier to switch off of Slack or even HipChat. Do you have ways to migrate things over or map channels? @bhavintu
@davidsfeng We are working on an app which will help teams migrate from Slack to Flock. In the meantime, why don't you go ahead and create your team on Flock, we can get one of our on-boarding expert to help you get your team on board.
@bhavintu Flock is awesome! especially with Guggy in it :)
https://apps.flock.co/guggy
We've been using Flock at our company across functions, engineering, sales, marketing, support etc and speaking at a very fundamental level, I'm actually amazed at the power of such a tool, it has completely replaced email as far as internal team communication is concerned. Talking about the Flock vs Slack debate, I think Flock is more tailor-made for 'communication' i.e sending, receiving messages, notifications, tagging, as compared to Slack, and the UX is definitely better in that sense. Although I've seen some really useful integrations lately (video calling - Appear, to-dos, notes etc)
The explainer video isn't showing much value to flock itself. Also, calling Slack, clunky and cluttered I'd say is a bit of an exaggeration. This battle will be won by integrations, I'd suggest a User owned platform to excite developers of the money they could make developing for you, it's a bold move and not many people have done it. You could be the next Chobani 🍨
Thanks for the suggestion, @robguilfoyle.
There already exists a platform (launched over a month ago) we built that enables developers to build their own apps and integrate them within Flock. It's called the FlockOS - World First Chat Operating System.
I'm of the same opinion as yours, that this battle belongs to the one with better integrations.
When you build an app on Flock, it isn't the same as building on any other chat platforms available today. With FlockOS, the apps that you build can be deeply integrated within the UI. More details in the video and the FlockOS documentation: docs.flock.co.
We are running a series of hackathons. The details will be on our fb (/flock) and twitter (@flock) pages. These hackathons are sure to excite developers since they boast of attractive prizes. :)
Do try building an app on the FlockOS: dev.flock.com
So, what's the income model? Free is all well and good, but you know the old adage: If you're using a free service, YOU are the product. How do you plan to make money?
@andreasduess We have a three-tier pricing - Free, Pro and Enterprise. Our Pro plan is competitively priced and you can check the details on all plans here- https://www.flock.com/pricing.html
How do you tell who is online when you are? I see how to change *my* status, but I how do I check the status of other contacts? I would also like an edit feature! It does seem quicker and the app integration is quite slick!
@michelle_dawson_silbernagel Flock displays the precise number of minutes/hours/days a user has been last active. It also shows the last device one was active on - there’s a little icon to show desktop or mobile. On a chat window, you will find this just below the user's name.
@vidhi_nayar Thank you! Since you seem to know your way around, could you also tell me how I can add stickers or giphys? I am woefully illiterate.
I love that flock is stable, easy to use and has a good base of application integrations. I typically miss flowdock, but the overall collaborative experience is better than slack. Been using a little over 6 mos.- couldn't pick that though
Pros:It's better suited than slack for contractor, client collaboration
Cons:The problems inherent with chat apps are not avoided here. The case still hasn't been cracked.
I have been using Flock since 2015. Have seen the product grow in terms of users, integrations and other cool features. Indeed a breakthrough in the Team Collaboration & Productivity space!
We, the RTIwala Team has switched to Flock from Slack nearly a year ago. And, here's my evaluation+constructive criticism.
Pros:
- Easy to use
- Affordable then Slack but not anymore after entry of Workplace by Fb and MS Teams (as they're almost free)
- Best in class Support and they're always there to assist you
Cons:
- A complete dearth of apps and integrations, NOT EVEN the 100 essential apps (by Slack) and must have Integrations are available on Flock, literally you'll regret and repent if you're switching from Slack. As just 54 App integrations are available that too without full functionality.
- You can search a file but couldn't click or access it.
- A Big NO for Media or Marketing Company as it may take years for you to find the image your teammate posted just 3 months back.
- Slowest, let me repeat slowest app development I've ever seen in my life so far. No need to feature requests or app integration suggestions
Summary:
Flock is really good, I recommend it to small IT or ITes company as most of apps made available for keeping developers and programmers in mind. Whereas for rest it's better to use Telegram with IFTTT and Zapier or Try Workplace by Fb and MS Teams then switching from Slack to Flock.
