Google Chat vs. HipChat (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Chat
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Google Chat, formerly Hangouts Chat, is a collaboration tool competing with Slack, designed to make it easy for teams to be able to get their work done in one place. From direct messages to group conversations, Chat helps teams collaborate, and with dedicated, virtual rooms to house projects over time — plus threaded conversations — Chat helps users track progress and follow up tasks. Chat currently supports 28 languages and each room can support up to 8,000 members.N/A
HipChat (discontinued)
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
Hipchat was discontinued by Atlassian. Users are being migrated to Slack.
$0
per user
Pricing
Google ChatHipChat (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
HipChat Basic
$0
per user
HipChat Plus
$2
per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google ChatHipChat (discontinued)
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFor Server pricing info please visit https://www.hipchat.com/server (Only $1.20/user/month at the highest user tier!)
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google ChatHipChat (discontinued)
Considered Both Products
Google Chat
Chose Google Chat
It doesn't need to much to get started if you have a personal Google account. If you have a business account setup by your organization, you need permissions to use it, however this is something good to have this customizable part from Google Chat. We can create groups, attach …
Chose Google Chat
Slack has a few more features than Google Chat. Slack, for a long time, had thread chats that grouped a thread of thoughts together, making the main chat group space a lot less cluttered. A while back, Google Chat implemented a similar thing in a different but similar way, …
Chose Google Chat
Slack is actually expensive for larger teams, and their free plan has limitations on message history and file storage so that is the we moved to Google Chat.
Chose Google Chat
For the above platforms, it is always intended for the larger audience when your business communication has a limited stack you prefer choosing the best and simple communication platform rather than spending on a platform that charges per license. AS we need simple secure and …
Chose Google Chat
The main reason why we chose it - the overall G Suite solution, that we bought. We have Google Calendar, GMail & Chat built in. In order not to waste money - we decided to use Google Chat. It works fine, however, as said before, if you had experience with Slack - then you might …
Chose Google Chat
I use it because of it is already available into the google gmail so for using this I do not have to install any external software for this which can take the storage of my device for installation. The other software was taking much data in comparison to the Google Chat.
Chose Google Chat
You do not need to download anything when using Google Chat yet in Webex sometimes it does only work if you download a file. This is similar to Skype where you need to have the application on your computer. Google Chat has added a lot with the great support they have online.
Chose Google Chat
Our organization uses the entire Google Suite of products, so the integration with Google Drive and especially Gmail made this decision a "no brainer". In canvassing most of our employees, many of them had more experience using this product as opposed to Skype, and the …
Chose Google Chat
Switched from Telegram to Google chat as it is more professional and it's integration with other google app is excellent
Chose Google Chat
Google Hangouts is the better app for saving chats. With Slack, you'll need to buy a premium license and if your team reaches more than 20 members then things can get expensive. Slack may be cheaper initially but as soon as somebody adds new employees or contractors they will …
Chose Google Chat
[Google Hangouts Chat] is low cost, easy to use, and built into most Android smartphones.
Chose Google Chat
I don't use Teams internally so as an outside user I find Google Chat easier to use and integrate into our overall software.
Chose Google Chat
Compared to major products, I would say Google Hangouts Chat is very effective, affordable and resourceful. The ease of integration with other Google products makes it even better.
Chose Google Chat
Google Hangouts Chat is better in many ways compared to other products. First, it is affordable. Secondly, integration with other Google products is straightforward. Thirdly and most importantly, I find Google Hangouts Chat more capable than other tools in its category.
Chose Google Chat
Google hangout is very easy to install and you do not have to purchase this feature additionally, this comes with the google product. You can use this product even without installing the additional software. You can work while chatting with your colleagues easily. It can work …
Chose Google Chat
For me, I'd rather use Google Hangouts Chat than Microsoft Teams. Based on my experience Google Hangouts is way less complicated than Microsoft Teams. I don't like complicated and Microsoft Teams for me is complicated. Let's say for a first-time user for both platforms I'd say …
Chose Google Chat
Google Hangouts Chat is simple to use and understand unlike other complicated solutions. The software is affordable and offers great features and integration with other Google products is easy which is a plus. In a nutshell, I haven't used such a resourceful software and we …
Chose Google Chat
Since Google Hangouts Chat comes integrated with G-suite, it just works without any adjustments to our organization's workflows. Other products fail on that front and therefore are not encouraged to be used.
Chose Google Chat
Hangouts was buggy and had frequent crashes, but Hangouts Chat has no such issues so far.
Chose Google Chat
Schools, in my area at least, are not being allowed to use Zoom because of incidences of security breaches known as "Zoom bombs," so the schools here chose to use Google Hangouts Chat. That means if I want to talk to the kids or the teachers, I need to use Google Hangouts Chat.
Chose Google Chat
Prior to Google Hangouts, our company used Spark. Spark was not integrated into our email, therefore it couldn't be easily accessed in the same browser. With Spark we also couldn't search our emails for keywords in a conversation, searching had to be done manually. The one …
Chose Google Chat
Google Chat is very user friendly and I think it is using low level memory or ram we can say of system. Means it loads quickly, not taking too much time that other tools
HipChat (discontinued)
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
I've used slack and it's much better app in comparison with HipChat. Slack is much faster than HipChat. Slack has strong user community and lot of documentation around how to use it. Product functionality and performance is superb with slack compared to HipChat. Slack has more …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
Compared to skype creating groups is easy and fast. Also , file sharing is easy and loads instantly . Emoji and gifs are much more better in HipChat compared to skype .My company's management chose to use HipChat for our organization as they got the license of HipChat for …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
We selected HipChat because it was an enterprise solution to our organization. It allowed us to connect our enterprise ticketing software (which was used for everything) to communicate updates/patches and solutions to our clients. HipChat was a great tool because we were able …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
HipChat really cannot compete with Slack so it doesn't surprise me that they've purchased the code base from Atlassian. As I mentioned earlier in the review it's screen sharing, video/audio quality and file transfers abilities are almost universally done better by the …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
Slack and Google Hangouts have more features and offer meeting functionality. My choice would be Google Hangouts for ceremonies and Slack for messaging.
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
Slack is better developed then HipChat. It's better and faster for connecting with people. HipChat is also good but needs to be developed. The company has to update their software regularly to reach the level where Slack is now.
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
While Sametime or Jabber multi people chat requires that someone who's in the chat invite you, HipChat has this nice system of a room where anyone with the right permission can join at any time. Also, the history of a Sametime or Jabber chat tends to be lost in the …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
At the time, our organization was using Jabber for communication, which wasn't suited well for teams. HipChat brought a ton of great features when moving from Jabber, such as the ability to make rooms for each of our projects.

Rocket Chat is an open-source Slack clone, which …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
Slack is by far a better alternative, and HipChat was only developed as an alternative to Slack. It certainly falls short. The platform is not user-friendly, it is generally a bit buggy, and it doesn’t organize conversation threads in an efficient way like Slack does.
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
Aside from HipChat we used Slack and Cisco Spark. Cisco Spark doesn't look as outdated as Hipchat but still is very limited with integrations and requires a paid version to take full advantage of it. Mobile version of Cisco Spark is limited and doesn't have many settings. Slack …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
HipChat offers a good advantage for organizations looking for a low cost communication tool. The integration is easy and widely supported by many forums. Though, the technical issues are less reliable. Due to technical failures, Slack and Skype take the cake. Slack offers many …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
I used HipChat in a company which was pro "open source" and another one which is pro Atlassian.
For the "open source" company I was not involved in the decision of selecting HipChat but I know that the integration with Jenkins and other internal tools were drivers for selecting …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
Had used earlier in a private setting. Loved the product. We have other Atlassian products like Jira and Confluence. Very happy with them.
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
We left HipChat because of ongoing support issues and it didn't seem to be exactly, cutting edge. We now use Slack which seems to be much more in line with our organization as a whole. The features we use on slack were not offered at the time on HipChat and I think they had …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
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 …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
HipChat stacks up really well against Slack. Many of the same features, look and feel and performance. Although we have about half of us on Mac and half on PC and several times we hear complaints of the desktop app not connecting soon after updates are released. Slack also …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
I haven't evaluated any similar products. HipChat is really just perfect for the Atlassian user. Before my company used HipChat we were using Google Hangouts.
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
I only used Cisco Jabber for a few days before the company I work at made the decision to switch to HipChat, so I didn't really have a chance to use that application enough to compare it effectively. With Yahoo Messenger, I used to use it quite a bit, but haven't since Facebook …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
Hipchat behaves equally good among several other platforms used at my company (OSX, Windows, Linux). It brings us the possibility to integrate with most of our used tools, and the cost is lower than other options. Chat history and encryption makes it easier to find previous …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
HipChat is relatively light weight. Most engineers are using it. However, we prefer to use Google Hangouts for video chatting or screen sharing.
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
HipChat works best in the work environment. It can integrate with other applications that are used on the job and show notifications from them. Others are better suited for personal messaging.
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
I have used Google Hangouts before. Hipchat is better in that it has a lot more integrations and special features, whereas Hangouts is pretty much purely chat. The downside is not everyone has a HipChat account and therefore Hangouts is easy to start up with your friends …
Chose HipChat (discontinued)
Not as reliable. I had no choice in switching to HipChat.
Features
Google ChatHipChat (discontinued)
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Google Chat
8.4
Ratings
8% above category average
HipChat (discontinued)
7.3
Ratings
6% below category average
Task Management8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access9.30 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Search9.00 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Visual planning tools7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Google Chat
8.9
Ratings
11% above category average
HipChat (discontinued)
7.3
Ratings
8% below category average
Chat10.00 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Notifications10.00 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Discussions8.30 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Surveys8.40 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase9.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Integrates with GoToMeeting8.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Google Chat
9.0
Ratings
13% above category average
HipChat (discontinued)
6.3
Ratings
22% below category average
Versioning8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Video files8.00 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Audio files8.30 Ratings6.80 Ratings
Document collaboration9.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Access control9.50 Ratings6.60 Ratings
Advanced security features9.90 Ratings5.90 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive8.10 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Device sync9.30 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google ChatHipChat (discontinued)
Small Businesses
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.0 out of 10
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.8 out of 10
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.8 out of 10
Enterprises
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google ChatHipChat (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
6.8
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.8
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
7.2
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(0 ratings)
7.1
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.4
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.6
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.2
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google ChatHipChat (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
Google Chat is well-suited for businesses. Where it fits in my organization is to maintain communication between teams. Collaboration between teams to solve issues our customers cannot resolve without using Google Chat. Our Organization depends on it. When someone needs assistance from another team in the organization, we use Google Chat to solve this issue.
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HipChat was discontinued by Atlassian because it wasn't as versatile as Slack and couldn't handle Video/Audio calls as well as Zoom. It lacked the screen sharing capabilities of Skype and ScreenHero (now owned by Slack). It wasn't great at any particular area and its competitors were obviously better in those areas. This lack of versatility negatively impacted it's adoption at GLG, and I'd imagine the rest of world as well. HipChat excels at instant messaging communication (which is the one thing they got right) and although you could make specific rooms to chat about certain topics, Slack was already doing this way better. Overall it's impossible to recommend this software today. If I recall it was very expensive compared to better and more feature rich competitors. If you're seeking a bare bones method of communication you may consider the free version of it, but outside of that scenario, you are almost certainly better off going with a different product.
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Pros
  • Google Hangouts Chat allows you to send and receive messages real time with emoticons that can help you express your mood.
  • You can download and upload image file that can be use for business process and more.
  • Google Hangouts Chat also allows you to make a calls to reach other users.What I like the most is the awesome screen sharing while on call.
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  • 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.
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Cons
  • I wish it was easier to turn the sound off, I hate being in meetings and my chat is blowing up.
  • Needing to "accept" a chat invite from someone within my org seems counter-intuitive.
  • Some people have trouble getting their notifications before midnight, somehow?
  • Prior to downloading the app, group messages didn't come up for me on my computer.
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  • 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.
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Likelihood to Renew
The updates, support, general reviews on Google Chat are great everywhere. The development of the features is ongoing and this adds a great value to Google as a big company in the market. Other applications are limiting communication while Google Chat is allowing communication to grow. It is very easy to use it and teach others how to use Google Chat.
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If they fix the bugs the last update gave that are causing hipchat to crash more often.
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Usability
As stated from the starting we found this application is well suited for a small audience and a group of people across the organization can be communicated easily with no additional hectic of doing any setup. When you have a Gmail account ready then you can easily access google chat and continue the communication. This tool is simple,secure and robust helping the global leading partner for their internal precise communication and handling the tasks in a great way
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i like how its easy to login , create rooms or start private conversations . The best feature i like describing usability is searching history of conversation in either a room or private conversation just by typing single word .Easy file uploading and downloading .Mention feature is very easy to use which shows all the names starting with given letter .
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Support Rating
I have not needed to contact the support folks for Google Hangouts Chat, so I can't speak to this with any accuracy. The online instructions are fairly clearly written, so it is fairly intuitive to start with. I did not feel the need to use the support people anyway.
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HipChat support was one of the best I've encountered. When we faced difficult tasks in terms of updates to infrastructure (where HipChat sits on top) or updates to the application itself, HipChat support was very responsive to our questions, concerns, and comments. HipChat also had some really good online documentation. We were able to find step-by-step guidelines and documentation when implementing new features or installing new updates/patches.
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
I don't have insights as I was not a part of the implementation. However, I love the end product
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Alternatives Considered
It doesn't need to much to get started if you have a personal Google account. If you have a business account setup by your organization, you need permissions to use it, however this is something good to have this customizable part from Google Chat. We can create groups, attach files, and have online conversations from the gmail page, in a new window or using the mobile.
Read full review
I've used Slack and it's much better app in comparison with HipChat. Slack is much faster than HipChat. Slack has strong user community and lot of documentation around how to use it. Product functionality and performance is superb with Slack compared to HipChat. Slack has more emojis and icons which brings them closer to how people use their cell phones in text conversations.
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Scalability
No answers on this topic
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.
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Return on Investment
  • Through seamless communication across remote workers, Google Chat has significantly reduced the time spent on back and forth emails.
  • Undoubtedly Google Chat is great for communication but because of a lack of task management tools, we have to rely on other platforms for organizing and tracking tasks.
  • 200MB file size limit in Google Chat often forces us to use other services like Google Drive for sending large files.
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  • 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.
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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!).