What's the best app to group chat with several people?

Question

What's the best solution for communicating with ~10 people on a group project? Email doesn't cut it for me and I'm looking for something that's temporary. Coordinating with a group of 10-15 people for a couple of weeks.

Robert Poschenrieder · Accepted Answer

Brings messaging, file sharing and conferences with guests together.  Since it is all browser based I think it fits your temporary need.

Manivannan R · Answer

New to market.. Lots of new features

Philipp Bohn · Answer

very scalable, and powerful mobile apps (iOS, Android) #AMA

Arthur Guiot · Answer

Even if Discord is for gamers, it's easy to use and has a modern chat and has also great voice support (I mean that the quality is very very good and there is almost no latency (~10ms for me))

Mathias Elmose · Answer

Easy to invite people via a link and you can share files as large as 1.5gb. And they just added video chat.

Bharath B Lohray · Answer

Managed hosting, quick to setup and run.

Alexandra Cote · Answer

We at Paymo use Slack to collaborate efficiently among departments and on different projects. Couldn't ask for a better tool with this purpose.

Luis E Torruella · Answer

It's fast and helps to organize the team. Also works well with third party apps.

Antaratma Andrew Boon · Answer

Works Fien for our team of 8.

Kunal Bhatia · Answer

If you want to have structured communication, having thing organized in Google Docs, especially Sheets, is awesome. When you mention someone in a comment, they get notified. You can also set up the mention as creating a task. I've used this on several recent projects and events I've hosted. It's a low friction, asynchronous way of getting things done!

Mohammed Rafy · Answer

Since almost every one of us uses FB it makes sense to create a group where everyone is already present.

Antonio Santos · Answer

One of the few solutions that is compatible with accessibility requirements.

Raymond Hong · Answer

All kinds of collaborative efforts become centralized in a single workspace, rather than having a suite of separate tools.

HyperOffice · Answer

More that group chat. Video/audio conferencing, screen sharing, tasks, schedules etc.

Setal Patel · Answer

Used it for a personal project with 7 users. While the basic one-one chat and group messaging was great, what really helped us was inbuilt video calling, to-do lists, notes, and file management. They have a bunch of 3rd party apps as well, but we didn't have a use for them. And it works across platforms, which is always nice.

Jamie Liu · Answer

Slack's great for doing that. It's free and it's got tons of integrations so it becomes a hub for all your notifications

Mathias Elmose · Answer

Secure with video chat and screen share. Also I find the drawing on pictures very useful for feedback on design.

Nick Abouzeid · Answer

Easy to use, and the event feature works as an efficient way to remind people of when/where they should be at all times (if you go through the trouble of setting them up)!

Adriano Caheté · Answer

It's like a Slack, but it's open source and self hosted. You can start a RC installation fast with a Digital Ocean Droplet.

Bharath B Lohray · Answer

Opensource, selfhosted

BPlan4U · Answer

This is a great "to-do" list that can be shared with everyone. you can @ people in your tasks or add them as a follower too. You have your own list and others can create their own (so you don't see everything in one hit, only tasks assigned to you). You can also create groups you can all share to :)

Kyle Hess · Answer

Maybe Asana? It would make your communication a bit more focused on tasks (which would probably be good for 15 people!), and the free tier would work fine for you.

Thomas Hölscher · Answer

Circuit is simple, reliable and accessible for all people on a group project to use easily and frequently.

Max Hille · Answer

Mobile & Desktop Version w/ Video-Call & Screen-Sharing-Tools, with minor improvements maybe the most complete tool in the competition

RozBahrami · Answer

I would suggest BoostHQ. It's a workspace for your team's documents, spreadsheets, videos, links, checklists, polls and discussions. You can not only communicate in the chat while working on an embedded google doc but also comment and have it always attached to a content piece so no conversation gets lost like it does in Slack. Highly recommend :)

Andrea Kilin · Answer

Very user-friendly and drives efficient communication! Use it in event coordination teams, intra/inter-departmental communication never had any complaints!

tony rich · Answer

It Makes my life so much easier -- email down more time for focusing on what matters.  and its works seamlessly even as I move from my desktop to mobile to the car.

Matthias Esterl · Answer

Atlasians Slack competitor.

sam · Answer

Create boards, invite people, post notes, attach files, reference boards and people.

Omer Molad · Answer

I know this seems a bit left field compared to say Slack, but using Jira will add a lot of structure because you can assign tasks to each person. Live communication can still be facilitated using the comments function in each task. You'll know where you're up to on every tasks and be able to easily monitor progress.

Matthias Esterl · Answer

I've not tested it yet, but it sounds really interesting!

Nandini Sharma · Answer

Group chat feature in ProofHub allows teams to have quick discussions, ask questions, find answers and share updates about the project. So, they don’t need to draft emails or ping everyone individually for all this.

Gergely Polonkai · Answer

Decentralised real time chat with video/voice, too. If you need true privacy, you can install your own node; otherwise, you can use theirs.

Jüri Kaljundi · Answer

Weekdone allows you to move status updates online, save time from meetings and have your team move towards unified goals using OKRs - Objectives and Key Results.

Rich Peterson · Answer

I like the simplicity of Glip. Always a breeze to onboard team members to the platform + it's free for most.

Angie · Answer

WhatsApp is great for groups.

Angela L. Branco · Answer

Other than Slack, this is probably your best bet in terms of ease of use and team accessibility.

Ayush Mittal · Answer

We have set up a Whatsapp group on a side to communicate within out little team. It works and everyone has it. Plus the web version in handy. I reckon it will be great for a couple of weeks.

John Wang · Answer

Like Slack for chat but well suited for group projects with integrated tasks, calendars, etc. Free with great UX.

Ben Li · Answer

This new tool Princle One is a perfect one for your case. I think in your situation, for temporary use of coordinating with a group of 10-15 people for a couple of weeks, it would be hard to convince all those people to install a new app or converge/connect in any other existing apps. Princle One does not require other members to install the app, you can quickly create a group and invite them (by their emails or phone numbers), then you can start sending messages, topics, alerts, surveys, and emails to the group. Those invited people can get your messages even without installing the app. After your temporary use, you just shutdown the group, and no more activity will happen afterwards. I think this tool is really the best option for your unique use case.