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RocketChat vs Cisco Spark: What are the differences?
What is RocketChat? Open source slack alternative. 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..
What is Cisco Spark? An app-centric cloud-based service that provides a complete collaboration. It is an app-centric cloud-based service that provides a complete collaboration suite for teams to create, meet, message, call, whiteboard, and share, regardless of whether they're together or apart; in one continuous workstream before, during, and after meetings.
RocketChat can be classified as a tool in the "Group Chat & Notifications" category, while Cisco Spark is grouped under "Team Task Management".
Some of the features offered by RocketChat are:
- BYOS (bring your own server)
- Multiple Rooms
- Direct Messages
On the other hand, Cisco Spark provides the following key features:
- Chat
- Meet
- Whiteboard
RocketChat is an open source tool with 24.3K GitHub stars and 5.26K GitHub forks. Here's a link to RocketChat's open source repository on GitHub.
We chose RocketChat over other communications suites like Cliq or Slack mainly because we can self-host it on our own infrastructure. Since we have quite some projects going on which demand that we stay in touch with a lot of different stakeholders, pricing was an issue, too. With RocketChat, we have a huge set of features basically for free, RC offers apps for all major devices and systems and overall, we're very happy with it. The only downside is the limited amount of apps and integrations, but we can make due with what we have available.
Pros of Cisco Spark
- Open with outside company Spark User1
Pros of RocketChat
- Open source72
- Can be deployed on premise38
- Byos (bring your own server)32
- Faster than Slack30
- Mobile app for iphone, ipad, and ipod touch21
- Built using meteor19
- Desktop client for mac and windows19
- Easily deployed on Cloud Services (Heroku, etc)13
- Screen Sharing10
- Video and audio9
- Excellent support & service, bar-none9
- Web client6
- Amazing product, fast moving development, and BYOS5
- Multiple Security integrations - LDAP etc5
- Docker Image for easy setup5
- Open source5
- Mobile app for android phone, tablet, and tv stick5
- Datacontrol4
- Great development team4
- Free4
- Love it - running on R Pi 22
- Open source server2
- Broadcast & Readonly channels1
- Slack bridge1
- Linux Client Support1
- Flexible Integrations1
- Ldap integration1
- Threading model0
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Cons of Cisco Spark
Cons of RocketChat
- No full markdown support1
- Mobile app in Enterprise version only1
- Many basic features require plugins1
- Visioconference support is external1
- No screen recorder1
- Few options for user customization1
- Limited message history on SaaS1
- Poor user customization1
- Hard to upgrade1
- Not as well-known as others like it1