When comparing BitTorrent Sync vs Stride (previously HipChat), the Slant community recommends BitTorrent Sync for most people. In the question“What are the best personal file-syncing solutions?” BitTorrent Sync is ranked 14th while Stride (previously HipChat) is ranked 17th. The most important reason people chose BitTorrent Sync is:
Since BitTorrent Sync uses P2P technology and does not require an external server from a third party, the only limitation if what is available to the user.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro No service cost, storage limits, perfomance limits or privacy concerns
Since BitTorrent Sync uses P2P technology and does not require an external server from a third party, the only limitation if what is available to the user.
Pro Clients on most platforms available
BitTorrent Sync is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BSD.
Pro Self hosted
If user opens a malicious website that website may create users to access your data ("When registering, http traffic for creating new user on loopback http://127.0.0.1:8888"). Being self hosted one does not need to open a site to get to their files.
Pro Available on Web, Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android
You can access HipChat from pretty much every common platform. HipChat even allows chatting via SMS.
Pro Powerful @mentions
You can ping people to get their attention even if they are not online by @mentioning them. Depending on how the person has set their account up it can be by notifications via in-app sounds, visual alerts, and even email, SMS, or mobile app push notifications.
Pro Huge list of integrations
Including Asana, Github, Zendesk, WordPress, MongoDB, TeamCity, JIRA, Confluence, PowerShell and more that 40 others.
Pro Cheap
Free with unlimited users, $2/user/month for voice + video calls, screencasts, full history retention and management. (Even enterprise feature like SAML)
Pro Simple, easy to use
An intuitive, easy to overview interface listing both online and offline users.
Pro Embeds files
Things like photos get automatically embedded in the chat thread once you upload them.
Pro Guest access
You can invite people to join conversations even if they don't have a HipChat account. HipChat will generate a link to share and the guest will only need to enter their name to join the conversation.
Pro Desktop client
HipChat has an optional desktop client powered by Adobe AIR.
Pro Good audio and video support
HipChat audio and video works on mobile platforms and web browsers.
Pro "Rooms" for persistent group chat
Participate and keep tabs on ongoing discussions on particular topics or amongst certain groups of people.
Pro Self-Hosting available
If you are worried about third-parties getting access to your data you should consider self-hosting. With self-hosting you are in control over where your data is stored, who has access to it. You will also not be vulnerable to exploits of a third-party provider.
Pro Plentiful GIFs and custom Emoticons
Pro Syntax coloring
Pasted code can be colored based on syntax.
Pro Will be updated to have more functions in the future
A big company with experience will bring in more options like Google Apps One Time Login.
Pro Reliability has been great
Pro Powerful command system
E.g. part, away, all, here etc.
Cons
Con Proprietary
Being proprietary, it's harder to audit.
Con Has some risky attack vectors
The only really good thing it has is that data is self-hosted (i.e. hosted on a server running on your machine with data that are on your machine).
- If user opens a malicious website that website may create users to access your data ("When registering, http traffic for creating new user on loopback http://127.0.0.1:8888")
- GetSync.com server receives many (all?) hashes in cleartext when sharing the directory.
Con Pro version for a fee
Selective Sync only available in Pro version. Business use is not allowed with free and Pro versions.
Con One peer of your network always has to be online to propagate changes to the other peers
Con Android app drains battery fast
Con Will be discontinued Feb 2019
Slack acquired Stride / Hip Chat. Both Stride and Hip Chat will cease to exist. Sad since they were quite usable.
Con Prioprietary (non-free/libre)
Con Reliability of service has been weak
The reliability of the hosted HipChat service, particularly in the early days of version 4.x, has not been a strong suit.
Con Free plan has limited storage
Free plan comes with 5GB of storage, where as paid plan has "Unlimited".
Con Only one-on-one video calls in free version
There is no option for multi-user conference calls.
Con No emoji
There's no emoji support. Instead there are some strange custom emoticons which only make sense for people steeped in internet subculture and never get updated.
Con API calls are limited even on paid plan to 500 calls in 5min by default
This will force you to contact them when you need more calls.
Con Non-synced notifications
Messages read on one client don't sync their status to another client.