When comparing Bleep vs Element (formerly Riot), the Slant community recommends Element (formerly Riot) for most people. In the question“What are the best Skype alternatives?” Element (formerly Riot) is ranked 1st while Bleep is ranked 27th. The most important reason people chose Element (formerly Riot) is:
You're not confined within Element's or even Matrix garden, and you don't have to make users of other networks switch to Matrix.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free and cross-platform
Bleep is available for free on Windows, OS X & Android.
Pro Privacy focused
Bleep uses end-to-end encryption to keep communications private and leaves no metadata on a central server so no-one even knows the communication took place.
Pro Bridges to other networks
You're not confined within Element's or even Matrix garden, and you don't have to make users of other networks switch to Matrix.
Pro Markdown support
Code snippets in chats can be highlighted with Markdown.
Pro Simple interface
Element has a very simple interface, adding the ability for more inexperienced users to use it.
Pro VOIP and Videoconferencing
Pro Supports encryption
Element allows for fully encrypted text, voice, and video chatting.
Pro Widgets support
Want to watch that flick at YouTube and discuss it at the same time? Have Grafana graphs stacked above your DevOps team chat? Collaboratively edit Google Docs and chat over without switching applications? This is possible with Element.
Pro Decentralized
An open network for secure, decentralized communication.
Pro Self-hosting and federated network
Pro Libre/open source
Pro Search
Search messages in your current room, or all the rooms you're in. Not subject to a message history limit like Slack.
Pro Cross platform
Web browser
Linux
OS X
Windows
Android
iOS
Pro Large existing community
With public rooms for many people, and you can create your own and let people from the community join.
Pro Etherpad real-time document collaboration
An easy to activate integration that allows multiple authors to edit a document simultaneously.
Pro File Sharing
Pro Supports text, voice, video
Cons
Con Privacy claims can't be validated
Since Bleep is not open source, there is no way to validate product's privacy claims.
Con Alpha state
Bleep is in early stages of development meaning there can be issues and it may be unstable.
