When comparing Stride (previously HipChat) vs WhatsApp, the Slant community recommends Stride (previously HipChat) for most people. In the question“What is the best team chat software?” Stride (previously HipChat) is ranked 5th while WhatsApp is ranked 54th. The most important reason people chose Stride (previously HipChat) is:
You can access HipChat from pretty much every common platform. HipChat even allows chatting via SMS.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
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.
Pro Straightforward interface
The interface is very simple, fast and easy to use. You can start using it as soon as the app has been downloaded - it does not require setting anything up or registering. You can communicate with anyone in your contacts list that also uses WhatsApp. Includes useful features like seeing when a contact is currently available or typing.
Pro Widely used
WhatsApp reported 1.5 billion users in 2018. Your friends are most likely already using WhatsApp, so it's easy to get setup.
Pro Effortlessly builds your contacts by using your phone number as identification
WhatsApp will automatically find all of your contacts currently using Whatsapp and add them to your contacts. This makes it really easy to setup and given that it's the most popular messaging app it's likely that a lot of your contacts are already using it.
Pro Message mirroring on web app
WhatsApp can be used from the desktop via Chrome, Firefox and Opera browsers. Accessing it requires using the Android app to scan the QR code that's presented on web.whatsapp.com.
Pro Signal protocol
Whatsapp uses the state-of-the-art Signal protocol that ensure strong end-to-end encryption.
Pro One-on-one texts can be encrypted
WhatsApp has implemented end to end encryption for messages sent on it's service. Even WhatsApp has no way to read a users messages.
Cons
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.
Con Shares meta data with Facebook
WhatsApp shares your messaging meta data with Facebook if you do not opt-out in the settings. If you use the same phone number for WhatsApp and Facebook, the profiles can easily be linked.
See https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/26000016
Con Tied to carrier phone number
WhatsApp cannot be used by people without a smart phone with an active cell plan. If your phone is lost or damaged, or if your phone number changes, you cannot get messages sent by friends without them updating your phone number. You cannot send message to them until you are able to get SMS messages at your phone number.
Con Proprietary
Not open source.
Con Hard to migrate history cross platform
Migrating your chat history from Android to iOS or the other way around is not so simple. In some cases it requires a 3rd party app and in some the only way is to migrate specific chats one by one.
Con Web interface uses message mirroring
To use your computer to send messages your phone must be on with a consistent data connection.
Con Single device
You cannot use the same WhatsApp account on multiple devices (e.g. a tablet, a PC and a cellphone). The account is tied to the device with the specific cellphone number. Chat history is deleted when you sign in to a new account, unless you have created a backup.
Con No cloud sync
Messages are not stored on WhatsApp server for privacy and security reasons.
Con Limitation on shareable file sizes
WhatsApp now allows users to share files of any type, but there is still a 16 MB size limit.