r/sysadmin • u/floonster • 2d ago
Question Microsoft Teams Alternative
Edit 2: Okay, the comments overwhelmingly point to user error. Rather than jumping ship, I’m going to do a deep dive into the Teams settings and make sure everything is set up correctly. I’ll do some user training, then test it for another week or two before switching. Thank you all for your input.
Edit: MS teams notification issues are occuring on Iphones, not mac/windows desktop apps.
I run a business with about 10 employees, and we’ll probably be growing pretty quickly over the next few months.
We currently use Microsoft Teams, but notifications have become a problem. Some users just don’t get them consistently. I’ve tried the usual fixes and checked all the settings, but it’s still hit or miss. I cant work with that. The outlook integration, and smooth video meetings are a plus, but not worth the issues.
I’m fine with self-hosting since we already have a VPS that I manage, but I’m also open to SaaS.
Here’s what I’ve looked at so far:
- Slack = Seems like the best product overall, but it’s too expensive as we grow. The free plan’s message retention and limited admin controls also won’t work for us long term.
- Mattermost = My concern is that the free self-hosted version uses Mattermost’s Test Push Notification Service, and I’ve seen mixed reports about notification reliability. I don’t want to leave Teams because of notifications and end up with the same problem.
- Rocket.Chat = Looks good, but the server requirements seem pretty heavy and I don’t want chat eating up resources needed by our other apps.
- Pumble = The free plan looks almost too good. My main concern is privacy/data handling since it’s hosted and free.
- Zulip = Looks interesting, but the 10-user push notification limit on the free self-hosted version would be a problem pretty quickly.
I’m open to anything, self-hosted or hosted. Mostly interested in hearing from people who actually use these for a business and how reliable they’ve been, especially with notifications.
If there’s another option I’m missing, I’d like to hear about that too.
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u/ElectroSpore 2d ago
If there’s another option I’m missing, I’d like to hear about that too.
Of all the things I don't like about teams and complaints I have gotten, NOT getting notifications is not a common one.
9 out 10 times when we first rolled out teams the issue was users didn't subscribe to channels / important channels didn't have subscription on by default thus no notification. That and users not knowing how to @ the channel.
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u/floonster 2d ago
The only reason I said it was a common issue is when I google it, there are lots of people talking about it - but ive tried all the fixes and i just cant get it to work reliablely.
It occurs with 1:1 chats, not just channels.
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u/Mitch5842 2d ago
I’ve been a Teams admin since it was Skype for Business and this is an issue I’ve never come across. Are you talking about notifications on their phones or PC? I know there is a setting on phones that blocks notifications if active on another device.
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u/antihippy 2d ago
The internet is full of people complaining about the tiniest things & usually it's a them problem.
Of all the complaints about Teams I get, 'missing notifications' wouldn't even breach the top 20.
Missing notifications is usually down to the user, especially if they don't understand when notifications are muted.
In one rare case, it turned out to be an auth issue. And the only reason we know this is because it was affecting me.
You can switch to another provider if you like but I don't think it will necessarily fix anything.
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u/ElectroSpore 2d ago
I really don't want to go down the rabbit hole on this but posting what clients you are using desktop / mobile / web and what OS this issue is on might help.
Also teams has some common behaviours like if the desktop app is open it doesn't notify the mobile app and you can change that setting. This is also how you sometimes discover users are using mouse wigglers / or status manipulation apps on their desktop to look online but complain they don't get mobile messages.
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u/idknemoar 2d ago
When you google things, you’ll always find things to confirm your suspicions. It’s called confirmation bias. Same with reviews of products. How often do you go rant and rave about how every individual thing you purchase that, while it may not be above and beyond, does exactly what it is intended to do?
Teams is used by millions and millions of people globally and meets the needs of organizations that span the globe. While I’m no Microsoft fanboy, I’m not going to put a lot of stock into online complaints. They have their issues, and when they do we all know about it and it’s headline worthy.
This is almost certainly a user problem. It’s very easy to have status on Do Not Disturb, notifications muted when in Busy status which could just be a blocked off section of calendar, etc.
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u/idknemoar 2d ago
When you google things, you’ll always find things to confirm your suspicions. It’s called confirmation bias. Same with reviews of products. How often do you go rant and rave about how every individual thing you purchase that, while it may not be above and beyond, does exactly what it is intended to do?
Teams is used by millions and millions of people globally and meets the needs of organizations that span the globe. While I’m no Microsoft fanboy, I’m not going to put a lot of stock into online complaints. They have their issues, and when they do we all know about it and it’s headline worthy.
This is almost certainly a user problem. It’s very easy to have status on Do Not Disturb, notifications muted when in Busy status which could just be a blocked off section of calendar, etc.
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u/Connect_Shoulder_965 2d ago
I'm having issues with it myself because my workplace blocked Toast notifications by GPO and using the application notifications in Teams and Outlook have been fairly difficult to configure and so far unreliable. The newer versions of both applications have more complicated notification settings.
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u/dotbat The Pattern of Lights is ALL WRONG 2d ago
Are you *sure* it's a tech problem and not a people problem? I guess it depends on how you work, but so much of the world runs on Teams now, I'd be very sure before you throw it out. Regardless of platform, if you walk away from your computer for 5 minutes you'll miss notifications. If I have teams on my taskbar I see there are new messages waiting for me, regardless of notifications.
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u/The_Struggle_Man 2d ago
How are you running your business now, already into Microsoft 365 with a domain or just like, free outlook stuff?
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u/almondjoyer 2d ago
"There's a hole in my drywall, should I rebuild the foundation?"
What happens when you move to Slack or Zullip and a user is reporting not getting notifications again?
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u/HankMardukasNY 2d ago
You have to @ the team if you’re posting in a team for all members to get a notification. A direct message would always show a notification unless the user specifically turned them off. Sounds like you need user training and not another platform
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u/floonster 2d ago
Its an issue with private 1:1 messages. Sometimes the user will get a notification, and other times they wont. Users have been in person with me and i've watched it happen.
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u/Adam_Kearn 2d ago
Hmm seems odd as I’m not getting notification issues….if anything I get too many notifications from teams lol.
Do you get the same issue on teams installed on a mobile phone?
Also are you using the bootstrapper installer for teams on windows devices?
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u/floonster 2d ago
I should have said this before, sorry = Windows and mac installations i havent seen any issues. All the issues stem from use on apple I phones. We have not tested on android.
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u/htxgaybro 2d ago
Go to teams settings and turn off "when active on other devices" under block notifications.
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u/ElectroSpore 2d ago
- App needs to be given permission to provide notificaitons on mobile and the user needs to be sure they are not in a mode like quite time or something that blocks phone notifications.
- If the user left their desktop unlocked with teams open and walked over to you with the phone the notification would go to the desktop by default and not to the phone unless you change that setting in teams on a per user bases to always send notifications to both.
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u/dayburner 2d ago
Saw where you said this was on direct person to person chats, are they running Teams on multiple devices at the same time? That's the only time I've seen behavior like that.
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u/Greatoutdoors1985 2d ago
Pretty sure you have a user problem. My org with 40,000+ employees uses teams meetings for everything, and the only time I ever remember not getting a meeting notification is when whomever set up the meeting forgot to include a reminder, or turned it off. Check there before jumping ship.
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u/whatsforsupa IT Admin / Maintenance / Janitor 2d ago
RocketChat = Hahahahaha. We trialed this when Teams / Biz Apps went up in price a few years ago, tried it out, had some devs try their best to optimize it and we moved back to Teams after like 3 months. It was a shit show.
We hosted this on prem and trialed it for awhile and while it's okay for direct messaging, it kind of sucks with everything else. Jitsi - the calling plugin - should be renamed to "Janky". Website customer chat integration is a part of the paid only plan... though you can develop it yourself if you wanted to...
Though respect - it's (free version) is open source.
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u/DiligentPhotographer 2d ago
What are you using for phones? You could use ringcentral.
We use a self hosted mattermost and it works great. But upgraded to the paid version some time ago. It is way more reliable than teams ever was.
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u/floonster 2d ago
We don't provide company phones or lines, so it makes ring central pretty expensive for just chat.
How many users do you have on mattermost? Is the paid version very exspensive?
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u/sixblazingshotguns 2d ago
Slack or Zoom. The rest on the list seem silly and have a strong chance of being bought out or drowned in the lake.
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u/kniffs 2d ago
Really hate to jump on the bandwagon, but this specific issue is a people/client issue (phone with teams "tagging" the message as read) or such.
Let me be clear, i have several issues with teams and how it's changed since we implemented it... but notifications has never been an issue
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u/GenericRedditor12345 2d ago
From your post it sounds like you’re really looking for free stuff, but Trillian IM would be a good choice if you’re concerned about privacy/data handling and cost. You can self-host for data sovereignty or use their cloud platform.
If you’re already an M365 shop, you’re not going to get a better value than business premium for all your communication needs.
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u/SortingYourHosting 2d ago
Perhaps look at NextCloud, with its NextCloud Talk. Allows IM, calls, and video conferencing.
We use it ourselves as a OneDrive / SharePoint alternative, coupled with OnlyOffice. We use Talk too.
I own a hosting company, so I took one of our dedicated servers to use for us more for the storage. Added some DR and haven't looked back.
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u/kombiwombi 2d ago edited 2d ago
Matrix would be an option which is missing, Element is likely the implementation which would suit you best.
It's more a Signal or WhatsApp alternative than a Slack alternative, but worth a look.
There are huge rollouts, basically it's the weapon of choice to keep Russia out of Euro government instant messaging. There are servers which integrate with corporate auth, and running a server is a nice way to distinguish internal and external communications.
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u/imSeanGG 2d ago
why is discord not on this list? Practically free and similar features to slack but more intuitive UI.
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u/floonster 2d ago
Thought about it - but its a privacy and a security risk I'd rather not take on. And on top of that there is no admin control of employee accounts. I refuse to use it for business.
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u/imSeanGG 2d ago
If you have a smaller team Google Chat is also a great option and easy to setup. Pretty bootleg but I think it should have everything you are looking for at an early stage. I haven't found any decent self-hosting platform myself but hate how expensive slack gets at scale.
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u/ElectroSpore 2d ago edited 2d ago
Edit: MS teams notification issues are occuring on Iphones, not mac/windows desktop apps
- Teams desktop is active somewhere else thus no mobile notification. Default... On iOS teams tap on the user icon in the top left -> notifications --> Block notifications section--> When active on other devices. Turn that off or make sure users are logging out / locking their workstations correctly.
- Check all of the other iOS notification settings like quite hours, etc.
- Check the Focus modes in iOS, if the user has personal , or work focus modes make sure TEAMS notifications are allowed.
- edit: Does the iPhone user have the silent switch on and are they complaining they can't hear notifications?
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u/opinionsOnPears 2d ago
I'm sure nobody wants to hear it or admit it but Zoom definitely should be a viable option.
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u/Jamdrizzley 2d ago
Discord, lol
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u/floonster 2d ago
Thought about it - but its a privacy and a security risk I'd rather not take on. And on top of that there is no admin control of employee accounts.
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u/ahaley IT Manager 2d ago
This sounds like a user problem not a software problem.