History: Why Openfire
Preview of version: 7
To properly explain this one, it's important to first distinguish the various "real time" use cases. All use cases need chat, most need audio and screensharing. However, there are some "key distinctive features" which make some tools great at one use case, but poor for another. Some solutions have variations. For example, Adobe has Adobe Connect Meetings, Adobe Connect Learning, Adobe Connect Webinars.
Realtime collaboration use cases chart
| Type | Predominant mode | Key distinctive features | Typical app |
| Ongoing Team collaboration on projects | 1 to 1, many to many or emergent | Presence, and can escalate to audio / video / screensharing as needed | Skype |
| Meetings / conference calls | Many to many | Meeting notes (meeting agenda, and live collaborative note taking for decisions) | Etherpad + phone call, or Skype |
| Webinars / Scheduled Course | 1 to many | Presentation and whiteboard | BigBlueButton |
| Community presence and support | many to many | web interface and desktop/mobile clients | IRC |
| Help desk for team members | 1 to 1, but can be transferred | Share screen and remote control Easier to install software on their computer. | TeamViewer |
| Help desk for customers | 1 to 1, but can be transferred | To route request to someone who is available. Canned responses. Difficult to install software on their computer. | Openfire Fastpath |
| Remote Management | 1 to no one or 1 to 1 | Remote login and management, even unattended | VNC / Guacamole |
We picked Openfire for the following reasons:
- XMPP support, and thus presence
- WebRTC support (via inclusion of Jitsi Meet)
- Great admin panel
- Vast feature set
We ultimately want Openfire / WikiSuite to be awesome at covering all the use cases above.
Why not BigBlueButton
While Openfire Meetings and BigBlueButton broadly share the same feature set (videoconferencing, screensharing, etc), there are fundamental difference.
BigBlueButton is a distance education tool.
- So the focus is a one to many.
- No presence feature (it's for a scheduled class, and not ad hoc collaboration)
- No XMPP support
- Still in 2017, the Flash version is the main one, and the HTML5 version is not ready for prime time
Why not Etherpad
- Too few features
- No XMPP support
Why not Jitsi Meet
- Jitsi Meet is part of the solution, but alone is not sufficient to cover the desired use cases
- Jitsi Meet is part of Atlassian HipChat
Why not Apache OpenMeetings
Apache OpenMeetings is an interesting option with a diversity of paid support options and quite a few features, however, the focus is more about scheduled meetings or classes than ongoing collaboration. For example, XMPP is not supported.
Why not WebHuddle
Why not Spreed
Why not Hubl.in
Hubl.in as part of http://open-paas.org/ is a newer option. Social networking + videoconferencing + realtime collaborative editor + others.
XMPP support?
Why not Tox
Why not Retroshare
Retroshare is very interesting
- But no XMPP
- Serverless aspect of Retroshare doesn't have huge value for us because WikiSuite is a server, and we have Syncthing for file sync.
- Retroshare is more focused on disseminating files, than on collaborating on files