Mattermost: the open source Slack alternative

0:00Welcome to Club podcast this will be the first episode in English because I'm talking with Carlos from uttermost today

0:08I would like to apologise for all the wrong grammar or mispronunciation I'm not a native English speaker but I would try my very best

0:16if you haven't heard of mattermost

0:19it's the the open source alternative to slack I think a collaboration platform which you can host for your own butt,

0:28also,

0:29mattermost.com Kalos nice to have you on this podcast what I your favourite messenger so far beside mattermost.

0:40Hello nice to be here.

0:43And I like I need to apologise myself first because I'm side leaving here in Germany I'm not very good night to you like German speaking,

0:53I'm trying my best but for a podcast I cannot speak like a broccoli job and I'm sorry about that no problem I think I need a few more years.

1:05Get later I'm good German to speak today I can speak with all use my my children.

1:12And everytime I speak with my children they said ok Daddy.

1:16You need to improve your German is there any German word which is difficult for you trust.

1:24Are there is one right now but I cannot initiate because it's like these the big ones like is related to the funeral sound

1:34ok but answer your question then I came out there my favourite messages besides mattermost

1:41I have a fun story about that because,

1:45five 4 years ago where were using hipshot which I really like that in that time in a company hearing in Germany it's cold here now.

1:58And one day the person desiccated guys from the company of came to our team room and they said ok

2:07guys who cannot use more distal because this is hosted outside the company and the data that we have to say he is going,

2:17to somewhere we don't know when it's shut down days and if you guys need to make a messaging chat system you need to,

2:25find some pictures of a hosted inside the company or using the existing tools we have which in that time was the Skype for business and we did.

2:38And then I start looking at other options and then eventually phone but it wasn't that time and for me that like 4.

2:49Working stuff mattermost that before that was the first option for me and then is like butts like Morfa open,

2:59openwork not Morpher or related to work and,

3:06other message I really like this is there the applications in the cell phone like really use telegram.

3:16And WhatsApp I am try to shut down WhatsApp that my family.

3:23In Brazil they use a lot to WhatsApp then it's hard to say that ok that switch to telegram but I really like telling

3:31I really like telegram because in the way day they offer also extensibility do can you write some parts or plugins to telegram and that's I realise.

3:42Ok great so your fellow that a bit in love with mattermost at your former company and what are you doing right now at mattermost.

3:53Ok at matter most right now we are working in in another project we are launching.

4:01To help the customers to adopt a little bit faster.

4:07And I'm black most focusing on using mattermost on kubernetes.

4:15Because like now everybody is using Google that's right,

4:21they say that it's a very nice fit for mattermost some other we can talk later but like giving like.

4:36Mattermost is very easy to deploy like in in on premises stuff like for example you need to have just a machine and that's it but,

4:47Walking Dead to talk about speakers and easier for us to users to deploy and manage to,

4:54deployments and Dad so it's like my photos now is.

4:59Morphine and make that they're very cloud-native.

5:06Get the the best from cabinets inside but the most things are ok can you tell us a little bits in short and what's mattermost and what's great about mattermost.

5:18I think mattermost it's like out of sorts collaboration to that most people say messaging or chat with say like collaboration to because mattermost we use our two,

5:32we discussed everything when it we are we are doing intense off like they're features on even in operation site like I was also in the operation part of we had some sound system.

5:47And we use accessory mattermost to receive alerts to notify as new

5:53thinks to detect like you're out page than other stuff and mattermost really nice food simple the phone the day one I start working for mattermost.

6:04Are you open my email.

6:06The company nail like maybe once a month what's a week sometimes because all the communication we we are talking it's via mattermost in the Quran.

6:20I like the only start I need to keep my name open for these daisies to like that received your message we speak because I didn't integrate,

6:32my name inside mattermost we have disruptions.

6:36Ok great can you tell me a little bit about the differences from mattermost comm and dot org so it's open source but is it technically different I

6:48use Enterprise or if I use the open source.

6:53OK how you mean give me the websites,

6:58I mean the difference between Enterprise and open source what's the difference,

7:07tour like two or three three one we are we call it mattermost Team Edition which is completely free,

7:15you can download them in the Gateshead via our hosting packages you can install you can use for free forever there's no,

7:30everything is there we have the part we called mattermost Enterprise Edition and this is.

7:39It's they have licence if the user's need to pay the licence and it's mean to be like to.

7:47Enterprise azure medium big companies to use.

7:51Because it has some like Enterprise features for example ldap synchronisation compliance logs auditing logs which.

8:06Maybe some make no sense for the team edition.

8:11And this is the basic difference between the job there there in terms of cold.

8:19The team edition just completely open source you can check in the github repository

8:24the only part is and we provide two packets right one it's the team edition which is based on the guitar,

8:34and it's completely ok source and the water is the packages data price which is based on the team edition Plus.

8:43Summer Enterprise features which is like closet source.

8:48This is the main big difference that's somewhere conversation we are doing at to see how and how can we open source this,

8:59Enterprise features that this is so like some discussions ongoing I don't have the Lyca any updates on that side.

9:07Ok so.

9:10Your don't use mattermost like for example nextcloud which says ok we.

9:19Give you the whole software as open-source but only support is a page feature so you have decided that some features like out of Sam and I think our page features.

9:32Yeah but I like her.

9:35If you if you don't need those features you don't need to pay like you can use that is the same feature this is that only 2 extra features in the Enterprise.

9:46All the other features are in the open-source as well ok,

9:52we have the concept of a bookings you can get a lock that plug into,

9:57it's your mattermost for example we have plugins to connect to github to gitlab to.

10:07I guess two Microsoft Office say that the package from the Microsoft Office see if we have for Dropbox and,

10:17I don't want about that it's it's not too hard to to build one.

10:22And this integrates with other systems and then you can use that doesn't matter if they're Enterprise version or if is there.

10:32Team Edition version you can use the plug-in System to enhance your mattermost it's.

10:39You have told us a little bit about integrations to mattermost can you explain what are the famous or popular integrations of mattermost which I used which are used often.

10:53Yeah we like the most famous once is the gate one.

11:00Because it integrates the your kid have your exam what you want to watch inside mattermost,

11:11and that means for example you receive in your sidebar,

11:17you have like how many periods you have open how many players do you need to review what you having an assignment to like takeaway

11:26and if you have notifications you receive everything in mathematics you don't need to open github and see

11:34what's the average vacation which guides you need to know you'll get like everything inside mattermost and issue someone comment to make an animation at you,

11:44in the Gateshead comet you received this message,

11:47and then you can see you can read everything that and you can you open the pr for you and then you can like a proven waterproof into all day what you need to do using.

12:00Integrations that we use a lot is the GT and zoom.

12:10That is like her YouTube,

12:14in this time we are doing a lot of some meetings and remote company everybody work remotely across the entire.

12:24And then we use extension if there's only things and G team meetings as well and that's that support home in all the channels and all.

12:34Channels in a private message you just press that button.

12:41Der starter I'm eating 82 opens the it has a message to the other users can click.

12:50In the zoom meeting or the GT meeting it opens the door for you and then you start your knitting.

12:59The weather integration like we use a lot that is one that to do.

13:07It's which is I tip on for temporary if someone posted a message to you.

13:12And that you want to schedule that as well I can this this message I need to work on but not today maybe tomorrow you can scaffolders have to do for yourself before you can assign data,

13:26start a timer that person then they redirect that.

13:30To the other user as well a lot of integration send their plugins is this the this is the only I mention about two games because you can integrate.

13:44Any type of application of services not using only proteins but you can use incoming webhooks and outcoming write the books similar that is like this.

13:55And have anything that you already used for his leg you can just point.

14:02Weather for consideration to Martin will send it start working is like it's compatible with the existing incoming webhook since like he just pointed to matt emulsion statues in you might don't need to change anything.

14:16Action that is this.

14:194 ways to integrate with mattermost with using incoming or out Connie what the hooks using slash commands.

14:29And use it in the plugin system we developed to increase in water.

14:36Station great explain describe to us

14:42using mattermost in an IT context for 80 purposes can you name a few contexts or purposes of mattermost were clients using it so for example at a travelling agency's or what are common uses of mattermost.

15:03What I can say is like a 4.

15:07I saw that in the best friends on banking usage they are like using in the bank and then there

15:17employees of the bank was talking to each other department by the vitamin and for example if someone posted a like a secret like for example bank account credit card account

15:31Dan.

15:33Weird medicine like plugins that those customers that are locked to like intercept that detect ok Jesus like a credit card that cannot be expensive in the,

15:46in the post in the Channel that they the begin removes and like in cold or remove the the.

15:55The digitas and make just XXX and an post a message this is some stuff that the companies like it's not it is doing to to use mattermost like doing Stadium,

16:08right and detector like some abuse on other stuff for example that is orders ice I heard that they have like sample games too.

16:20Mattermost delights is as messaging offensive words or not being polite enough

16:28the the system can detect and report back to the administrator or even blocked the account for the user and do this type of stuff.

16:40Youth named slack as one alternative to mattermost can you explain a little bit

16:48what are the differences between mattermost and Slack or Microsoft teams which are the popular business one application,

16:56right this is my personal opinion I think,

17:01all days including order calibration tools it's most similar,

17:08because it's the basic ideas like posting message read message in channels great threads and all this collaborative work.

17:19I think the main difference between slack Microsoft teams and the mattermost surface mattermost,

17:27besides affect is open source that people can read the court it's there that is no like her hiding secrets.

17:35Is there the way that's mattermost you can get there the quote you can get the final.

17:43And apply in your organisation inside your compressor Ms or in your own AWS account for exam.

17:51And that means we as mattermost itself we don't have access to this data and then we we don't know what.

18:01The customers I doing right and this is I think it's a little bit is there the winning point if your company doesn't.

18:11Like your you have like 7 rules you cannot expose data like for example the example given the beginning

18:20will working a company that we didn't know but there we are using the other two is going date outside the company and this is like her.

18:29I know goal and I,

18:31mattermost change to solve this problem because was inside the company and like protected by VPN or firewalls and the data stays inside the company don't not going outside and may lights.

18:45£30 new series like reading the message the content that you could do is right I think this is the main big difference.

18:55Use named a few installation methods what's the best way to install mattermost currently and.

19:05What do I need to run mattermost.

19:08Mattermost is very simple to the ply you should like like

19:15let's let's stop talking about like a small community for example

19:21the Club podcast community you can build your own mattermost instance,

19:26and for that you you might have like just a small machine never my

19:33are calling me off mine working mattermost have all matter what's the plan for his community in Spain and he used like a Raspberry Pi for that they I think they haven't

19:455060 users using and that just have a Raspberry Pi that is very simple and easy to do the toilet

19:54but if you want to put it in a machine like in.

20:01Internal on a PC like let's say,

20:05we used to I used to have one for me using it address and was like

20:11teacher is more which is why I think I'm not wrong as one cpol gigs of memory and this to run.

20:21Mattermost plus the database and was just that was not serving a lot of users was like I was just my family and some friends was around like 34 people but this can't Ko,

20:36Ali a bit for more users as well if you want to apply for.

20:43Like for a company music like a smoke company you might need just a like and I would say I have us proxy like for example Nginx in front just protect better your.

20:58Accessing your Javier one machine for the mattermost itself and another for the database you can put in another one just collect better and don't have the,

21:09everything in one machine but then splitting into Mansions but this is the basic stuff you need like a reverse proxy if you want.

21:18Mattermost self in one machine in a database in that's it what database engines are suitable with mattermost.

21:27Today we support both for my Seiko and a post-race and you can choose between.

21:36To use in a Cloud providers for temporary address you can use RDS so even,

21:47which the engine my Seiko watch aurora with the engine of bus rental.

21:54And which insulation does this method do you recommend as a binary or a docker image.

22:05If you'll ask myself if I recommend I would say go to

22:09a docker image and then you can use secure Bennetts the Brian manage that stuff for you

22:16but the issue arises small company or is more set of users and you don't have trusted you also can use the documents warm and applied that in in the docker swarm

22:27and using containers don't know how to use that you can just apply the binary that's the people and applying this three different ways

22:37and I think is the bestest the user have decide which one they have more,

22:45is Mark Ruffalo in doing the deployment I personally prefer the container one because it's a bit easier to manage and I'm outside in Galway sticker minutes.

23:00So if I understood you're right it's possible to scale up the mattermost application server itself how can I do this at on premise.

23:14Yeah if you'll have fun temple on primacy and the point in machine not in a container.

23:23You might want just add another machine in deploy mattermost and setup hmos.

23:31Better option is only available on the Enterprise Edition part not in the team edition the damage it was just a single single instance you cannot add more.

23:44How many users can I have with one machine Theory.

23:52Depends of the size of the machine but let's say that SE20 CPUs for 4 gigs of memory outside more than 1000 users.

24:05It's very suitable for.

24:09Mattermost is very very unhappy creon resources and machine with 8 quarts and.

24:1932GB memory then I can handle up to 10000 users,

24:27is there a limit where you would recommend to do it with a doctor or.

24:34Yeah I don't have this information top of my head but I think that the documentation in their mattermost documentation,

24:42that explains everything just to give it an example in our community instance that we used to work and,

24:52contributors and the community can access and discuss stuff that as well we are running onto the Nazis on,

25:01teacher major machine

25:03which year 40 pupils and 8 gigs of memory and this is Cuba Notts have ordered stuff in solid as well and we have let me the actual number.

25:19We have around 10000 users running,

25:24ok great is there any recommended distro which I should use for example Debian Ubuntu fedora or anything like that.

25:36We are not very opinion on this part of the depends of the agenda of the how comfortable is the user to if if you are more comfortable in that boring in Debian you can go with Devon.

25:51Grid,

25:52can you tell us a bit more about your development cycle so we are talking really technically at the moment how do you work together at mattermost to develop new features.

26:05Yeah we have dates of releases every month and every like for example,

26:14this month we had our first and on our 16th we are going to release mattermost version 526.

26:24Which means that the bow,

26:30numbers ending by 2-4-6-8 it's like the Future released.

26:38And on this we have I like.

26:43Every and their Waters release is just that the bug fixing and more fixing releases ok we do this every month.

26:54And every think about every 2 months we have feature release and in between we have bug fixes release this is.

27:05Been watching for like the best to ex we are doing like this before that we as releasing every 3-months with decide to start releasing every month.

27:15But we got some customers complain we are developing and adding features to fast and they want to slow down a bit at that there's the today we are doing in this way and the the cycle.

27:30We are the program managers decide what is the features for their following release and the teams start working in the tickets to address that and then,

27:43Doreen this psycho down in the mouth.

27:46We have for the QA team and I think some of the teams working in the testing,

27:54and checking with the window some release candidates as well to validate the features and the community can work as well like that we have some,

28:06community joining and getting the releases to try out the reporting bags and finding bikes and and we fix and in data.

28:19Can you name how many people are currently developing on mattermost.

28:26I would say like because of the company grows a lot in the past year and like I say like a year and a half ago was around the 23rd developers.

28:40Including keyway and Dragon managers doing the work and now we are like I'm bigger than that I would say.

28:52I don't know maybe sorry 50 now

28:56including other other parts because now we are split the the the the engineering team in several specializare teams that and more focus on on the,

29:11parts of the south for example we have one team focus on the web app we have another team photos on the mobile.

29:21Both for Android and iOS we have another team Focuses on their bed pharmacy of mattermost a

29:27testolone blood testing the bottom or standing baking Christmas on that we have other teams focusing more on the Enterprise features and.

29:37Other teams Focus more on the plugins and integration starts with the respect that song.

29:44Yeah it's a 40 people on that now nowadays sounds great what was the last great feature you developed it nothing.

29:55In your opinion my opinion,

30:02I guess that the last big one was quite some time ago but was saying producing this plugging options that you can extend mattermost using the plug-in,

30:14this allows us to extend mattermost to add more step exam,

30:19my name is before like the guitar plug in the Gait lab and other things we have already in the marketplace so plug-in management within materials.

30:31Setup me get self see if I remember another one yeah we have.

30:37A bitch that other people can take a look like is there mattermost.com / roadmap.

30:43And then we can see how what we are doing now what's going to be the next hello later in the future for example now we are working on the.

30:57Microsoft 365 calendar integration that you can integrate the your eyes see inside mattermost and have the calendar you can for example.

31:10Schedule of the meetings he mattermost instead of going to the other application.

31:16And for the next just gave me give you a like one we are doing like some visual improvements in their user interface to become nicer and.

31:32We are changing your like support we are adding support,

31:36the plugins in the mobile app as well today the plug-in is not supported in the mobile with a so we add this feature we have all the power of the boogie inside the episode.

31:50Ok so the next to the big features at mattermost roadmap plug-in features at mobile app and.

31:58The second one was UI improvement.

32:02Yeah we have a lot of for this stuff here for example I am and I can see right through like we are heading for example 11 decoration.

32:16A lot of 4liker trading improvements like the biggest one that today Enterprise companies looking for is there incident response word for.

32:28Like how to handle incidents,

32:30how to respond and there's workflow with being you to like you define your workflow and then inside mattermost and down when you need to deal with what's the date today,

32:43help you to address that communication and the response you've told me a little bit about integrations and one driver thing will be one of the future integrations.

32:59Have you mind nextcloud is integration possibility on your road,

33:04because we're biggest open source alternative to every business clouds.

33:10Find if if we don't have yet because I'm not that I don't like to be very honest I don't know.

33:21What are all the plugins we are redheads in there in our marketplace but we can take a look but if it's not already exist I think they're the people are planning bad debtors.

33:34We just when I mean like we are planning but maybe that's the community as well read the Edit that,

33:44we don't know why we didn't receive because this is the nice part of the local sources and the community we have we have a lot of bogies

33:55we we have in the second system which is was not the flocked bias by mattermost itself is developed by.

34:04Community members for example we have one plug-in that integrates mattermost with digital one top provider,

34:13and Jesus handled by the community was not held by us another one was there decoration with Jenkins.

34:21Like you can create jobs and start jobs get logs from Jenkins inside mattermost this was created by a community member as well and not by Martyn Joseph.

34:32I think nextcloud he's not in the roadmap for a near future I I can take a look and see but I think it's already in the roadmap just need to wait,

34:46another question.

34:48How did you do a corona lockdown what's it really difficult to you or are you working remotely Petty fault.

35:00This the question that my friends asked me because at mattermost the daytime companies remote so we don't have offices and stuff everybody Dr working,

35:12home like in home office away or they work in a co-working space or something like that and for me personally I think for the out there,

35:23call was not that impacting us.

35:28Because we are already used to do like remote working there and all the stuff was not like a big block it for us.

35:38Did you receive more customers during this time do you see that matter most one of the digital and waited collaboration platforms is ass,

35:51ask more from customers to be you good question we we got a little bit more requests and

36:01we as a company Warehouse offer that they're like,

36:05inserting a period like to help people to deploy and mattermost itself,

36:13if you want to try out in the company to make it more better for the remote Disney way to work.

36:22And then we got a few more requests from the customers and even from their communities of the asking out I need to deploy these how can I.

36:33If they can we can help them today.

36:36You've explained of you tools which are you using internally for example guitar amp for the open-source community can you name a few more Internet tools which are using to organise your work.

36:51Yeah we used to like it hub and we use it for a glacier that the junior is I think is well known for by day.

37:00The IT Department said that the,

37:04we was Jenna to created all the work we need to do when I sign the tickets to the person still going to do the work we also use.

37:17Get book which is a hosted platform to provide documentation,

37:25we use that as well and are we use g Suite for like a Google Docs and other stuff.

37:36Ok sounds great and easy to handle accept you wrote I think she arrives a little bit difficult thing in mattermost for jira,

37:48I only access jira to move my cards from one.

37:54One lane to another one but the most of the time I used to hear inside mattermost because we,

38:01we got the tickets we got today the comments and everything that you can create tickets to can do whatever you want to do inside matables you don't know me to go to to Jada to open stuff you can do alright,

38:15if someone would like to use mattermost after hearing his podcast what would be the easiest way to get a fast running mattermost.

38:27You can go to mattermost download if I'm not wrong.

38:35Is left and then you can grab the release and that's a solution guide you can just.

38:42Follow the guide the guide is very simple that's not.

38:46Not like is not heart it just need to follow the guide and that's if you want to use the container part

38:55there is some documentation around that Chichester

38:59download and run docker commands like brand we have like a record mattermost Docker.

39:08Which is a community-driven repository and then they have options to use docker-compose.

39:16Docker swarm ECS services it's very easy to like get started.

39:24I think if you was doctor will take less than 15 minutes so I would take much less than that to have like a local instance of mattermost to try.

39:36Carlos thank you so far if you could name a cloud product to be my next guest at the Club podcast about which product would you like to hear a little bit more.

39:46It's a jigsaw which is the,

39:50alternative it's completely open source and I would say this is a nice one.

39:57Ok thanks I will do my very best greetings to Ballon and hope you doing.

40:04Ok thank you so much for having me today.