Flock is a collaborative business messaging application developed by the small (but multinational) company of the same name, designed to compete with Slack. The company boasts that the app is a fast and reliable means of communication, and is available in a free edition.
$250
one-time fee up to 50 attendees
Google Chat
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Google Chat, formerly Hangouts Chat, is a collaboration tool competing with Slack, designed to make it easy for teams to be able to get their work done in one place. From direct messages to group conversations, Chat helps teams collaborate, and with dedicated, virtual rooms to house projects over time — plus threaded conversations — Chat helps users track progress and follow up tasks. Chat currently supports 28 languages and each room can support up to 8,000 members.
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Pricing
Flock
Google Chat
Editions & Modules
Micro
$250
up to 50 attendees
Add-Ons
$250
one-time fee
Standard
$550
up to 500 attendees
Container
$950
one-time fee
PRO
$950
up to 2000 attendees
PLUS
$1500
up to 5000 attendees
Event App
$1950
one-time fee
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Flock
Google Chat
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
*Indicative pricing, get in contact for a customised free quote
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Flock
Google Chat
Considered Both Products
Flock
No answer on this topic
Google Chat
Verified User
Analyst
Chose Google Chat
Google Hangouts Chat is simple to use and understand unlike other complicated solutions. The software is affordable and offers great features and integration with other Google products is easy which is a plus. In a nutshell, I haven't used such a resourceful software and we …
Flock is a great communication tool. However, it's in a very competitive space. It offers seamless app integration (i.e., google calendar and drive) to allow for easy use across the platform. It's a great communication tool. However, if you don't need an overloaded app, there are other options out there. And for work purposes, it only covers some of what you need.
Well suited for businesses of all sizes. HOWEVER, I would say keep the chat groups limited at the departmental level, ensure that your moderator or the individual responsible for the group keeps it on topic, and have your IT team monitor it from time to time. Google Chat gets used so much in our organization that we have rules and regs in our Employee Handbook regarding its proper use (and when used PROPERLY, it can be very effective).
The updates, support, general reviews on Google Chat are great everywhere. The development of the features is ongoing and this adds a great value to Google as a big company in the market. Other applications are limiting communication while Google Chat is allowing communication to grow. It is very easy to use it and teach others how to use Google Chat.
It's not perfect. There are occasional glitches, drop-outs, and it takes a bit to get everything loaded and working. But it is significantly better than Zoom or GoToMeeting when you're in instructional settings. I know my teacher friends here like it and the administrators and parents seem to be satisfied too.
We've only needed customer support a few times with Flock (mainly concerning app integration and security), and they've always been timely and helpful, which are the only things I truly need from support. The response rate was still rapid, and there's plenty of support available online as well for Flock.
I have not needed to contact the support folks for Google Hangouts Chat, so I can't speak to this with any accuracy. The online instructions are fairly clearly written, so it is fairly intuitive to start with. I did not feel the need to use the support people anyway.
I did not like Google Hangouts. Hangouts is more geared toward personal communication instead of business related communication. Flock is also a lot easier to use and has more options related to a business setting.
Prior to Google Hangouts, our company used Spark. Spark was not integrated into our email, therefore it couldn't be easily accessed in the same browser. With Spark we also couldn't search our emails for keywords in a conversation, searching had to be done manually. The one feature I enjoyed about Spark was a request to get a user's attention: If I had an urgent question and I wanted to ensure the recipient saw my message/question, I would request their attention and the message screen would pop up on their screen.
It did provide a creative space for conversation and this does equal a great return on investment, considering the investment is free for the base use.
For the team members who enjoyed using it, it helped them save time in their day by having a repository for notes and creative ideas.