Twist Software

Twist is a great, mindful alternative to Slack for creative teams everywhere.

Pros

Twist knows how to handle threads in a very intelligent way. The application experience feels like a new hybrid between email and Slack. Messages have the necessary context but don't have the attention-hogging distraction that Slack creates.

Cons

Because they are taking a different approach, Twist lacks the robust apps, bots, and integrations that Slack is infamous for. This can be a good thing if you are a creative team that doesn't need the same kind of integrations that many developers do.

Pros

I am so enthusiastic about Twist, it's really great. The general idea behind it is that it accomplishes what something like Slack does, but it is designed to not get in the way of work actually getting done. The topic threading is extremely well done, and administering a team through it seems very simple and intuitive, from my experience (I've been using it to organize a 3 person team for a couple of months).

Twist has focused their design choices on actual productivity, and makes it easy to get back to conversations on your own schedule, without having to be online 24-7 to make sure you didn't miss anything important in a conversation. The search function, in my somewhat limited experience, is extremely good and useful.

It also seems to be more affordable than something like Slack although I am not using the paid version yet (the project I'm using it for is informal and not funded atm), but mostly I just find that using it is much less stressful than other options I've used for team communication.

Cons

While this isn't really a technical problem, Twist still isn't the default communication app, so you can't just use this for anything you want, and you have to try to convert people to using it. In my case, I was setting up a new project and just told everyone we were giving it a try, and the reaction was very positive once they used it, however getting your team to buy into using it could be a problem.

Peace of mind when using desktop app day to day.

Pros

Very clean native apps. It opens instantly on macOS. Such a joy after struggling with Slack.
Clever organisation of communication in threads.

Cons

Threads-focused communication is good idea, but requires some time and training to get familiar with this approach.

Not many. It did help me realize just how ingrained Slack has become in our company, for better or for worse.

Pros

The design is pretty clean, and the app definitely feels focused down to purely communication. The website is pretty clear on its functionality and feature availability across pricing tiers.

Cons

Perhaps I just need to retrain my brain, now that I've been using Slack and Hipchat so much, but I found the overall experience to be pretty confusing. I used Twist to kickstart a project at work and hoped to use that as a way to learn the app and create buy-in across the organization, but after using it I realized it wouldn't replace the functionality Slack provides.

All the benefits of a chat app, none of the confusion and distraction. LOVE IT.

Pros

What I LOVE about Twist is that the conversations are THREADED!

Other chat apps like the big one every knows about Slack are like big open real-time chat rooms. It's hard to go back to something that was talked about before or to catch up on a project that was talked about when you weren't logged on (say, if you work different hours than the rest of the team)

All these other chat apps act like they're a replacement for email. But they don't quite replace it all.

ENTER TWIST.

If you've ever used another chat app, like Slack, it's pretty much just like it, EXCEPT inside the channel, there's another layer of organization! So, inside the "Upcoming Live Event" channel, instead of everything in one fat pile, you can have a "food vendors" thread, an "emcee selection" thread, and a "t-shirt designs" thread.

Cons

I really wish the free tier was more generous. It's limited by time (keeps messages for 1 month) instead of number of messages (most recent 10,000 for example) so it ends up pressuring teams to purchase or abandon pretty quickly (which may or may not be a bad thing?)

Pros

If you find Slack's free-form IRC discussion too disorganized, Twist may be the answer. Unlike the Threads feature that Slack added later to its product, Twist is built around the idea of threads. So you may have a #product channel, but you can have more specific discussion by creating threads within (e.g. "2.0 marketing", "Crashing bug when swipe to delete") each channel.

Cons

I think it tries a little too hard to be non-intrusive (versus its competitor Slack), and its default notification settings makes it likely to miss a lot of messages especially if you're transiting from Slack.

Team communication is much cleaner than other alternatives. It's still in it's infancy in terms of development, but they seem to have gotten off on the right foot.

Pros

A clean user interface. Clarity between threads and messages. Easily create teams (groups) or send messages to individuals. Add emojis/reactions to comments/threads/messages. @mentions allow for lightweight notifications and communication. #tags make it easy to find common topics. Decisions and Tasks/Actions make it easy to see action items and be able to look back to see why you did what you did. Guest User accounts allow for collaboration with temporary team members (perhaps someone with another company that you are partnering with). The price is one of the most competitive in the market, especially for the features. Integration with Todoist allows you to take your action items outside of the chat environment into more of a task-oriented environment.

Cons

Twist is a relatively new software solution so the number of integrations is lacking, but the product is supported by a strong company so it is only a matter of time before they build their market share, build new integrations, and attract more 3rd parties to develop their own integrations.

Pros

I really enjoyed using Twist to organize some small team projects. Worked as i had hoped it would for our team.

Cons

There are some features that i would like to see that i havent seen on the platform but have on others