By r_honey on

I need a chat module for my live Drupal 6.x website. I found the following available for Drupal 6.x on the modules page:

http://drupal.org/project/videochat
http://drupal.org/project/realchat
http://drupal.org/project/phpfreechat
http://drupal.org/project/parachat
http://drupal.org/project/chatter
http://drupal.org/project/bowob
http://drupal.org/project/chatroom

However, I thought to consult the community before using any on a live website. Has anyone used these modules? Can anyone suggest the most appropriate & feature-rich one suitable for production use??

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

dddave’s picture

dddave commented

But I remember reading about a lot of issues that were caused by phpfreechat. A quick look at the issue queue shows that there are tons of open bug reports.

Have you checked if there are any reviews on druplamodules.com?

WorldFallz’s picture

WorldFallz commented

I use phpfreechat and it does work (had to use a couple of workarounds from the module's issue queue, but after that it worked fine). Also tried chatroom-- simple, but it works as well.

TE5LA’s picture

TE5LA commented

FlashChat is the best. Integrates perfectly with Drupal 6. You can see it at my site:

http://bf1942.ath.cx

adolflow’s picture

adolflow commented

i've been testing bowob or realchat, both of them need an external chat server. I think chatroom is simple, clean and offers the best performance for chat rooms and even sound alert. In didn't need videochat nor features from phpfreechat. Maybe chatter is another good option

SeeSchloss’s picture

SeeSchloss commented

I just want to mention http://drupal.org/project/tribune, since I don't see it in your list.
I'm the author so I won't give my (obviously biased) opinion on which module is the best :)

sam moore’s picture

sam moore
he/him
Location Sandy Hook, CT
commented

Just installed it - so far so good.
Only thing I see missing really is an archiver.

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marko3’s picture

marko3 commented

Today I installed tribune. Very neat, and worked out of the box with the slightest setting tweaks. Great job!

Despite my worries it had no noticeable effect on my server load (I had horrible cpu over-load experience before with phpfreechat integrated)

Just as a suggestion: Showing people's system info and IP, when one hovers on a chatter name may be considered as breach of their privacy. So please make it not default or clarify how it can be disabled.
Cheers

dianacastillo’s picture

dianacastillo commented

Hi, on the project page for tribune it says to enable the tribune_local module which I cant find anywhere and it also says to Create a new tribune node, how do you do that ? I dont see that option either.
this is what it says http://drupal.org/project/tribune
Quick setup

Enable the tribune and tribune_local modules
Create a new Tribune node

Diana Castillo

dianacastillo’s picture

dianacastillo commented

Hi , regardless of the face that I couldnt do the above steps, it works when I go to /tribune
thanks

Diana Castillo

dianacastillo’s picture

dianacastillo commented

What is the best chat for Drupal 6 with sound notification? Tribune doesnt have sound.

Diana Castillo

adam_b’s picture

adam_b commented

I haven't tried all of them, but chatroom is simple and doesn't require any external services or downloads.

spidersilk’s picture

spidersilk commented

One of my clients asked me a few months ago about adding chat to their site. I looked over the available options at the time and ended up deciding that Chatroom sounded like a nice, simple solution. Installed it, tested it, everything seemed pretty decent...

But then once it was opened up to their users, the complaints started coming in. Apparently people have had all kinds of problems with it -- posts not showing up, people getting spontaneously dropped out chats they're in or not being able to join in the first place, etc. And this wasn't even on a particularly high-traffic site -- there were only ever a few people using the chatroom at any given time. The module just seems really buggy and unstable. Hopefully it will improve eventually, but right now it really doesn't seem like a good solution.

So, I'm going to be trying out some of the others. I'm wary of PHPfreechat since there seem to be a lot of complaints -- I suspect it would just be more of the same bugginess. Tribune seems to have mostly positive reviews so far, but I don't know for certain if it will do what they need (allow small groups of students to start their own chats to discuss collaborative class projects) -- it seems to be geared toward having one big chat space for everyone, but I'm not sure. I'll be trying it over the next little while and see if there's a way to make it do that I need.

There really doesn't seem to be one standout chat solution for Drupal at this point... Hopefully someday there will be.

KirstenLangholz’s picture

KirstenLangholz commented

Hello,

since the chat is THE most important feature on our website it was a killer application, the must have for Drupal.
I must admit, that I was quite surprised that such an community-oriented CMS doesn't have THE knowckout chat
application.

So I ended up with Flash Chat (http://www.tufat.com/script2.htm) and installed it as stand-alone application.
This way you can choose the user table in the database and now all registered users on our website automatically
are also users of the chatrooms. Only thing is they have to type in their username and password before entering
the chat even if they are logged into Drupal already. It turned out that this wasn't an issue for our members.

Flash Chat allows private chats, plug-ins for commercials (announements), creating temporal chatrooms and
moderated chat as well as a spy function. Our chat has approximately 50 to 100 chatters per room (three standard
rooms) and it works like a charm.

Hopefully this helps some of you out.

Kirsten

P.S. $5 for a chat script is justified I think.

spidersilk’s picture

spidersilk commented

I did check out the web site, but Drupal is not one of the CMSs it currently integrates with, and I really can't use some grafted-on solution that won't blend smoothly with the rest of the site. Maybe on a personal site that could work, but this is a site for a client, so I need something that will look professional, and having a chat application that's completely separate from the rest of the site and needs a separate login is unlikely to go over well. :-(

Right now it looks like my best option is to finish upgrading the site to Drupal 6 (it's still at 5 right now) and hope that I can get Tribune to work, since it seems like the only chat module for Drupal that doesn't have a reputation for being massively buggy and unstable. If that won't work, I suppose I could try FlashChat as a last resort, but I'd far prefer nto to that route unless I'm really desperate.

I definitely agree with you on being surprised that a community-oriented CMS doesn't have a better selection of chat options. :-/

KirstenLangholz’s picture

KirstenLangholz commented

Hi,

it works like a charm for me. I integrated a link to the flashchat.php and all you have to do is enter the Drupal username and password. Makes it look even more secure and my people love it.

After you updated to Drupal 6 you should definately give it another try. It now even has a Drupal integration while installation. ;)

Kirsten

deanflory’s picture

deanflory commented

Kirsten,

Just wondering how 123 Flash Chat was holding up after a few months?

I'm in the process of evaluating what is currently out there and "trying" see some real-world examples to check connection & video/audio quality.

Any caveats? Anything not working with their video module?

Thanks for the feedback you've already posted, helpful.

I got admin_mike at 123 Flash Chat to test out a video chat with me. I could see him but he couldn't see me, dunno why, worries me. There's enough technical stuff to worry about without having a paid module/service not actually work after days of dev.

naicuoctavian’s picture

naicuoctavian commented

You guys should aslo try AVChat 3 video chat:
http://avchat.net/

which comes with a proper Drupal Module explained in details here:
http://avchat.net/products/avchat3/drupal

leahmd’s picture

leahmd commented

Not exactly family friendly that site. O.O

naicuoctavian’s picture

naicuoctavian commented

Yes, during August we've had some issues moderating the online demo, but now it's back to normal!

imlol’s picture

imlol commented

avchat IS NOT the best module at all, their support sucks.