Dock team chat
Shares rank 9 of 11 team chat apps by recommenders
Team chat app with flat per-team pricing, unlimited history and search, and data ownership; critics say it lacks Slack's core features and trust in its free-tier promises.
Team chat app with flat per-team pricing, unlimited history and search, and data ownership; critics say it lacks Slack's core features and trust in its free-tier promises.
33 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- criticize it
- 19
- approval share
- 42%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Flat team price, unlimited history
“It is a flat fee for the whole team. $15/month covers your entire group (up to 20 people).”
Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” “we default to unlimited history (since the 90-day hard limit is a pain for most)”
Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” “Free forever for teams up to 5. Unlimited search, unlimited history.”
Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” Unlimited search, full data ownership
“give those teams a professional-grade experience (unlimited search, speed, reliability) without the enterprise tax or complexity”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” “Free forever for teams up to 5. Unlimited search, unlimited history.”
Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” “gives you full ownership of your data, instant search (even offline)”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” Simple, focused, no enterprise complexity
“give those teams a professional-grade experience (unlimited search, speed, reliability) without the enterprise tax or complexity”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” “we are building a focused, high-performance tool for teams that just want the core communication experience to work perfectly”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” “we prioritize a seamless "it just works" experience with standard high-security industry practices”
Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Missing core features versus Slack
“The chat part, channels, tagging and upload of asset isn't enough”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” “if you're going to position yourself as a Slack competitor you have to actually do what Slack does”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” “This new product doesn't have those things because they haven't had time to build them yet.”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” - Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss”
- Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss”
Unclear positioning and confusing homepage
“The value prop sounds solid, but on the homepage I really missed seeing the product.”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” “Odd that your site would show macOS looking window for a product with an identical name to a major feature”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” “it's at odds with the "chat that just works" messaging that suggests an advantage in reliability or UI”
Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” - Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss”
Doubts about long-term free-tier promises
“Just another SaaS whose promises we are forced to trust, but have no way of ensuring they keep them.”
Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” “Buyers may question long-term sustainability or fear undisclosed "shadow" caps.”
Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” “I don't trust anything that says "Free Forever" or "Unlimited"”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” US hosting and no self-hosting
“the location of your servers is irrelevant if you're a U.S.-based company”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” “I don’t want to have my data in the US for at least 3 years.”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss” “if i can't self host then you've already locked my data in.”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss”
Other team chat apps people recommend
The four most recommended other team chat apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slack | 248 | 387 | 39% | 12 | 10 yrs10 owners | — |
| Microsoft Teams | 228 | 701 | 25% | 13 | 1.5 yrs11 owners | — |
| Zulip | 143 | 58 | 71% | 11 | 5 yrs10 owners | Approved |
| Chatto | 55 | 13 | 81% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Dock team chatThis page | 14 | 19 | 42% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 46 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“such a terrible waste of memory/screen space”
“By having so few features, it's competing with a whole lot of free stuff.”
“This clearly isn’t a Show HN - it’s a waitlist signup.”
“The value prop sounds solid, but on the homepage I really missed seeing the product.”
“To me that type of sleight-of-hand inspires distrust, which is fatal to any prospect of me evaluating the product.”
“the location of your servers is irrelevant if you're a U.S.-based company”
“it just exchanges one US based company for several others”
“You guys are awesome! I hope you will succeed.”
“if i can't self host then you've already locked my data in.”
“We are a Western European company, so GDPR and data sovereignty are at the heart of our architecture”
“we're betting that for many teams, the "social" aspect has actually become too noisy”
“gives you full ownership of your data, instant search (even offline)”
“give those teams a professional-grade experience (unlimited search, speed, reliability) without the enterprise tax or complexity”
“I don’t want to have my data in the US for at least 3 years.”
“I don't hate it, but it's also nothing amazing.”
“IMO this package you’re advertising is kind of a contradiction and/or a no-man’s land.”
“I see nothing mentioned about integrating webhooks or some kind of similar feature”
“This new product doesn't have those things because they haven't had time to build them yet.”
“Odd that your site would show macOS looking window for a product with an identical name to a major feature”
“not doubting it's useful but it feels very vibecoded”
“The chat part, channels, tagging and upload of asset isn't enough”
“reads to me like more the claims of a low cost MVP that hasn't solved those issues yet”
“seeing the repeated phrases and words made me navigate back about 30% through”
“The decisions feature, and the focus on good async”
“I don't trust anything that says "Free Forever" or "Unlimited"”
“if you're going to position yourself as a Slack competitor you have to actually do what Slack does”
“replicating the api is a great idea!”
“we are building a focused, high-performance tool for teams that just want the core communication experience to work perfectly”
“we can afford to treat the free tier as a sustainable on-ramp rather than a loss leader”
“Just another SaaS whose promises we are forced to trust, but have no way of ensuring they keep them.”
“we prioritize a seamless "it just works" experience with standard high-security industry practices”
“it's at odds with the "chat that just works" messaging that suggests an advantage in reliability or UI”
“90 day memory loss is a feature, not a bug.”
“your team-based pricing model is a much better selling point”
“It is a flat fee for the whole team. $15/month covers your entire group (up to 20 people).”
“Buyers may question long-term sustainability or fear undisclosed "shadow" caps.”
“we default to unlimited history (since the 90-day hard limit is a pain for most)”
“if you can nail that management of external users, I think that is important”
“Free forever for teams up to 5. Unlimited search, unlimited history.”
“I wrote a spec to solve this”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.