I want to integrate group chatting functionality with my existing system which is developed over PHP CodeIgniter. Please help choose best and easy solution for the same.
Thanks for the invite!
Firebase and Slack API seem to be good options. However, personally I would go with a manual implementation. If you have time, resources and want to have 100% control over everything I would suggest implementing something manually. Otherwise, Firebase can give you a great head start and you'll be up and running sooner as the realtime part has been taken care of by Firebase. You should also note that while getting started with Firebase is free, you need to pay once your app scales.
Unfortunately, I have never used Podio. So, I won't be able to comment on that.
So, my choices are : Manual Implementation and Firebase.
Sandeep Panda
co-founder, Hashnode
I don't have a lot of experience in this kind of themes, but i think Slack is a nice option.
Just a comment on @sandeep's answer: Instead of Firebase, you could go with, for example, RabbitMQ. I've written a bit about how you could implement something like that. Some small parts are Python specific, but should easily be adaptable to PHP as well.
Davide Polano
Web developer
You can also choose quickblox.com