Etherpad vs Quip

Etherpad and Quip, in their infinite wisdom, both decided that the world needed yet another way for people to write things down at the same time. They allow multiple humans (or, theoretically, very determined dolphins) to collaborate in real-time, tracking every change, mistake and ill-advised joke added to the document. Naturally, they also include chat features, because nothing says “productivity” like discussing whether “synergy” is a real word while watching someone delete your carefully crafted sentence in front of your very eyes. They even have version history, just in case you want to relive past mistakes like an interactive time machine for typos.

Etherpad, being the scrappier of the two, was born in 2008, briefly kidnapped by Google and then set free into the wild as an open-source project, where it has lived happily ever after in the hands of developers who enjoy tweaking things. It is a favorite among people who like their software like their coffee—customizable and preferably self-hosted. It comes with a bewildering array of plugins and no corporate overlord demanding it sync with a CRM, which makes it highly appealing to those who see "enterprise solutions" as an elaborate joke played on the business world.

Quip, on the other hand, arrived in 2012, presumably after someone at Salesforce looked at Google Docs and thought, “What if this, but ours?” It seamlessly integrates with Salesforce, which is either a brilliant feature or a terrifying inevitability, depending on how you feel about enterprise software. It has spreadsheets inside documents, because why settle for writing when you can also experience the joy of nested calculations? While Etherpad courts tech-savvy tinkerers, Quip sets its sights on companies that would like their collaboration to happen in one neat, shiny, Salesforce-approved box—preferably one with a monthly subscription fee.

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