JotCast Live Chats vs Roomlio – Group Chat

JotCast Live Chats connects your WordPress site to JotCast live chat, enabling zero-click single sign-on for your users. When a logged-in WordPress user visits a page with a JotCast chat embed, they are automatically signed in using their WordPress display name. No extra accounts, no login buttons, no redirects. Features: Zero-click SSO — WordPress users are automatically authenticated in JotCast chats with no additional steps. Chat visibility control — Restrict who can see chats on your site based on WordPress role: everyone, logged-in users only, subscribers and above, or administrators only. Membership gating — Use the jotcast_user_is_member filter hook to define your own membership criteria. Works with any membership plugin including Groups, MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, WooCommerce Memberships, and custom solutions. Secure token exchange — SSO keys are exchanged server-to-server using short-lived, single-use authorization codes. Your encryption key never touches the browser. AES-256-CBC encryption — User data is encrypted before being passed to JotCast, ensuring secure transmission. How it works: Install and activate the plugin. Go to Settings → JotCast Live Chats and click “Connect to JotCast.” Authorize the connection with your JotCast account. That’s it. Your existing JotCast chat embeds will automatically log in your WordPress users. Membership gating with custom filters: If you want to restrict certain JotCast chats to paying members, you can define your own membership logic using the jotcast_user_is_member filter. Add this to your theme’s functions.php or a custom plugin: add_filter('jotcast_user_is_member', function($is_member, $user) { // Your custom membership check here // Return true if the user is a paying member, false otherwise return $is_member; }, 10, 2); The result is included in the SSO token, and you can mark individual chats as “Members Only” in JotCast’s chat creation form. Requirements: A JotCast account (sign up at jotcast.com) One or more JotCast chat embeds on your WordPress site PHP 7.4 or higher with the OpenSSL extension External services This plugin connects to the JotCast service (https://www.jotcast.com) to provide live chat functionality with automatic single sign-on for your WordPress users. When the plugin is first connected: A one-time server-to-server request is made to JotCast to exchange a short-lived authorization code for an SSO encryption key. Your site URL and site name are sent during this process. On every page load that contains a JotCast chat embed: The plugin encrypts the logged-in user’s display name, email address, profile picture URL, and membership status using AES-256-CBC, and appends the encrypted token to the JotCast embed script URL. This data is sent to JotCast so the user can be automatically signed into the chat. No data is sent for users who are not logged in. Service: JotCast Terms of Service: https://www.jotcast.com/terms.html Privacy Policy: https://www.jotcast.com/privacy.html

Roomlio is an embeddable chat platform. It allows you to simply and quickly embed a chat room anywhere on your WordPress pages or posts. It differs from existing chat applications because it focuses on embedding group chat rooms in existing pages instead of sending your users off to a 3rd part chat application. You can think of it as offering embeddable “Twitch style” or “Youtube style” chat for your WordPress users and visitors. Although Roomlio focuses on embedding chat rooms inside of WordPress, it still provides an app for admins and operators to manage all the embedded channels and chat with embedded users. Features Keep your users on your site/domain while chatting. Roomlio branding can be hidden for a seemless experience. Maintain your brand by not sending users to external chat applications. Automatically securely identify your logged in WordPress users. No separate login required. (If users are not logged in they will be identified based on geolocation) No code required. Our plugin lets you place chat room widgets where you want them in a user friendly way. Unlimited chat rooms. Create as many as you want, we don’t restrict that. Unlimited chat history Admin app. Manage all the rooms you create in one place using our dedicated Admin app (Works on all major operating systems, Windows, Mac, iOS and Android). Customize the appearance/size of your rooms. Support for images/gifs. Offline mode. Allow visitors to leave an offline message (optionally forwarded to email) if your room is in offline mode. For more details, visit Roomlio and talk to us! INFO: This plugin requires a paid plan from Roomlio to work (14 day free trial offered w/o credit card). Privacy Since Roomlio is a Software as a Service (SaaS) product, you will accept the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy at the time you signup for a Roomlio account. Here is a direct link to those below in case you want to take a look now. – https://roomlio.com/legal/terms/ – https://roomlio.com/legal/privacy-policy/ Also, we believe your data belongs to you and we comply with GDPR. More info here https://roomlio.com/legal/eu-privacy-summary/