People look for a Mattermost alternative when a sales-led, self-hosted platform is more than the job needs, when they want a published price before talking to anyone, or when they would rather have a hosted workspace than a server to run. Others stay with self-hosting and move to a different open source product.
Sebastiaan SmitsFounderShort answer: Zulip, Element and Rocket.Chat head the list of Mattermost alternatives drawn from our team messaging software ranking. The first three places are kept for challengers when the category has enough of them; the best-known brands come after that, in ranked order. Zulip is the one to try if you want self-hosting under a permissive licence and readable threads. These 11 products are all in Best Team Messaging Software in 2026; the notes say how each one compares with Mattermost.
Vendors can pay for more visibility on this website, for example a higher place in a ranking or more room on a page. Commercial relationships can also affect which products we feature and how prominently. Every vendor link is marked the same, whatever the arrangement behind it. How that works.
Mattermost's pricing page names Professional, Enterprise and Enterprise Advanced and attaches no amount to any of them. Licences are prepaid annual subscriptions priced per seat, and every server needs its own licence. A small team cannot compare cost against rivals before it has spoken to sales.
The page places Professional with teams and departments, Enterprise with regulated enterprises and critical infrastructure, and Enterprise Advanced with national security and contested networks. Its listed use cases include DevSecOps, mission operations and incident response. A company wanting ordinary team chat may be paying attention to features built for other buyers.
Professional is self-hosted, lists 250 licensed users and a single server, and group calls for about 50 concurrent users per server. Core search covers up to 3 million posts, after which Elasticsearch is needed. A managed single-tenant cloud exists but is sold through sales.
| Alternative | Headquarters | Free option | Pricing model | Switch if | Our rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zulip | United States | Yes | Published | you want self-hosting under a permissive licence and readable threads | #1 |
| Element | United Kingdom | No free tier | On request | you want an open protocol you can self-host and federate | #5 |
| Rocket.Chat | United States | No free tier | On request | you want a self-managed alternative with an MIT-licensed core | #7 |
| Wire | Switzerland | Yes | Published | encryption and a Swiss legal entity matter more than channel scale | #8 |
| Twist | Not stated by the vendor | Yes | Published | you want calmer, threaded conversation with one clear price | #2 |
| Pumble | United States | Yes | Published | you need a cheap hosted workspace with a free plan that keeps all history | #3 |
| Chanty | Not stated by the vendor | Yes | Published | you run a very small team and want chat and tasks together | #6 |
| Flock | Not stated by the vendor | Yes | Published | you have a team under 100 and want to trial a paid plan without a card | #9 |
| Zoho Cliq | Not stated by the vendor | Yes | Published | your company already uses Zoho applications | #11 |
| Slack | United States | Yes | Published | you want the widest choice of ready-made app integrations | #10 |
| Microsoft Teams | United States | No free tier | See profile | your staff already hold Microsoft 365 licences and need meetings in the same app | #14 |
United States · Published
Zulip files every message under a topic inside a channel, which lets a busy channel be read one conversation at a time. Kandra Labs ships the server under Apache 2.0 and publishes cloud prices per user, with a self-hosted edition at no charge. The free cloud plan searches only 10,000 messages, and people must learn to name topics.
Switch from Mattermost if you want self-hosting under a permissive licence and readable threads.
United Kingdom · On request
Element comes from the team behind the Matrix standard. Its Community edition is AGPL and meant for non-professional deployments, while professional use moves to Server Suite Pro, priced per seat and sold after a sales conversation. The pricing page lists self-hosted editions only, so a ready-made hosted workspace needs separate arrangement.
Switch from Mattermost if you want an open protocol you can self-host and federate.
#5 out of 14 team messaging software products: read the Element review →
United States · On request
Rocket.Chat is another self-managed platform, with a repository under MIT outside its enterprise directories, which carry a separate licence. A free self-managed workspace is offered for trial. The Commercial plan has no published price and the pages now address defence, public-sector and critical-infrastructure buyers.
Switch from Mattermost if you want a self-managed alternative with an MIT-licensed core.
More on Rocket.Chat: ranked 7 of 14 in team messaging software →
Switzerland · Published
Wire Swiss GmbH, based in Zug, builds Wire around end-to-end encryption. The ladder is short: a free plan for five people, an SMB tier priced per person for up to 100 people, and a custom Enterprise tier. Large public channels are thinner than in mainstream chat tools.
Switch from Mattermost if encryption and a Swiss legal entity matter more than channel scale.
Our team messaging software guide puts Wire at 8 of 14; read why →
Not stated by the vendor · Published
Twist is made for asynchronous work and says so itself: threads sit inside channels and nobody is expected to answer at once. There is a free plan and one paid plan with a published per-user price. The free plan hides comments older than a month.
Switch from Mattermost if you want calmer, threaded conversation with one clear price.
United States · Published
Pumble belongs to CAKE.com, which also sells Clockify and Plaky. Its free plan has no cap on users, channels or message history. Three paid plans are priced per seat and add group meetings, larger storage and administration. It is a hosted service, not something you install yourself.
Switch from Mattermost if you need a cheap hosted workspace with a free plan that keeps all history.
#3 out of 14 team messaging software products: read the Pumble review →
Not stated by the vendor · Published
Chanty puts a task manager inside its channels and publishes a single per-user Business price. The free plan ends at five team members and one guest. Import and export, retention controls and single sign-on all sit in paid plans.
Switch from Mattermost if you run a very small team and want chat and tasks together.
Open the Chanty profile, 6th of 14 in the team messaging software guide →
Not stated by the vendor · Published
Flock offers a free plan for up to 20 members, with search over 10,000 messages and ten public channels sharing 5 GB. The Pro plan for 20 to 100 members starts with a 30-day trial without a card. The Pro price was not readable on the page we fetched.
Switch from Mattermost if you have a team under 100 and want to trial a paid plan without a card.
Read our review of Flock (position 9 of 14 on the team messaging software list) →
Not stated by the vendor · Published
Zoho Cliq has a free edition and three paid editions, with Professional and Enterprise needing at least ten users. The free edition searches 10,000 messages and caps groups at 100 participants. It is one product among many from Zoho, so it fits best where other Zoho apps already run.
Switch from Mattermost if your company already uses Zoho applications.
Our team messaging software guide puts Zoho Cliq at 11 of 14; read why →
United States · Published
Slack is a Salesforce company with the largest app directory in this category. Its free plan allows 10 apps and, per Slack's help pages, deletes messages and files older than one year. Private channel and direct message exports require Business+ or Enterprise.
Switch from Mattermost if you want the widest choice of ready-made app integrations.
Slack comes 10 of 14 when team messaging software products are ranked here →
United States · See profile
Microsoft Teams is sold alone as Teams Essentials or inside Microsoft 365 Business plans. Premium, Audio Conferencing and Teams Phone are separate add-on licences, and Essentials needs every user on one domain. Amounts were not readable for us, so check Microsoft's current page.
Switch from Mattermost if your staff already hold Microsoft 365 licences and need meetings in the same app.
Why Microsoft Teams is #14 among 14 team messaging software products →
Zulip: Server is Apache 2.0 with a self-hosted edition at no charge, and messages are organised in topics.
Element: Community edition is AGPL for non-professional use; professional use is priced per seat on request.
Pumble: Free plan has no cap on users, channels or message history.
Wire: Free for five people, with an SMB tier per person for up to 100.
Microsoft Teams: Teams Essentials is available alone, though add-on licences cost extra and amounts need checking.
Mattermost stays the right choice when chat must run on your own infrastructure, including air-gapped networks, and when you need the compliance and support tiers it lists. Compiled builds are MIT-licensed and the source is available under AGPL v3, so you can inspect what you run. The full API suits teams that connect chat to engineering and security workflows. If you already have a licence and an operations team, moving yields little.
Count the Mattermost servers you license, including non-production ones, and list the bots, webhooks and API integrations built on them. Those are rebuilt per destination, so test the three most used before choosing a date.
Decide how much message history must move and whether channels map cleanly to the target's structure. Topic-based and thread-based tools such as Zulip and Twist change how conversations are organised, so plan time to teach people the new habit.
The pricing page shows no amounts. Licences are prepaid annual subscriptions priced per seat, and each plan links to Contact Sales. You need a quote for a figure.
The pricing page offers a one-hour trial environment, and our earlier read found a limited-use evaluation edition of Enterprise Advanced for technical evaluation. Community support is available on peer-to-peer forums.
Mattermost, Inc. publishes the source under GNU AGPL v3 or a commercial licence, and its compiled builds are MIT-licensed, according to the licence file in its repository.
Zulip, Element and Rocket.Chat all offer self-managed editions with different licences: Apache 2.0, AGPL for the Community edition, and MIT outside enterprise directories.
Zulip, Twist, Pumble, Chanty, Wire and Slack publish paid prices for at least one plan. Element and Rocket.Chat quote professional use, and Flock and Zoho Cliq prices were not readable in our fetch.
Our read of the about page found the Palo Alto, California address, with offices also in Amsterdam, Stockholm, London and Reston, Virginia.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Author and fact-checker: Sebastiaan Smits. This page was last reviewed on 4 November 2026; our review process is public.
