License & Deployment Mix: 38 tools – 22 OSS, 16 SaaS. (OSS and SaaS counts can overlap when an open-source tool also offers a vendor-hosted edition.)

What Is Team Chat?

Team chat is persistent, channel-based messaging for daily team communication. At its core, a team chat platform provides organized conversations (channels, threads, direct messages), file sharing, full-text search, and integrations with other tools. Modern platforms extend into bot frameworks, workflow automation, and ChatOps – where operational tasks are triggered directly from chat.

Team chat differs from email in its immediacy and structure: conversations are organized by topic (channels) rather than by recipient, messages are visible to the channel, and threads keep discussions focused without cluttering the main flow.

Team chat is not video conferencing or phone/VoIP (see Unified Communications for those evaluations). While many chat platforms include voice and video calling as a secondary feature, this directory evaluates them primarily on their messaging capabilities.

The information on these pages was researched by a combination of human review and large language models. To suggest an addition or correction, please contact us. Prepared by Rhodium Systems Inc., author of the ResorsIT platform — a unified IT operations management platform for IT teams and MSPs that integrates a curated suite of open-source, commercial, and SaaS applications into a single system with shared identity, single sign-on, access control, and a common audit trail. Use this catalogue only as a starting point for your own research, and review any tool carefully against your own requirements before relying on it. Catalogue data version 2026.197.

Comparison

This evaluation covers chat platforms for team use and customer deployments, alert routing integration, and ChatOps workflows. See also Unified Communications for the broader UC evaluation covering video conferencing and phone/VoIP.

SSO / OIDC Comparison

OIDC is the preferred SSO protocol.

* = requires specific tier, configuration, or external identity provider

Best SSO support: Mattermost Enterprise (OIDC, SAML, SCIM), Slack Enterprise Grid (OIDC, SAML, SCIM), Microsoft Teams (Entra ID), Google Chat (Workspace), Zulip (OIDC, SAML, SCIM)

No SSO: Stoat/Revolt, Spacebar, Discord, Twist, Chanty, Flock, Ryver, Fluxer, Nerimity, Root, TeamSpeak

LDAP-only: ejabberd, Openfire (no OIDC/SAML)

API Comparison

Chat Features

* = XMPP has message replies (XEP-0461) but not visual threading in most clients

E2E Encryption & Security

Best E2EE: Wire (always on, MLS migration), Threema (always on, NaCl), AWS Wickr (always on, ephemeral), Element/Matrix (Olm/Megolm, default for DMs/private rooms)

No E2EE: Mattermost, Zulip, Slack (EKM is key management, not E2EE), Discord, Twist, Pumble

XMPP E2EE: OMEMO is client-side; server does not control encryption; depends on client support (Conversations, Gajim, Monal)

Federation & Bridging

Best federation: Element/Matrix (Matrix protocol, 40+ bridges), XMPP servers (S2S federation, mature ecosystem), Rocket.Chat (native Matrix federation)

Cross-org only: Slack Connect (paid feature, not open federation), Teams Connect (cross-tenant via Microsoft)

No federation: Most commercial SaaS platforms and security-focused messengers

Bot & Integration Ecosystem

* = Teams connectors (incoming webhooks) deprecated; replaced by Workflows

Best ecosystem: Slack (2600+ apps, Bolt SDK, Block Kit UI framework), Microsoft Teams (1000+, Bot Framework, Power Automate), Discord (1000+ community bots)

Best OSS ecosystem: Prosody (200+ community modules), Openfire (100+ plugins), Rocket.Chat and Mattermost (100+ each)

MSP / Multi-Tenant

Best multi-tenant: XMPP virtual hosts (ejabberd, Prosody, MongooseIM) – native multi-domain support; Slack Enterprise Grid (multiple workspaces under one org); Zulip realms (multiple organizations on one server)

Deployment and Licensing

* = Signal server can be self-hosted but is not designed for enterprise deployment

Lightest self-hosted: ntfy (32 MB), Gotify (32 MB), Prosody (50 MB), Conduit (64 MB)

Heaviest self-hosted: Wire (4 GB, complex Cassandra+ES stack), Zulip (2 GB), Element/Synapse (1 GB)

Monitoring Integration

Best monitoring integration: Mattermost, Synapse, ejabberd, MongooseIM, ntfy (native Prometheus endpoints with structured logging)

SaaS tools: monitoring limited to external HTTP availability checks and webhook delivery tracking via Telegraf HTTP input

Tools

38 tools.

Apprise

Apprise is a BSD-licensed Python notification library and CLI that fans a single message out to 100+ services (Slack, Telegram, email, SMS, ntfy, Gotify) through one unified URL syntax, with an optional self-hosted Apprise API gateway.

License: BSD-2-Clause (OSS) · Kind: hybrid · Deploy: package, docker, native · SSO: none

Website · Source

AWS Wickr

AWS Wickr is an end-to-end encrypted messaging and collaboration service operated by Amazon Web Services. Originally developed by Wickr Inc.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, saas · SSO: none

Website

Beeper

Beeper is a unified messaging client that aggregates conversations from multiple chat platforms into a single inbox.

License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website · Source

Chanty

Chanty is a lightweight team messaging platform designed for small teams that need simple chat with built-in task management.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Conduit / Tuwunel

Conduit is a lightweight Matrix homeserver written in Rust, designed for simplicity and minimal resource usage.

License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: none

Website · Source

Dendrite

Dendrite is a second-generation Matrix homeserver written in Go, developed by the Element/Matrix team as a modern replacement for the Python-based Synapse.

License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: none

Website · Source

DingTalk

DingTalk (Ding Ding in Chinese) is an enterprise communication and office automation (OA) platform developed by Alibaba Group.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Discord

Discord is a community-oriented communication platform originally designed for gaming communities but increasingly adopted by developer teams, open- source projects, and some businesses for team communication.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

ejabberd

ejabberd is one of the most mature and widely deployed XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) servers, first released in 2002.

License: GPL-2.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: SAML

Website · Source

Element / Matrix Synapse

Element is the flagship client for the Matrix protocol, an open standard for decentralized, interoperable communication. Matrix Synapse is the reference homeserver implementation, written in Python on the Twisted framework.

License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: OIDC

Website · Source

Flock

Flock is a team messaging and collaboration platform developed by Directi, an Indian technology conglomerate.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Fluxer

Fluxer is an open-source, Discord-like chat platform licensed under AGPL-3.0. It distinguishes itself through an unusual but effective technology mix: an Erlang/OTP WebSocket gateway handles real-time connections with the concurrency and fa…

License: AGPL-3.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: none

Website · Source

Google Chat

Google Chat is Google’s team messaging platform, integrated into the Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) productivity suite.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Gotify

Gotify is a simple, self-hosted push notification server with a focus on minimal complexity and ease of use. It provides a REST API for sending messages and a WebSocket-based delivery mechanism for real-time notifications.

License: MIT (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: none

Website · Source

Lark / Feishu

Lark (known as Feishu in China) is an all-in-one collaboration super-app developed by ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: OIDC

Website

Matrix mautrix Bridges

The mautrix bridge suite is a collection of open- source protocol bridges that connect Matrix homeservers to external messaging platforms.

License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: none

Website · Source

Mattermost

Mattermost is a widely adopted open-source team collaboration platform positioned as a self-hosted alternative to Slack.

License: AGPL-3.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: OIDC

Website · Source

Mattermost Enterprise

Mattermost Enterprise is the commercial tier of the Mattermost platform, adding enterprise-grade features on top of the open-source Community edition.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: OIDC

Website

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a comprehensive collaboration platform deeply integrated with the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

MongooseIM

MongooseIM is a high-performance, enterprise-grade XMPP server forked from ejabberd by Erlang Solutions.

License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: none

Website · Source

Nerimity

Nerimity is a community-driven, open-source Discord alternative focused on social features and profile personalization.

License: GPL-3.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: docker, native · SSO: none

Website · Source

ntfy

ntfy (pronounced “notify”) is a simple, lightweight push notification service that allows sending notifications to phones, desktops, and other devices using a straightforward HTTP-based publish-subscribe model.

License: GPL-2.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: none

Website · Source

Openfire

Openfire is a mature XMPP server written in Java, developed by the Ignite Realtime community. First released in 2001 (originally as Jive Messenger), it is one of the oldest actively maintained XMPP servers.

License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: SAML

Website · Source

Prosody

Prosody is a lightweight, modular XMPP server written in Lua, designed for ease of configuration and low resource consumption.

License: MIT (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: none

Website · Source

Pumble

Pumble is a team messaging platform developed by CAKE.com (the company behind Clockify time tracker).

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Rocket.Chat

Rocket.Chat is a feature-rich open-source (MIT) team communication platform offering channels, threads, DMs, voice and video, omnichannel live chat, Matrix federation, and an app marketplace.

License: MIT (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: OIDC

Website · Source

Rocket.Chat Enterprise

Rocket.Chat Enterprise is the commercial tier of the Rocket.Chat platform, adding enterprise-grade features for compliance, security, scalability, and administration.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker, k8s · SSO: none

Website

Root

Root is a venture-backed community platform positioning itself as “Discord + app store.” The core concept is an extensible community platform where anyone can build apps (in TypeScript) that run natively inside the Root client.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Ryver

Ryver is a team communication platform that combines chat, task management, and discussion forums into a single application.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Signal

Signal is widely regarded as the gold standard for private messaging. Developed by the Signal Foundation (a non-profit), it provides end-to-end encryption for all communications using the Signal Protocol, which has been independently audite…

License: AGPL-3.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website · Source

Slack

Slack is the market-leading team messaging platform that essentially defined the modern “channel-based messaging” category when it launched in 2013.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: OIDC

Website

Spacebar

Spacebar (formerly Fosscord) is an open-source, self-hosted server implementation that is compatible with the Discord client API.

License: AGPL-3.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: none

Website · Source

Stoat / Revolt

Revolt (codenamed Stoat) is an open-source, self-hostable chat platform designed as a privacy-focused alternative to Discord.

License: AGPL-3.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: none

Website · Source

TeamSpeak

TeamSpeak is a veteran voice-first communication platform founded in 2001. It is one of the oldest and most established voice-over-IP (VoIP) platforms for real-time group communication, originally built for gaming but widely adopted for mil…

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: native · SSO: none

Website

Threema Work

Threema Work is the enterprise edition of Threema, a Swiss privacy-focused messenger that operates without requiring phone numbers or email addresses for registration.

License: AGPL-3.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website · Source

Twist

Twist is an async-first team communication platform developed by Doist (the company behind Todoist). It is designed to reduce the constant interruptions and “always-on” pressure of real-time chat platforms like Slack.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Wire

Wire is a security-focused team collaboration platform that provides end-to-end encryption for all communications by default.

License: AGPL-3.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: none

Website · Source

Zulip

Zulip is an open-source (Apache-2.0) team chat platform distinguished by its topic- based threading model, where every message lives in a named topic within a stream for organized, catch-up-friendly conversations.

License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, docker · SSO: OIDC

Website · Source