Self-hosted alternatives to Slack
Team chat is where a company thinks out loud — which makes "who can read it, and who could turn it off" a fair question to ask about Slack. Self-hosting your chat puts the whole conversation on infrastructure you control, with no per-user bill and no 90-day message limit quietly eating your history. Here are the two self-hosted Slack alternatives actually worth running.
Rocket.Chat — the drop-in Slack replacement
Rocket.Chat is the one that feels most like walking from Slack into a room laid out the same way. Channels, threads, direct messages, reactions, search, integrations, mobile and desktop apps — the whole Slack vocabulary, self-hosted. For most teams that just want their existing chat habits on their own server, it's the path of least resistance.
- Slack-familiar everything — channels, threads, DMs, the apps you'd expect.
- Integrations and bots for wiring it into your other tools.
- A single, coherent product — install it and you have a chat platform, no assembly required.
Pick Rocket.Chat if: you want the closest thing to "Slack, but ours," with minimum fuss.
Matrix — the open, federated protocol
Matrix is a different idea entirely. It's an open standard for secure, decentralized communication, not a single app. You run a homeserver (the modern, lightweight ones make this very approachable), and your users connect with a client like Element or Cinny. The payoff is real: end-to-end encryption, and federation — your server can talk to any other Matrix server on the planet, the way email servers all talk to each other. Your team gets a private space that can still reach the wider Matrix network when you want it to.
- End-to-end encryption as a first-class feature.
- Federation — no walled garden; your server interoperates with the whole network.
- Client choice — Element, Cinny and others all speak the same protocol.
Pick Matrix if: you value an open standard, real end-to-end encryption, and the option to federate beyond your own walls.
Which one should you pick?
| If you want… | Run |
|---|---|
| The most Slack-like, single-product experience | Rocket.Chat |
| An open, encrypted, federated protocol with client choice | Matrix (a homeserver + a client) |
Rough rule of thumb: if the goal is "replace Slack for my team with the least friction," Rocket.Chat. If the goal is "own an open, encrypted communication layer that isn't a walled garden," Matrix.
The self-hosting reality
Chat is always-on and stateful — it's a server, a database, file storage, TLS and backups, running around the clock because that's when people talk. Matrix adds a wrinkle: a homeserver's identity is tied to its domain from day one, so it's worth setting up on the right hostname the first time. Both reward being hosted properly and punish being hosted carelessly.
Do it yourself on a VPS, or deploy team chat in one click on our hosts in Detroit or Los Angeles — the server, storage, TLS and IPv6 handled, so your team's history stays yours from the first message.
Deploy Rocket.Chat → — or browse the full catalog, chat and beyond.