Zulip Terminal
Team ChatTerminal client for the Zulip team chat platform
Replaces Slack
Best Free Team Chat for self-hosting
The 4 best Free team chat you can self-host, ranked by community traction.
Spark IM
Team ChatCross-platform XMPP instant messaging client
Replaces Slack, Skype
matterircd
Team ChatConnect to Mattermost or Slack using any IRC client
Replaces Slack desktop client
Virola Messenger
Team ChatInstant messaging and collaboration tool with private and group chat
No apps match these filters.
At a glance
| App | Deploy effort | Difficulty | Min. RAM | License | ★ Stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zulip Terminal | Read-the-docs project | Easy | 128 MB | Apache-2.0 | 871 |
| Spark IM | Read-the-docs project | Easy | 256 MB | Apache-2.0 | 607 |
| matterircd | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 64 MB | MIT | 308 |
| Virola Messenger | Read-the-docs project | Medium | 512 MB | ⊘ Proprietary | — |
Quick picks
- Most adopted: Zulip Terminal (871 GitHub stars).
- Lightest footprint: matterircd (from 64 MB RAM, against 512 MB for the heaviest here).
- Licensing: 2 of 4 use Apache-2.0; check the rest individually if you plan to modify and redistribute.
Every option here is open-source and self-hostable, tagged Free within the team chat category. Deploy effort is graded from published container recipes, not vendor claims — see the methodology.