Rocket.Chat
Team ChatOpen-source team chat and collaboration platform
Replaces Slack, Microsoft Teams
Best Real-Time Team Chat for self-hosting
The 8 best Real-Time team chat you can self-host, ranked by community traction.
Mattermost
Team ChatSecure collaboration for developer teams
Replaces Slack, Microsoft Teams
Zulip
Team ChatThreaded team chat that combines email and chat
Replaces Slack, Microsoft Teams
Matterbridge
Team ChatBridge messages between many chat platforms
Replaces Slack
Revolt
Team ChatOpen-source chat platform for communities
Replaces Discord
Zulip Terminal
Team ChatTerminal client for the Zulip team chat platform
Replaces Slack
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
No apps match these filters.
At a glance
| App | Deploy effort | Difficulty | Min. RAM | License | ★ Stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rocket.Chat | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 2,048 MB | MIT | 46,270 |
| Mattermost | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 2,048 MB | AGPL-3.0 | 39,327 |
| Zulip | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 2,048 MB | Apache-2.0 | 26,047 |
| Matterbridge | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 64 MB | Apache-2.0 | 7,586 |
| Revolt | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 1,024 MB | AGPL-3.0 | 3,391 |
| 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 |
Quick picks
- Most adopted: Rocket.Chat (46,270 GitHub stars).
- Lightest footprint: Matterbridge (from 64 MB RAM, against 2,048 MB for the heaviest here).
- Licensing: 4 of 8 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 Real-Time within the team chat category. Deploy effort is graded from published container recipes, not vendor claims — see the methodology.