Mattermost vs The Lounge

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

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FeatureMattermostThe Lounge
CategoryTeam ChatChat & Communication
LicenseAGPL-3.0MIT
LanguageTypeScriptTypeScript
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM2,048 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, kubernetesdocker, binary, source
GitHub stars★ 38,708★ 6,309
First released20162014
ReplacesSlack, Microsoft TeamsIRCCloud, Slack

Why pick each one

Choose Mattermost if…

  • Great for technical teams
  • Strong security posture
  • Good integrations
Mattermost details

Choose The Lounge if…

  • Great IRC experience in the browser
  • Multi-user support
The Lounge details

Frequently asked questions

Is Mattermost or The Lounge better?

Neither is universally better. Mattermost has the larger community, while The Lounge is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Mattermost and The Lounge free and open-source?

Yes. Mattermost is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and The Lounge under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Mattermost and The Lounge with Docker?

Mattermost: yes. The Lounge: yes.

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