Rocket.Chat
Self-hosted team chat with messaging, voice and video; free Starter and MIT Community editions, paid plans by quote.
Team Chat
Rocket.Chat is a TypeScript communications platform you run yourself: channels, groups, direct messages and threads, voice and video through Jitsi, BigBlueButton, Pexip, Google Meet or Zoom, plus a marketplace of apps. It is deployed with Docker or Docker Compose, from the official Helm chart on Kubernetes, or with Podman, and it needs MongoDB as the one external service you maintain. Two self-hosted editions cost nothing. Starter is the free tier of the commercial product, self-managed and capped at 50 users, but it includes end-to-end encryption, single sign-on, AD/LDAP, multi-factor authentication and unlimited push notifications, with community support only. Community is the MIT-licensed edition for teams past that cap: core messaging only, up to 100 concurrent users, push notifications capped at 10,000 a month, and the vendor itself warns it is not suitable when the business depends on reliability. Paid plans — Commercial, Government and Defense — are quoted, not listed. The trade-off is that air-gapped deployment, high availability, disaster recovery, audit and dedicated support sit behind those paid plans, and past 50 users Starter stops accepting new users.
Key features
- Channels, groups, direct messages and threaded discussions
- End-to-end encryption and configurable data retention policies
- AD/LDAP authentication, single sign-on and multi-factor authentication
- Role-based access control across channels and workspaces
- Marketplace apps and custom apps with the Apps Engine
- Video calls through Jitsi, BigBlueButton, Pexip, Google Meet or Zoom
- Mobile apps for iOS and Android, interface localised in 64 languages
Self-hosted editions
- CommunityFree self-hosted
- LicenceOpen source · MITUsersUp to 100 usersDeploymentSelf-hosted
- StarterFree self-hosted
- LicenceProprietaryUsersUp to 50 usersDeploymentSelf-hosted
- CommercialPrice on request
- LicenceProprietaryDeploymentSelf-hosted
- DefensePrice on request
- LicenceProprietaryDeploymentSelf-hosted
- GovernmentPrice on request
- LicenceProprietaryDeploymentSelf-hosted
Limits, notes & source
Community
- Limits
- Core messaging only: basic channels and direct messages, basic identity management, video calls through Jitsi and BigBlueButton only, limited app integrations, push notifications capped at 10,000 a month, up to 100 concurrent users (not seats).
- Notes
- Offered as "An open-source (MIT) edition for teams that have outgrown Starter user limits and require only very basic capabilities", with the vendor's own warning that it is "Not suitable for production deployment by organizations that depend on Rocket.Chat for business-critical operations, compliance, reliability." The repository LICENSE covers everything outside apps/meteor/ee/ and ee/ with MIT (Expat) and those directories with their own licence, which is why GitHub's licence API answers NOASSERTION.
Starter
- Limits
- Self-managed, one workspace per organisation, up to 50 users: channels, groups, direct messages and threads, end-to-end encryption, data retention policies, AD/LDAP, single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, role-based access control and unlimited push notifications. Air-gapped deployment is not available and support is community knowledge and documentation only.
- Notes
- Listed as "$0 user/month" on the vendor's get-started page, which also states the plan "enables a self-managed workspace featuring many Rocket.Chat paid capabilities" and is "ideal for technical evaluation or small teams". This is a free tier of the commercial product, not the open-source edition, so it is classed proprietary.
Commercial
- Limits
- Unlimited users, air-gapped deployment, multi-instance and microservices architecture, advanced governance and zero-trust access controls, Rocket.Chat AI capabilities; add-ons include VoIP and Mission Critical support.
- Notes
- The plans page shows "Get pricing" / "Custom quote" and publishes no per-seat amount; the vendor sells through sales.
- Source
- rocket.chat/pricing ↗
Defense
- Limits
- Air-gapped and SCIF-ready deployment, Department of Defense authorisation up to IL6 across NIPR, SIPR and JWICS networks; the same add-ons as Commercial.
- Notes
- Quoted through sales with no published price; the vendor's most restricted deployment posture.
- Source
- rocket.chat/pricing ↗
Government
- Limits
- Data sovereignty and jurisdictional control with audit capabilities, identity integration with agency identity providers, on-premises or sovereign cloud deployment; the same add-ons as Commercial.
- Notes
- Presented on the plans page as "Talk to sales" with a custom quote and no published amount; a plan for government and highly regulated organisations.
- Source
- rocket.chat/pricing ↗
Pros & cons
Strengths
Rocket.Chat replaces
Products this app is built to take over from, with the vendor's own evidence.
Moving your content across: Documented per product: what you do on the side you are leaving, what this app does with the result, and what does not survive the trip. Every step links to the page that documents it.
- ExportExport the workspace from Slack following its own export documentation, or export only the member list as a CSV file.Source
- ImportIn the workspace administration go to Import, choose Slack, select the file type, upload the archive and start the import.Source
- CaveatLarge workspaces must be split into several imports of under 15 MB each, so a big history arrives in pieces.Source
- CaveatAttachments stay hidden in rooms until the pending files are downloaded from the import page.Source
Similar apps
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