Mattermost

Name: Mattermost
Brand: Mattermost

Accelerating the world’s mission critical work with secure, open core collaboration software.

Est 2016|Valuation $310M|Raised $73.6M|112 Ref Customers

LinkedIn 20K|Web traffic 290K|FTEs 155|HQ Palo Alto, California, US

MarketsProductivity & Collaboration Suite

Platform CoversInternal Communications & Intranet Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR)Incident Management & On-Call

01Competitive Landscape

| Aspect | Mattermost | Rocket.Chat | Element (Matrix) | |--------|------------|-------------|------------------| | Starting Price | Self-hosted tiers primarily via sales engagement; managed cloud list pricing has been published in vendor materials | Published plans with community entry points and multiple deployment postures | Public pricing for hosted and self-hosted offerings; includes enterprise server options | | Appropriate For | Organizations requiring self-hosted or air-gapped collaboration with operational/runbook integration and compliance controls | Organizations seeking self-hosted secure collaboration with multiple deployment postures and ecosystem options | Organizations prioritizing federation, interoperability, and self-hosting with enterprise identity controls | | Strengths | Orientation toward operational workflows and integrated playbooks; support options for regulated environments | Broad plan structure including government/defense postures and community entry points | Federation and interoperability based on the Matrix standard; flexible self-hosting | | Limitations | Community concerns about licensing posture and upgrade/maintenance burden in some self-hosted deployments | Community critique around licensing and feature gating in some editions | Federation and operational complexity can introduce deployment and management overhead | - Narrative analysis - Rocket.Chat: structures plans around commercial, government, and defense deployment postures and offers community starter options. - Element (Matrix): emphasizes federation and interoperability, with enterprise identity options for self-hosted deployments. - Zulip: offers topic-threaded conversation models and enterprise identity features that some teams prefer for long-lived, high-context discussions. - Feature comparison highlights - Areas where Mattermost is comparatively strong: integrated playbooks/workflow automation, orientation toward operational incident collaboration, and support offerings targeted at regulated customers. - Areas where Mattermost faces comparative risks: community concerns about source-available licensing and operational upgrade friction for some self-hosted users. - Pricing and value comparison - Mattermost’s self-hosted enterprise pricing is not fully published publicly, which may be a procurement consideration relative to competitors with clearer public pricing for certain tiers. - Why customers choose competitors - Microsoft Teams when avoiding self-hosting and standardizing on a productivity suite is the priority. - Element/Matrix when federation across external organizations is a core requirement. - Zulip for topic-threaded, asynchronous-first workflows.

01Competitive Landscape

Aspect	Mattermost	Rocket.Chat	Element (Matrix)
Starting Price	Self-hosted tiers primarily via sales engagement; managed cloud list pricing has been published in vendor materials	Published plans with community entry points and multiple deployment postures	Public pricing for hosted and self-hosted offerings; includes enterprise server options
Appropriate For	Organizations requiring self-hosted or air-gapped collaboration with operational/runbook integration and compliance controls	Organizations seeking self-hosted secure collaboration with multiple deployment postures and ecosystem options	Organizations prioritizing federation, interoperability, and self-hosting with enterprise identity controls
Strengths	Orientation toward operational workflows and integrated playbooks; support options for regulated environments	Broad plan structure including government/defense postures and community entry points	Federation and interoperability based on the Matrix standard; flexible self-hosting
Limitations	Community concerns about licensing posture and upgrade/maintenance burden in some self-hosted deployments	Community critique around licensing and feature gating in some editions	Federation and operational complexity can introduce deployment and management overhead

Narrative analysis
- Rocket.Chat: structures plans around commercial, government, and defense deployment postures and offers community starter options.
- Element (Matrix): emphasizes federation and interoperability, with enterprise identity options for self-hosted deployments.
- Zulip: offers topic-threaded conversation models and enterprise identity features that some teams prefer for long-lived, high-context discussions.
Feature comparison highlights
- Areas where Mattermost is comparatively strong: integrated playbooks/workflow automation, orientation toward operational incident collaboration, and support offerings targeted at regulated customers.
- Areas where Mattermost faces comparative risks: community concerns about source-available licensing and operational upgrade friction for some self-hosted users.
Pricing and value comparison
- Mattermost’s self-hosted enterprise pricing is not fully published publicly, which may be a procurement consideration relative to competitors with clearer public pricing for certain tiers.
Why customers choose competitors
- Microsoft Teams when avoiding self-hosting and standardizing on a productivity suite is the priority.
- Element/Matrix when federation across external organizations is a core requirement.
- Zulip for topic-threaded, asynchronous-first workflows.

Aspect

Mattermost

Rocket.Chat

Element (Matrix)

Starting Price

Self-hosted tiers primarily via sales engagement; managed cloud list pricing has been published in vendor materials

Published plans with community entry points and multiple deployment postures

Public pricing for hosted and self-hosted offerings; includes enterprise server options

Appropriate For

Organizations requiring self-hosted or air-gapped collaboration with operational/runbook integration and compliance controls

Organizations seeking self-hosted secure collaboration with multiple deployment postures and ecosystem options

Organizations prioritizing federation, interoperability, and self-hosting with enterprise identity controls

Strengths

Orientation toward operational workflows and integrated playbooks; support options for regulated environments

Broad plan structure including government/defense postures and community entry points

Federation and interoperability based on the Matrix standard; flexible self-hosting

Limitations

Community concerns about licensing posture and upgrade/maintenance burden in some self-hosted deployments

Community critique around licensing and feature gating in some editions

Federation and operational complexity can introduce deployment and management overhead