TypeScript team chat on MongoDB, pitched at mission-critical ops
Rocket.Chat is team chat you run on your own servers: public and private channels, direct messages, threaded discussions, file sharing and searchable history. The server is TypeScript on Meteor and Node.js and stores its data in MongoDB; there are apps for Android, iOS, macOS, Windows and Linux. The vendor sells it as a "Secure CommsOS" for mission-critical operations, and its pages target government, defense, critical infrastructure and healthcare.
Mattermost covers the same ground with a Go server on PostgreSQL, while OpenHive is built on Next.js and Supabase. The self-hosted team chat comparison sets what each free edition keeps against what it holds back.
LDAP, SSO and end-to-end encryption on the free plan
- Directory sign-in on the free plan: Starter includes LDAP and Active Directory authentication, SSO, two-factor authentication, role-based access control, end-to-end encryption, read receipts and unlimited push notifications.
- Video through integrations: on Starter, video calls run through Jitsi, BigBlueButton, Pexip, Google Meet or Zoom.
- Slack import: the MIT code ships an importer that reads a Slack export archive (users, channels, messages), and another one for CSV files.
- Omnichannel: a live chat widget for websites, plus apps for WhatsApp, SMS or Telegram, bring customer conversations into Rocket.Chat.
Fifty-user ceiling on Starter, Matrix federation behind a license
MIT, except for two directories. The LICENSE file puts everything outside ee/ and apps/meteor/ee/ under MIT. Those two directories fall under the Rocket.Chat Enterprise Edition license: their code is free to modify and use for development and testing, but production use takes a valid Enterprise subscription for the right number of seats. Anything served to the browser (JavaScript, CSS, images) stays MIT.
Starter stops at 50 users. Every workspace deployed on version 6.5 or later starts on Starter: self-managed, self-hosted, 50 users at most. The plans page pitches it at small, "non-critical" workspaces. Past the limit, the workspace can't add new users, though existing accounts and data stay reachable. The ways out are a paid plan, with no data migration, or a move to Community. Starter has no air-gapped option and no paid support.
Community, the MIT edition, isn't meant for critical production. It caps out at 100 concurrent users and 10,000 push notifications a month, and video runs through Jitsi and BigBlueButton only. The plans page calls it unsuitable for organizations that depend on Rocket.Chat for business-critical operations. Push notifications to the mobile apps go through Rocket.Chat's gateway, which means registering the workspace and accepting the cloud service privacy terms.
Federation and air-gapped installs are paid. Federation links independent workspaces over the Matrix protocol. It needs a paid plan license with the Federation add-on, and federated rooms go read-only if that license lapses. The paid plans, Commercial, Government and Defense, are priced on request; Pro has been closed to new buyers since April 29, 2026. Version 8.9.0 also keeps custom sidebar categories for those plans, and warns that signing in through a custom OAuth provider will need a license from 9.0.0 on.
What you need to run. MongoDB 8.0, next to the server. The smallest profile on the system requirements page lists 2 vCPUs and 4 GiB of RAM for Rocket.Chat, the same for MongoDB, with three MongoDB replicas. The recommended installs go through Docker, Podman or Kubernetes.
Roughly one minor release a month. 8.3.0 shipped on April 7, 2026, and 8.9.0 on October 5, 2026. 8.9.0 is a long-term support release, maintained until October 31, 2027, against six months for a standard release. The previous LTS, 7.10, lost support on September 30, 2026.