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Best Slack alternatives (2026)

Stop paying $7-$12/user/mo for Slack. These 4 open-source alternatives are production-ready, self-hostable, and free to use.

💰 Switching from Slack could save your team $7-$12/user/mo per month
Calculate exact savings →
What Slack does well
  • ✓ Widely adopted
  • ✓ Great integrations
  • ✓ Easy to use
Why teams switch away
  • ✗ Expensive at scale
  • ✗ No self-hosting on paid
  • ✗ Data retention limits on free
  • ✗ Distracting
Top alternatives · Ranked by BizOps Score
#1 76
Mattermost
Slack alternative — secure, self-hosted team messaging.
Open Source ★ 28,000
#2 —
Rocket.Chat
Open Source
#3 —
Zulip
Open Source
#4 —
Matrix
Open Source
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