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Ask HN: Best open-source alternative to Slack?

8 points by nobodyCloak ↗ HN
The idea of ceding total control over internal messaging to an external entity (especially for a startup or small company) has always gotten to me, but I’ve recently considered the possibility of using a self-hosted, open-source alternative to Slack. From what I’ve found in research, Rocket.chat seems like a good choice and relatively “easy” to set up. Do you use any self-hosting or open-source options? What’s your experience been like?

11 comments

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sergiotapia
zulip
asah
I'm a big fan esp the "topic" conversation model and very hackable open source. See other threads for more.
dennajort
Never really tried but there is also https://element.io/enterprise-collaboration
bzmrgonz
Essentially [MATRIX]. element is a client app that connects to a MATRIX home-server (a parallel is drawn to email. Matrix would be your MTA, and element would be your thunderbird or OUTLOOK.) Matrix is amazing because you can roll out your own, it's federated and end to end encrypted. Also, they are fighting the good fight, to liberate us from vendor lock-in (whatsapp, messenger, skype etc). Europe has made major strides in this direction. Some big vendors have seen the light and are already begin to align themselves with the MATRIX project.. read here.... https://matrix.org/blog/2022/05/30/welcoming-rocket-chat-to-...
badcoder72684
Matrix and it's various clients like RIOT.

Still not amazing, clunky to setup

aussiedude
What's wrong with just using the chat app with your productivity suite? Example Google Chat for Workspace and Teams for 365?
denysvitali
Teams... Lol.

If you're typing such a phrase you have probably never used Teams. It's one of the worst piece of software out there.

relaunched
False. Teams is a very useful tool and continues to get better all the time. Albeit, it's much better if you are already in the Microsoft ecosystem - but, that's probably on purpose.