Slack vs Rocket.Chat vs Element

Pick up to 4 tools and see their free plans, entry prices, platforms and limits in one table. Every fact comes from each vendor's own pages, checked 7 November 2026.

Compared on	Slack Free plan · from $7.25/user/mo Visit Remove	Rocket.Chat Free plan Visit Remove	Element Free plan Visit Remove
What it is	Team messaging built around channels, with huddles, canvases and workflow automation	Self-hostable secure messaging platform with Matrix and XMPP federation	Secure messaging and calls built on the decentralised Matrix standard
Free plan	Free plan keeps 90 days of message history, allows up to 10 app integrations, and limits huddles and Slack Connect external messages to 1:1	Starter is described as a free self-managed workspace for technical evaluation, small businesses and non-profits; its user and feature limits were not shown on the pages read	Element Server Suite Community is free of charge for non-professional deployments and evaluations, for 1 to 100 users, and you run it yourself
Cheapest paid plan	$7.25/user/mo billed annually (Pro)Slack pricing	Not publishedRocket.Chat pricing	Not publishedElement pricing
What it covers	List prices. Slack also lists a 50% promotional price for the first 3 months on monthly Pro billing for teams that buy online within 7 days of creating the workspace. Members active in a 28-day period are billed.	Not stated	Not stated
Free trial	None stated	None stated	None stated
Platforms	Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android	Web, Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Self-hosted	Web, Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Self-hosted
Integrations (vendor's figure)	Over 2,600 apps in the Slack Marketplace	Not stated	Not stated
Open source	No	Yes, self-hostable	Yes, self-hostable
Good for	Teams that want channel-based conversation with a large set of connected apps Companies that need to message people at other organizations through Slack Connect Workspaces that want to automate approvals and routine requests without code	Public sector and defense teams that need to host chat themselves Organizations that want to federate with Matrix or XMPP users Teams replacing an older on-premises chat system	Government and public institutions that need to host and control their own messaging Organizations that want federation between servers and vendors Individuals or small groups that want an encrypted chat app
Watch out for	The Free plan keeps only 90 days of message history and 10 apps Group huddles and group external messages need a paid plan Single sign-on needs Business+ and above	Commercial pricing is not published The home page markets mainly to defense, government and critical infrastructure Licence terms were not stated on the pages read	Paid prices are not published; the pricing page sends buyers to sales The pricing page describes self-hosted deployments only, so a hosted option was not confirmed Running a server means you manage it yourself on the free tier
Made by	Slack Technologies (Salesforce)	Rocket.Chat	Element

Entry prices are the cheapest paid plan, as each vendor publishes it; “What it covers” says what that price is per (a user, a channel, a brand, a number of contacts). The sources are listed on each tool's page.

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