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the catalog · 🛟 Customer support

Rocket.Chat

★ 42k

Slack-style chat with omnichannel support inbox, federation, and enterprise-grade admin controls.

Rocket.Chat does the job of Slack, self-hosted. It is MIT-licensed, so you can do essentially what you like with it, and setting it up is an afternoon, not a weekend. Slack bills $7/user/mo for it. 42k stars on GitHub.

Open-source replacement for Slack.

Licence
MIT
Self-hosting
Medium
The paid one costs
$7/user/mo
GitHub stars
42k
view the code →official site →

Is it actually a replacement?

We have written a verdict on what it replaces — what you lose, and why people still pay:

How Rocket.Chat runs

Where it runs

Rocket.Chat runs on your server.

Installing it

Deploy the Community workspace with Docker Compose, Podman, or Kubernetes.

Where your data lives

Users, rooms, messages, and most metadata live in MongoDB; uploads live on local storage or a configured object-storage backend.

What setup takes

A production installation requires MongoDB, DNS/TLS, email, backups, upgrades, and enough capacity planning to stay within the Community plan's 100-concurrent-user limit.

The catch compared with Discord Nitro

Rocket.Chat Community provides channels, threads, and files, but it has no Discord-wide social network, requires MongoDB administration, and caps the Community workspace at 100 concurrent users.

Rocket.Chat questions

Is Rocket.Chat open source?

Yes — it is released under MIT.

Can Rocket.Chat replace Slack?

Our verdict on Slack Pro is YES. Rocket.Chat Community (46k stars), Discourse (44k stars), Mattermost Team Edition (39k stars) are mature open-source replacements for Slack Pro — self-host with real ops work and stop paying $8.75/mo.

Can I self-host Rocket.Chat?

Yes — we rate it medium to self-host, and it runs on your server. Deploy the Community workspace with Docker Compose, Podman, or Kubernetes.

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