Mattermost
6.7/10Self-hostable, open-source team messaging and workflow platform with playbooks, kanban boards and AI agents, built for security-conscious and regulated organizations.
Data last updated November 2026 · Our methodology
Overview
Mattermost is a team chat and collaboration platform that organizations can run on their own servers, in air-gapped environments or as a single-tenant managed cloud. Alongside channels, threads, file sharing and voice calls, it includes Playbooks, which are checklists for repeatable processes such as incident response, and a Boards plugin for kanban-style task tracking. It also offers AI agents that can connect to a large language model you choose. It is best suited to defense, government, critical infrastructure and technical teams that need data sovereignty, compliance exports and DevOps integrations with Jira, GitHub and GitLab. It is less suited to teams that just want a dedicated project management tool. Pricing uses prepaid annual seat licenses, and the vendor's site sends buyers to sales for quotes. A third-party analysis dated October 2026 lists Professional at about 10 USD per user per month and Enterprise at about 20 USD, with Enterprise Advanced priced by quote. Professional is capped at 250 licensed users. Since version 11 there are two free options: the open-source Team Edition, limited to 250 users, and Entry, which includes the full feature set but has usage caps such as 10,000 messages of history, 1,000 board cards and 5 playbook runs a month. The main limitation for project management buyers is Boards. The plugin is in maintenance mode, has been removed from the in-product marketplace, and Mattermost plans to replace it with native task features. Gantt charts, time tracking and portfolio reporting are therefore weak or missing.
Our Rating
Project Management6.7/10
AI Software6.7/10
Who Mattermost is best for
Good fit
The Enterprise tiers support up to 200,000 concurrent users, high-availability clusters, FIPS-validated builds and compliance features such as legal hold.
Self-hosted and air-gapped deployment, FIPS 140-3 builds, and an explicit focus on defense and government.
Jira, GitHub and GitLab integrations, an open API and DevOps playbooks.
Self-hosting, RBAC and incident response playbooks suit infrastructure teams.
Compliance export, legal hold and data sovereignty suit regulated industries.
Professional covers up to 250 users with SSO and DevOps integrations, but larger teams need Enterprise.
Team chat, threads and voice calls support distributed collaboration.
Less suited
Targets critical infrastructure organizations that need data sovereignty.
Critical infrastructure focus with air-gapped deployment.
- Legal5/10
Legal hold and compliance export support in-house legal needs, though it has no legal features.
Free editions exist, but the v11 caps on users and message history and the work of self-hosting reduce their appeal.
Hosting and administration take effort, and the free Entry plan limits message history to 10,000 messages.
Annual prepaid seat licenses and self-hosting do not suit solo users.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Can be fully self-hosted or air-gapped, which suits defense, government and regulated industries
- Enterprise tiers include strong compliance tooling: FIPS 140-3 builds, legal hold, compliance export and granular RBAC
- Playbooks give incident and DevOps teams repeatable checklists with automated triggers inside chat
- Built-in Jira, GitHub and GitLab integrations, plus an open API for custom bots
- Open-source core under MIT and AGPL licenses avoids full vendor lock-in
Cons
- The Boards kanban plugin is in maintenance mode and has been removed from the in-product marketplace
- Since v11 the free Entry plan shows only the last 10,000 messages and Team Edition is capped at 250 users, which drew community criticism
- The vendor publishes no prices, licenses are annual prepaid only, and every server needs its own license
- No Gantt charts, time tracking or project reporting, so it cannot replace a dedicated project management tool
- Self-hosting requires admin time and server upkeep
Key Features
Mattermost Pricing
Entry
- 40-minute calls
- 1,000 board cards
- 5 playbook runs per month
- 10,000 messages of history
- 250 agent queries per month
- Aimed at small teams of 25 to 50
- Full feature set including Playbooks, Boards, Calls and AI agents
Enterprise
or $240/user/year
- Annual billing only
- FIPS 140-3 validated images
- Playbooks with automated triggers
- 24x7 support with a 4-hour response target
- High-availability clusters and Enterprise Search
- Unlimited licensed users, up to 50,000 concurrent
- Granular RBAC, data retention, legal hold, compliance export
Enterprise Advanced
- Price on request
- Microsoft Intune MAM
- Air-gapped deployment
- Up to 200,000 concurrent users per deployment
- Attribute-based access control and classification banners
Professional
or $120/user/year
- Bring your own LLM
- Annual billing only
- Next-business-day support
- Search up to 3 million posts
- Group calls for about 50 users
- Self-hosted on a single server
- Jira, GitHub and GitLab integrations
- SSO via SAML, OIDC and OAuth, MFA, AD/LDAP sync
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Team Edition is open source and free for up to 250 users. Entry is a free commercial edition with the full feature set but capped usage, including 10,000 messages of history and 5 playbook runs a month.
Mattermost's site lists no prices and directs buyers to sales. A third-party analysis dated October 2026 lists Professional at about 10 USD and Enterprise at about 20 USD per user per month, billed annually.
No. Licenses are prepaid annual subscriptions based on seat count. If you exceed your seats, you pay for the extra seats on a prorated quarterly true-forward basis.
Through the Boards plugin. It is in maintenance mode, so it gets security fixes and Enterprise bug fixes but no new features. Mattermost plans to replace it with native task management.
Mattermost states that the Enterprise tier supports ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR, NIS2 and DORA requirements, and offers FIPS 140-3 validated, STIG-hardened images.
Yes. Mattermost Cloud Enterprise is a single-tenant cloud managed by Mattermost, available by inquiry.
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