Rocket.Chat

A self-hosted communications platform for team chat, calls and federation, built for organizations with strict data protection rules.

46.4k stars, 14.1k forks TypeScript On GitHub since May 2015

Visit website View on GitHub How to run it

What is Rocket.Chat?

Rocket.Chat is a communications platform written in TypeScript for conversations between colleagues, with other companies and with customers. It offers channels and direct messages, voice calls, end-to-end encryption, role- and attribute-based access control and federation with other servers. You can run it on your own servers with Docker, Podman or Kubernetes, including air-gapped networks without internet access, or buy dedicated cloud hosting. Apps from the Rocket.Chat Marketplace and its own Apps-Engine extend it, and the interface is translated into 50 languages.

Good fit if

  • You need a Slack or Microsoft Teams replacement that runs entirely inside your own network.
  • You talk to customers or partner companies as well as colleagues and want one platform for both.

Look elsewhere if

  • You want conversations organized by topic for asynchronous work: Zulip.
  • Your team centres chat on DevOps and incident response: Mattermost.

Before you adopt it

The core of Rocket.Chat is MIT-licensed, but the ee directories carry a separate enterprise license, so some features are paid. Contributors must sign a contributor license agreement. Its compose file starts six services, so plan for a small stack rather than a single process.

Drafted with AI from the project's README and repository data, then checked against that data on 31 October 2026. Report a correction

Rocket.Chat health: is it still maintained?

82 of 100, actively developed

  • Activity
    770 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 31 October 2026.
    30 / 30
  • Contributors
    19 people wrote the latest 100 commits; the most active wrote 21% of them.
    17 / 20
  • Releases
    5 releases in the last 12 months; the latest, 8.9.0, on 5 October 2026.
    16 / 20
  • Replies to issues
    Too few recent issues from outside the team to measure, so this part gets a neutral score.
    10 / 20
  • Security practices
    OpenSSF Scorecard 8.9 of 10.
    9 / 10

Read from GitHub on 1 November 2026. How the score works

Rocket.Chat license: is it open source?

Rocket.Chat uses MIT, an open-source license approved by the OSI. Some features sit under a separate paid license inside the same repository. Contributors sign a contributor license agreement, which lets the owner relicense their work later.

  1. May 2015First published on GitHub.
  2. TodayMIT, with paid parts: license file assigns a different licence to part of the code; directory apps/meteor/ee/; directory ee/; directory packages/core-typings/src/ee/. A contributor license agreement is required.

How to run Rocket.Chat yourself

Docker
Dockerfile or compose file in the repository
Setup effort
3 of 5, judged from the compose file
Kubernetes
No Helm chart in the repository
Desktop and mobile
No app builds in GitHub releases
Interface languages
50 languages

Install instructions: rocket.chat or the README on GitHub.

Alternatives to Rocket.Chat

  • ZulipZulip server and web application. Open-source team chat that helps teams stay productive and focused. 92 health · Apache-2.0 · 26.2k stars
  • MattermostMattermost is an open source platform for secure collaboration across the entire software development… 74 health · Apache-2.0 · 39.5k stars

All 3 projects in Team chat

Questions about Rocket.Chat

Is Rocket.Chat open source?

Yes. Rocket.Chat is published under MIT, an OSI-approved open-source license. Some features are kept under a separate paid license in the same repository.

Is Rocket.Chat still maintained?

Its health score is 82 of 100 (actively developed). It had 770 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 31 October 2026, and its latest release came out on 5 October 2026.

How do I run Rocket.Chat?

You can run it with Docker. The README on GitHub has the exact steps.

What are the alternatives to Rocket.Chat?

Close alternatives in the Team chat category include Zulip, Mattermost.