The Lens

Rocket.Chat is a self-hosted messaging platform where you control the data and no vendor decides to change pricing on you. battle-tested, used by government agencies and enterprises that can't put conversations on someone else's cloud.

You get channels, DMs, threads, video calls, file sharing, and a marketplace of integrations. It works. It looks and feels like Slack circa 2020, not as polished, but functional.

Self-hosting is free with the Community Edition. The Enterprise plan starts at $7/user/mo (billed annually) and adds features like read receipts, message auditing, LDAP/SAML sync, and premium support. Their cloud-hosted option starts at $7/user/mo as well.

The catch: self-hosting Rocket.Chat is not trivial. It needs MongoDB, a Node.js server, and real maintenance. Updates can break things. The Community edition is missing features that teams expect from Slack, like proper SSO integration (SAML/LDAP is Enterprise only). And frankly, if your team is under 15 people, Slack's free tier might be less work.

**Community Edition (free, self-hosted):** Channels, DMs, threads, video calls, file sharing, basic integrations. No user limit. You run it on your infrastructure.

**Enterprise Edition ($7/user/mo, billed annually):** Adds LDAP/SAML SSO, read receipts, message auditing, engagement dashboard, premium support, and SLA guarantees. Minimum commitment varies.

**Cloud Hosted ($7/user/mo):** Rocket.Chat manages the infrastructure. Same feature split: Community vs Enterprise features apply.

**The math:** A 20-person team on Enterprise cloud = $140/mo. Slack Pro for 20 people = $175/mo ($8.75/user). Rocket.Chat is cheaper, but Slack is less work to run. Self-hosted Community for 20 people = $0 + your server costs ($20-50/mo on a VPS) + your time maintaining it.

Rocket.Chat

The Lens

Free vs Self-Hosted vs Paid

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