Team Collaboration
Now more than ever we are relying on software to help with team collaboration. Unfortunately many popular options, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google for Work and Discord all come with some serious privacy implications.
Typical features of team collaboration software includes: instant messaging, closed and open group messaging, voice and video conference calling, file sharing/ file drop, and some level or scheduling functionality.
Privacy-focused messenger using the Matrix protocol. The Element client allows for group chat rooms, media sharing voice and video group calls.
An IRC-based solution is another option, being decentralized there is no point of failure, and it's easy to self-host. However it's important to keep security in mind while configuring your IRC instance and ensure that channels are properly encrypted - IRC tends to be better for open communications. There's a variety of clients to choose from - popular options include: The Longe (Web-based), HexChat (Linux), Pidgin (Linux), WeeChat (Linux, terminal-based), IceChat (Windows), XChat Aqua (MacOS), Palaver (iOS) and Revolution (Android).
Mattermost has an open source edition, which can be self-hosted. It makes a good Slack alternative, with native desktop, mobile and web apps and a wide variety of integrations.
Secure group communications, with the option to be used over Tor or I2P. Fast intuitive group and 1-to-1 chats with text and rich media using decentralized chat rooms, with a mail feature for delivering messages to offline contacts. A channels feature makes it possible for members of different teams to stay up-to-date with each other, and to share files. Also includes built-in forums, link aggregations, file sharing and voice and video calling. RetroShare is a bit more complex to use than some alternatives, and the UI is quite retro, so may not be appropriate for a non-technical team.
Easy-to-deploy, self-hosted team collaboration platform with stable, feature-rich cross-platform client apps. The UI is fast, good looking and intuitive, so very little technical experience is needed for users of the platform. Rocket.Chat's feature set is similar to Slack's, making it a good replacement for any team looking to have greater control over their data.
Open source team chat organized around topic-based threading, which keeps busy conversations easier to follow than channel-only tools. Can be self-hosted, or used as a paid cloud service. The threading model takes some getting used to.
Objective of this page
Find the best free, open source, E2E encrypted and private alternative toslack, microsoft teams, google chat, discord, asana, trello, basecamp, now.
Compare Rocket.Chat vs RetroShare vs Element vs Internet Relay Chat vs Mattermost vs Zulip vs
Discover the best Team Collaboration tools for Android, iPhone, Linux, PC and Chrome to download now. And choose secure, self-hosted, peer-to-peer and independant alternatives
Stop the invasion of privacy from big tech, improve data security stay safe.
Notable Mentions
Some chat platforms allow for cross-platform group chats, voice and video conferencing, but without the additional collaboration features. For example, Tox, Ricochet, Mumble and Jami.
For Conferences, OSEM is an open source all-in-one conference management tool, providing Registration, Schedules, Live and Recorded Sessions, Paper Submissions, Marketing Pages and Administration.
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