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. End-to-end encryption by default for message content, but not metadata, which remains visible to the home server operator.
Self-hostable Slack alternative with native desktop, mobile and web apps, and many integrations. There's no end-to-end encryption, so the server can read all messages, and telemetry is on by default. The open source edition caps at 250 users.
Easy-to-deploy, self-hosted Slack alternative with polished cross-platform apps. End-to-end encryption is supported, but off by default - without it, workspace admins can read all messages. Usage statistics are sent by default.
A decentralized, encrypted P2P friend-to-friend app for chat, forums, channels, boards, voice calls and anonymous file sharing. Best for trusted contacts, as it isn't anonymous unless you route it through Tor (off by default).
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 Element vs Mattermost vs Zulip vs Xeres 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, Mumble and Jami.
IRC is decentralized, easy to self-host and has a wide choice of clients, making it a good fit for open community channels and public project support. But there's no end-to-end encryption - TLS only protects the connection to the server, so operators can read all messages, and your IP may be exposed unless the network supports host cloaking. Avoid it for private or confidential team communication.
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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