Team chat privacy ratings
Chat and collaboration tools for teams.
11 team chat are rated against 4 public criteria, and 11 have enough evidence for a letter grade. Of the 10 with a known jurisdiction, 9 are based in a Five Eyes country, and 10 in the wider Fourteen Eyes.
Open-source team chat only · Criteria for this category · Suggest an addition · Markdown
| Name | Grade | Score | Data | Jurisdiction | Open source | No trackers or telemetry | No ads or data sales | Independent audit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Self-hosted group chat web app from 37signals with rooms, direct messages, file attachments, search and bot integrations, distributed through ONCE. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
A decentralized, encrypted P2P friend-to-friend app for chat, forums, channels, boards, voice calls and anonymous file sharing. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Chat, audio and video call app for Nextcloud servers, with group conversations, screen sharing, desktop and mobile clients, and optional federation between servers. |
Grade C | 65 | 100% | Germany Fourteen Eyes | Yes | Partial | Yes | No |
Open source chat platform for friends and communities with servers, channels, direct messages and voice chat, formerly named Revolt. The server software can be self-hosted. |
Grade C | 65 | 100% | United Kingdom Five Eyes | Yes | Partial | Yes | No |
Open source team chat that organizes conversations into channels and named topics. It can be self-hosted or used as the Zulip Cloud service run by Kandra Labs. |
Grade C | 65 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | Yes | Partial | Yes | No |
Matrix client for web, desktop and mobile with end-to-end encrypted chats, group rooms, file sharing and voice and video calls. Built by Element, which also sells hosted and self-hosted Matrix servers. |
Grade C | 60 | 100% | United Kingdom Five Eyes | Yes | No | Yes | Partial |
Self-hostable team chat platform with web, desktop and mobile apps, federation and many integrations. End-to-end encryption is available but off by default, so workspace admins can otherwise read messages. |
Grade D | 50 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
Self-hostable team chat with channels, threads, calls and integrations, with desktop, mobile and web apps. Messages are not end-to-end encrypted, and server telemetry is on by default but can be turned off. |
Grade D | 45 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | Partial | No | Yes | Partial |
Microsoft's workplace chat and meeting app with channels, direct messages, video calls and file sharing, part of Microsoft 365, with a free tier for personal use. |
Grade F | 30 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | No | Yes | Partial |
Team messaging app with channels, direct messages, voice and video huddles, file sharing and integrations, owned by Salesforce. |
Grade F | 20 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | No | Partial | Partial |
Voice, video and text chat app organized into community servers and channels, with direct messages and screen sharing. |
Grade F | 0 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | No | No | No |
Questions
What is the most private option among team chat?
No pick has been made yet. The table above is sorted by score, based on public evidence.
How are team chat rated?
Each entry answers 4 questions: open source, no trackers or telemetry, no ads or data sales and independent audit. Answers need links to evidence. See the full criteria.
Does jurisdiction matter?
Jurisdiction decides which laws can compel a provider to hand over data. Each entry shows its country and whether it is in the Five, Nine or Fourteen Eyes. The data a provider can hand over depends mostly on what it stores and who holds the keys. Read about jurisdictions and the CLOUD Act.