Dendrite vs Mattermost
| Tagline | Second-generation Matrix homeserver by the Matrix.org Foundation | Open-source, self-hostable Slack alternative for secure team messaging and collaboration |
| Category | Team Chat & Collaboration | Team Chat & Collaboration |
| Replaces | Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams | Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord |
| GitHub stars | 5.4k | 38k |
| Language | Go | Go |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Manual | One-Click Docker Docker Compose Kubernetes Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 1 month ago | 5 days ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Dendrite
- Still behind Synapse in feature completeness for some advanced room types
- Performance at scale is less battle-tested than Synapse
- Web client (Element) must be deployed separately
Mattermost
- Many advanced features (LDAP/AD, SAML/SSO, compliance exports, high availability) are gated behind paid Enterprise tiers
- Search and message UX feel less polished than Slack
- Voice/video calling is more limited than Teams' full meetings stack
- Smaller third-party app/integration marketplace than Slack
Bottom line
Both are a similar lift to self-host; choose Mattermost for the larger community and ecosystem. Mattermost has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Mattermost
Open-source, self-hostable Slack alternative for secure team messaging and collaboration