Mattermost vs WorkAdventure
| Tagline | Open-source, self-hostable Slack alternative for secure team messaging and collaboration | Virtual office and conference as an interactive 16-bit RPG world in the browser |
| Category | Team Chat & Collaboration | Team Chat & Collaboration |
| Replaces | Slack, Microsoft Teams | Slack, Microsoft Teams |
| GitHub stars | 38k | 5.5k |
| Language | Go | Docker |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 4/5 Involved |
| Deploy options | One-Click Docker Docker Compose Kubernetes Manual | Docker Docker Compose |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | today | today |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
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
WorkAdventure
- Self-hosting requires managing 6+ Docker services (pusher, back, front, map-storage, Jitsi, etc.) with non-trivial coordination.
- Not a general-purpose team chat tool; lacks threaded messaging, async communication, and integrations found in Slack.
- Video quality and reliability depend on the separately self-hosted Jitsi instance.
- Map creation requires proficiency with the Tiled map editor; onboarding is steep for non-technical teams.
Bottom line
Choose Mattermost if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Mattermost for the larger community and ecosystem. 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
WorkAdventure
Virtual office and conference as an interactive 16-bit RPG world in the browser