Rocket.Chat
Rocket.Chat is an open-source, self-hosted app in the Team Chat category, licensed MIT and written mainly in TypeScript. It is a self-hosted alternative to Slack and Discord and ships a Docker image. It has 46,329 GitHub stars and its last commit was on Oct 26, 2026 (data as of Oct 26, 2026).
GitHub stats
- GitHub stars
- 46,329
- Forks
- 14,038
- Open issues
- 2,498
- Commits, last 12 months
- 2,441
- Last commit
- Oct 26, 2026
- Latest release
- 8.9.0Oct 5, 2026
- Created
- May 19, 2015
- License
- MITOpen source
Data as of from the GitHub API. Report an error
Project health
ActiveActive: last commit Oct 26, 2026, 2,441 commits in 12 months.
- Regular releases4 releases in 12 months
- Welcomes contributors7 open good-first-issue or help-wanted issues and a contributing guide
- Security policyPublishes a security policy on GitHub
| Last commit | Oct 26, 2026 |
|---|---|
| Commits, last 12 months | 2,441 |
| Latest release | 8.9.0 (Oct 5, 2026) |
| Releases, last 12 months | 4 |
| Releases, all time | 1,282 |
| Open issues | 2,498 |
| Open pull requests | 1,752 |
| Good first issues | 7 |
| Contributing guide | Yes |
| Security policy | Yes |
| Created | May 19, 2015 |
Health as of , from the GitHub API. A label describes activity, not quality or security. How we label project health · Report a data error
About Rocket.Chat
Communications platform that puts data protection first (alternative to Gitter.im and Slack).
Description adapted from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0). Source code: github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat.
Topics
- chat
- meteor
- javascript
- collaboration
- webrtc
- real-time
- slack
- foss
- free
- mit
Open-source alternative to
Rocket.Chat can replace these commercial products. Compare every option on each page.
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Rocket.Chat compared
Head-to-head comparisons with a clear verdict on when to pick Rocket.Chat.
Mattermost vs Rocket.Chat
Pick Mattermost if you want a Slack-like chat built for engineering and DevOps teams; pick Rocket.Chat if you want an MIT core with omnichannel customer chat and federation.
Rocket.Chat vs Zulip
Pick Rocket.Chat if you want Slack-style channels plus omnichannel customer chat; pick Zulip if your team works asynchronously and wants topic-based threads that stay organized.
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Is Rocket.Chat free and open source?
Yes. Rocket.Chat is open-source software released under the MIT license, so you can self-host it at no cost. You only pay for the server it runs on, and some projects also offer an optional paid cloud plan.
Can I run Rocket.Chat with Docker?
Yes. Rocket.Chat provides a Docker image, so you can run it on any Linux server with Docker and Docker Compose installed. The project README lists the image name and the environment variables to set.
What are the best alternatives to Rocket.Chat?
Popular self-hosted alternatives to Rocket.Chat include Novu, Mattermost and Chatwoot. Rocket.Chat itself is a self-hosted alternative to Slack and Discord.
Is Rocket.Chat actively maintained?
The most recent commit to Rocket.Chat was on Oct 26, 2026 with 2,441 commits in the past twelve months. The latest release is 8.9.0, published Oct 5, 2026. It had 2,498 open issues on GitHub. appsgit's project-health label for it is "Active" as of Oct 26, 2026.