Alternatives · 2026
7 Microsoft Teams alternatives that stand on their own.
Microsoft Teams usually arrives with the Microsoft 365 licence, not with a decision. That is exactly why it deserves a re-decision: organisations outside the Microsoft stack wrestle with licensing tiers and the fact that there is no self-hosted edition at all.
This guide compares seven alternatives that stand on their own — without assuming your company lives in Outlook. One entry is our own product; it is labelled, and it gets the same honest caveat as the rest.
Five questions for life after Teams.
- (01)
Does it work outside one vendor's world?
A Teams alternative should not require another suite to be useful. Standalone value first, integrations second.
- (02)
Where does your data live?
Teams is cloud-only. If data residency or self-hosting is on your requirements list, the field narrows fast.
- (03)
Are chat and meetings both first-class?
Many tools do one well. Day-to-day work needs threaded chat and decent calls in the same place.
- (04)
How much of the work does it cover?
Tasks, docs and files — bundled coherently, or scattered across Planner-style companion apps?
- (05)
Is the pricing legible?
You should be able to predict next year's bill without a licensing consultant.
The seven contenders.
- 01(01)
Polybase
Our productThe sovereign team workspace
Full disclosure: Polybase is our product. Read this entry as the maker's perspective — the caveat below is as real as everyone else's.
Polybase brings chat, calls, tasks, docs, email and workflow automation into one workspace with no suite required around it. Calls are WebRTC powered by a self-hosted LiveKit media server — screen share, live captions, background blur — and deployment is your choice: EU-region cloud, your own VPC, or air-gapped self-host. Core is €10 per user/month with optional add-ons.
- Best for
- Organisations leaving the Microsoft ecosystem entirely, and teams that need chat, meetings and work tools without a suite dependency.
- Hosting model
- EU cloud, private VPC, or self-hosted / air-gapped (Docker Compose).
- Honest caveat
- A young product: SOC 2 and ISO 27001 are roadmap items, not held; SSO/SAML on the roadmap.
- 02(02)
Slack
The strongest pure messaging experience
Slack remains the most polished team messaging product on the market, with an enormous app directory and a mature platform. Under Salesforce it has pushed steadily deeper into the enterprise.
- Best for
- Teams that want best-in-class chat and are happy to assemble tasks, docs and meetings from integrations.
- Hosting model
- SaaS only (runs in Salesforce's cloud).
- Honest caveat
- Chat-first at heart — much of the surrounding work arrives via satellite tools, and there is no self-hosted option.
- 03(03)
Google Workspace (Chat + Meet)
The Gmail-native bundle
Google Chat and Meet come bundled with Workspace and are wired tightly into Gmail, Calendar and Docs. For organisations already on Gmail, it is the closest thing to a zero-migration alternative to Teams.
- Best for
- Gmail-first organisations that want chat and meetings included in the suite they already pay for.
- Hosting model
- Google cloud only.
- Honest caveat
- Chat is one component of the suite rather than its centre of gravity, and the whole experience assumes you stay inside Google's suite.
- 04(04)
Zoom Workplace
Meetings-first collaboration
Zoom has grown from a meetings app into Zoom Workplace: video-first collaboration with team chat, whiteboard and scheduling around its core product. Meeting quality and reliability remain the draw.
- Best for
- Meeting-heavy organisations that choose their platform by call quality first.
- Hosting model
- SaaS.
- Honest caveat
- Collaboration outside the meeting — chat, tasks, docs — is a newer layer around the meeting core.
- 05(05)
Mattermost
Open-core chat for technical teams
Mattermost is an open-core messaging platform for technical and security-conscious teams, with strong DevOps workflows around incidents and playbooks. The free edition can run on your own servers, with advanced capabilities in paid editions.
- Best for
- Engineering organisations replacing Teams chat with something they can run themselves.
- Hosting model
- Self-hosted (Docker/Kubernetes) or vendor-hosted cloud.
- Honest caveat
- Chat-first by design: docs, boards and email still live elsewhere, and several enterprise features sit behind paid editions.
- 06(06)
Rocket.Chat
Open-source chat with an omnichannel twist
Rocket.Chat is a long-running open-source messaging platform with a real footprint in public-sector and regulated environments, plus omnichannel support for customer-facing conversations on the same deployment.
- Best for
- Public-sector and regulated organisations that need open-source chat under their own control.
- Hosting model
- Self-hosted or Rocket.Chat's hosted cloud.
- Honest caveat
- The admin surface is large, and a number of advanced capabilities are reserved for paid plans.
- 07(07)
Element (Matrix)
Decentralised messaging on an open protocol
Element is the flagship client for the open Matrix protocol: decentralised, federated and end-to-end encrypted. You can run your own homeserver and still communicate across the wider Matrix network.
- Best for
- Organisations for which federation, E2EE and protocol openness outrank product polish.
- Hosting model
- Self-hosted homeserver or managed hosting from Element.
- Honest caveat
- Running Matrix well is real operations work, and everyday polish — threads, search, admin UX — trails centralised tools.
Where Polybase wins — and where we don't win yet.
You are reading this list on our site, so here is the part vendors usually skip.
- No suite requiredChat, meetings, tasks, docs and email work as one product — no Planner, SharePoint or OneDrive constellation to license and administer.
- Deployment freedom Teams doesn't offerEU-region cloud, your own VPC, or air-gapped self-host. It runs fully offline; calls use a self-hosted LiveKit server.
- Sovereignty by architectureSelf-hosting means your servers and your keys — the US CLOUD Act's reach ends where your infrastructure begins.
- Legible pricingCore at €10 per user/month plus optional add-ons — a bill you can predict without a licensing matrix.
- AI on your termsBring your own model — Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini or self-hosted via Ollama. Your content isn't used to train foundation models.
- CertificationsNot certified yet — SOC 2 and ISO 27001 are on our roadmap. We answer security questionnaires and architecture questions today.
- Enterprise sign-onSSO/SAML/SCIM are on the roadmap; today sign-in is email/password and magic links.
- Ecosystem sizeNo app marketplace and no guided importers yet — we offer a REST API, an MCP server, GitHub and HubSpot connectors, and migration assistance during onboarding.
- Native appsDesktop and mobile apps are available. You can also use the web app or installable PWA.
Leaving Microsoft Teams.
Match the tool to your constraint. Leaving the Microsoft ecosystem entirely: Polybase or Slack. Keeping meetings quality as the priority: Zoom Workplace. Needing self-hosting: Mattermost, Rocket.Chat, Element or Polybase. Already on Gmail: Google Workspace is the pragmatic bundle.
Yes. Replacing Teams doesn't require abandoning Word or Excel. In Polybase you can link and preview Office documents (with built-in DOCX/XLSX/PPTX viewers), and connect Microsoft 365 email accounts via OAuth during a gradual transition.
Teams itself has no self-hosted edition. Mattermost, Rocket.Chat and Element all offer open-source self-hosting; Polybase offers commercial self-hosting including fully air-gapped deployments.
Polybase calls are WebRTC powered by a self-hosted LiveKit media server — screen sharing, live captions, noise suppression and background blur, started from any channel or scheduled with ICS invites and RSVP. Call recording isn't offered; auto summaries and action items are coming soon.
Polybase Core is €10 per user/month, with add-ons like Boards, Email, Tables and AI priced separately. Self-hosted and enterprise deployments are custom — talk to us. Whether it beats a Microsoft 365 bill depends on which parts of the suite you actually use.
See Polybase next to Teams, feature by feature.
Book a 30-minute demo and we'll map your Teams setup onto one workspace — or start with the detailed side-by-side comparison.
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