Company Overview
Mattermost is an open-source, self-hosted team communication platform founded in 2014 by Ian Tien and Corey Hulen, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, operating with a remote-first work model. Mattermost is widely recognized as the leading open-source alternative to Slack, offering channels, direct messages, file sharing, search, and integrations, with a strong focus on data security and compliance for enterprises and government agencies.
Mattermost is trusted by top global organizations including NATO, the United States Department of Defense (DoD), and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Its core strengths lie in open-source transparency, full data self-hosting, and extensive customizability. The platform offers deep integration with DevOps tools such as Jira, GitLab, Jenkins, and Prometheus.
Related category: Communication
Core Products
| Product | Description |
|---|---|
| Mattermost Team Edition | Free open-source version with channel messaging, file sharing, search, and basic integrations |
| Mattermost Enterprise E10 / E20 | Enterprise editions with advanced permission management, compliance exports, AD/LDAP integration, and guest accounts |
| Mattermost Cloud | Cloud-hosted version eliminating self-hosting maintenance overhead with enterprise SLA |
| Mattermost Boards | Built-in kanban board tool for task management and visual workflow (similar to Trello) |
| Mattermost Playbooks | Incident response playbooks supporting automated alerts, task assignment, and post-mortems |
| Plugin Marketplace | Rich third-party plugin ecosystem extending capabilities for CI/CD, monitoring, AI, and more |
Market Position
Mattermost competes with the following products in the team communication and collaboration market:
| Competitor | Description |
|---|---|
| Slack | Salesforce-owned global team collaboration platform, Mattermost's primary competitor |
| Microsoft Teams | Microsoft's enterprise collaboration platform integrated with Office 365 |
| Discord | Team communication platform originating from gaming communities, now expanding into enterprise use |
| Rocket.Chat | Open-source instant messaging platform, direct competitor in the self-hosted market |
| Zulip | Open-source team communication tool known for topic-based threaded conversations |
| Element / Matrix | Decentralized open-source communication platform built on the Matrix protocol |
Key Milestones
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2014 | Founded by Ian Tien and Corey Hulen as an open-source team communication platform |
| 2016 | Released Mattermost Team Edition 1.0, building open-source community |
| 2018 | Launched Mattermost Enterprise Edition, entering the enterprise market |
| 2019 | Adopted by NATO and the U.S. Department of Defense, validating high-security capabilities |
| 2020 | Launched Mattermost Cloud, reducing deployment barriers |
| 2021 | Released Mattermost Boards kanban and Playbooks incident response modules |
| 2024-Present | Continued expansion of plugin ecosystem and AI capabilities, deepening DevOps and incident response scenarios |
