Team chat products span full collaboration platforms, specialized messaging clients, and adjacent communication tools, which can make direct comparisons difficult. This August 2026 overview uses the supplied ToolVitals health, shipping, licensing, and overall score data to identify projects showing the strongest current signals.
The ranking includes only open/source-visible tools and orders them by ToolVitals score, with GitHub stars used as a secondary popularity signal. The supplied ordering is retained when those signals do not distinguish projects.
Rankings
| Rank | Tool | Openness | License | Health | Shipping | GitHub Stars | Score | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mattermost | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 100 | 100 | 0 | 100 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 2 | Rocket.Chat | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 100 | 100 | 0 | 100 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 3 | wacli | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 98 | 100 | 0 | 99 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 4 | Element | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 96 | 100 | 0 | 98 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 5 | SimpleX Chat | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 94 | 95 | 0 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 6 | Wire | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 91 | 95 | 0 | 95 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 7 | Fluxer | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 93 | 89 | 0 | 93 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 8 | Vexa | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 87 | 95 | 0 | 93 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 9 | Cap | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 87 | 90 | 0 | 91 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 10 | Discourse | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-2.0 | 91 | 83 | 0 | 91 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 11 | Haven Chat | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 84 | 98 | 0 | 90 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 12 | Chatmail Core | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 85 | 93 | 0 | 89 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 13 | Lemmy | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 91 | 76 | 0 | 89 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 14 | Zulip | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 89 | 80 | 0 | 89 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 15 | agentgram | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 74 | 95 | 31 | 87 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 16 | Mqvi | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 77 | 93 | 0 | 86 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 17 | Quackback | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 85 | 77 | 0 | 86 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 18 | Gryt | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 78 | 82 | 37 | 84 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 19 | CBoard | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 79 | 78 | 0 | 84 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 20 | VACS | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 72 | 84 | 68 | 82 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 21 | Ethora | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 79 | 65 | 0 | 80 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 22 | Habitat | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 76 | 60 | 148 | 76 | 🟢 Good |
| 23 | nChat | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 78 | 49 | 0 | 74 | 🟢 Good |
| 24 | Hackers Pub | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 68 | 66 | 155 | 73 | 🟢 Good |
| 25 | Activist | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 74 | 66 | 0 | 73 | 🟢 Good |
| 26 | Open Self Service | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 79 | 41 | 179 | 72 | 🟢 Good |
| 27 | Frappe Gameplan | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 62 | 63 | 510 | 71 | 🟢 Good |
| 28 | CajeerBots | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 60 | 69 | 0 | 69 | 🟢 Good |
| 29 | Set Outlook Signatures | OSI-approved OSS | EUPL-1.2 | 67 | 46 | 410 | 67 | 🟢 Good |
| 30 | Tinode | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 74 | 28 | 13451 | 64 | 🟢 Good |
| 31 | HappyDeliver | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 60 | 47 | 220 | 63 | 🟢 Good |
| 32 | Majik Message | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 60 | 40 | 2 | 63 | 🟢 Good |
| 33 | Open IM | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 72 | 24 | 16575 | 62 | 🟢 Good |
| 34 | adamant-im | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 63 | 10 | 785 | 55 | 🟡 Fair |
| 35 | NPMChat | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 54 | 31 | 0 | 55 | 🟡 Fair |
| 36 | Circled | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 59 | 21 | 208 | 52 | 🟡 Fair |
| 37 | Discuit | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 59 | 14 | 546 | 51 | 🟡 Fair |
| 38 | QuoteVote | OSI-approved OSS | LGPL-3.0 | 53 | 21 | 34 | 50 | 🟡 Fair |
| 39 | Late.fyi | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 43 | 18 | 0 | 44 | 🟡 Fair |
| 40 | WhippyTerm | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 42 | 13 | 93 | 43 | 🟡 Fair |
| 41 | Deskive | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 44 | 7 | 27 | 42 | 🟡 Fair |
| 42 | Twake | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 38 | 0 | 1922 | 40 | 🟡 Fair |
| 43 | Weevean | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 41 | 0 | 13 | 40 | 🟡 Fair |
| 44 | Vanilla | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-2.0 | 44 | 0 | 2975 | 39 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 45 | Colanode | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 35 | 4 | 5006 | 38 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 46 | Spacebar | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 32 | 0 | 6694 | 37 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 47 | Clatter | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 28 | 0 | 8 | 35 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 48 | OpenCom | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 28 | 4 | 5 | 35 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 49 | Kap | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 33 | 0 | 19314 | 33 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 50 | OpenPaaS | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 28 | 0 | 485 | 33 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
Top 3 Highlights
Mattermost ranks first with a ToolVitals score of 100, supported by health and shipping scores of 100. It is positioned as a secure collaboration platform spanning the software development lifecycle, making it the most directly team-oriented option among the three leaders. Its openness_label is OSI-approved OSS, and its license_label is Apache-2.0.
Rocket.Chat ranks second with the same 100 ToolVitals score and perfect health and shipping scores. Its first-party positioning emphasizes secure communications for mission-critical operations, distinguishing it as a broad organizational communications platform. Its openness_label is OSI-approved OSS, and its license_label is MIT.
wacli ranks third with a ToolVitals score of 99, a health score of 98, and a shipping score of 100. Unlike the two platform-oriented leaders, it is a WhatsApp command-line interface, so its fit is narrower and centered on terminal-based messaging workflows. Its openness_label is OSI-approved OSS, and its license_label is MIT.
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