Choosing a team chat tool means comparing more than product descriptions: readers need a current view of project health, shipping activity, openness, and licensing. This September 2026 snapshot uses the supplied ToolVitals records to make those signals comparable.
The ranking includes open/source-visible tools only and orders them by ToolVitals score descending, with health and shipping used for equal composite scores. GitHub stars are context only and do not determine the ordering.
Rankings
| Rank | Tool | Openness | License | Health | Shipping | GitHub Stars | Score | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Element | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 98 | 97 | 13438 | 97 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 2 | Mattermost | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 98 | 97 | 39011 | 97 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 3 | Discourse | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-2.0 | 97 | 97 | 47796 | 97 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 4 | Rocket.Chat | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 97 | 97 | 46087 | 97 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 5 | Vexa | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 97 | 97 | 2757 | 97 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 6 | Zulip | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 97 | 97 | 25857 | 97 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 7 | Cap | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 96 | 98 | 21895 | 97 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 8 | Chatmail Core | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 96 | 96 | 928 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 9 | Haven Chat | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 96 | 96 | 542 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 10 | Wire | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 96 | 96 | 168 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 11 | wacli | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 96 | 94 | 2724 | 95 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 12 | CBoard | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 95 | 95 | 755 | 95 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 13 | nodyx | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 93 | 96 | 132 | 94 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 14 | Quackback | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 93 | 95 | 263 | 94 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 15 | VACS | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 93 | 94 | 68 | 94 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 16 | agentgram | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 93 | 94 | 36 | 94 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 17 | SimpleX Chat | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 94 | 93 | 19392 | 93 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 18 | Gryt | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 90 | 95 | 37 | 92 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 19 | Fluxer | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 87 | 94 | 10212 | 90 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 20 | Activist | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 91 | 85 | 741 | 89 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 21 | Mqvi | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 85 | 93 | 18 | 88 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 22 | Hackers Pub | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 89 | 86 | 161 | 87 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 23 | Frappe Gameplan | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 88 | 85 | 516 | 87 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 24 | nChat | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 86 | 87 | 0 | 87 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 25 | Ethora | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 86 | 87 | 544 | 86 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 26 | HappyDeliver | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 84 | 83 | 225 | 84 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 27 | adamant-im | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 85 | 79 | 783 | 83 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 28 | Habitat | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 76 | 76 | 148 | 76 | 🟢 Good |
| 29 | Open Self Service | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 79 | 68 | 181 | 75 | 🟢 Good |
| 30 | WhippyTerm | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 78 | 71 | 93 | 75 | 🟢 Good |
| 31 | Lemmy | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 77 | 68 | 14582 | 74 | 🟢 Good |
| 32 | Majik Message | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 71 | 71 | 2 | 71 | 🟢 Good |
| 33 | Tinode | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 76 | 62 | 13480 | 70 | 🟢 Good |
| 34 | QuoteVote | OSI-approved OSS | LGPL-3.0 | 73 | 63 | 35 | 69 | 🟢 Good |
| 35 | Open IM | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 75 | 57 | 16637 | 68 | 🟢 Good |
| 36 | Set Outlook Signatures | OSI-approved OSS | EUPL-1.2 | 66 | 58 | 411 | 63 | 🟢 Good |
| 37 | CajeerBots | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 66 | 55 | 0 | 61 | 🟢 Good |
| 38 | Circled | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 64 | 47 | 211 | 58 | 🟡 Fair |
| 39 | Late.fyi | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 40 | 22 | 0 | 33 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 40 | Discuit | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 36 | 13 | 551 | 27 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 41 | Indic Subtitler | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 19 | 25 | 94 | 21 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 42 | NPMChat | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 17 | 0 | 20 | 10 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 43 | Weevean | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 16 | 0 | 13 | 10 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 44 | Deskive | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 15 | 0 | 30 | 9 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 45 | Vanilla | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-2.0 | 15 | 0 | 2975 | 9 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 46 | OpenCom | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 14 | 2 | 5 | 9 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 47 | Colanode | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 13 | 3 | 5107 | 9 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 48 | Spacebar | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 12 | 0 | 6714 | 7 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 49 | ThoughtBase | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 8 | 0 | 8 | 5 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 50 | Twake | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 8 | 0 | 1926 | 5 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
Top 3 Highlights
Element ranks first with a ToolVitals score of 97, a health score of 98, and a shipping score of 97. It is described as an enterprise communication platform; its openness label is OSI-approved OSS and its license label is AGPL-3.0. ToolVitals records 13,438 GitHub stars as context.
Mattermost ranks second with a ToolVitals score of 97, a health score of 98, and a shipping score of 97. It is described as a platform for secure collaboration across the entire software development lifecycle. Its openness label is OSI-approved OSS and its license label is Apache-2.0. ToolVitals records 39,011 GitHub stars as context.
Discourse ranks third with a ToolVitals score of 97, a health score of 97, and a shipping score of 97. It is described as a platform for community discussion. Its openness label is OSI-approved OSS and its license label is GPL-2.0. ToolVitals records 47,796 GitHub stars as context.
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