Is self-hosted Mattermost cheaper than Microsoft Teams for your organization?
Self-hosting Mattermost moves cost from a per-seat subscription to infrastructure, implementation and staff, so the answer depends on user count, the edition you need and how available the service must be. For a small team under 250 users that does not need single sign-on, Mattermost Team Edition is free under its open source terms, and the cost is servers, storage, backups and the people who run them. Once you need SSO or AD/LDAP sync, the comparison changes, because those features start at the paid Professional plan. Mattermost sells Professional, Enterprise and Enterprise Advanced as prepaid annual subscriptions priced by seat licenses, and its pricing page lists no public prices, so you will need a written quote from Mattermost sales before you can compare.
Your Teams cost has to come from your own Microsoft agreement, not from list prices. Check which suite or standalone Teams license your users hold, whether it is bundled with other Microsoft 365 services you will keep, and when it renews. Microsoft's licensing news notes that suites with Teams are no longer sold to new subscribers worldwide, so a renewal may already look different from your last contract. On the self-hosted side, ask for quotes that separate the subscription, support, implementation and any high availability needs. High availability on Mattermost is limited to the Enterprise and Enterprise Advanced plans and needs shared file storage on each node, which adds infrastructure and staff time that the free edition does not.
Build a side-by-side model with your own numbers: current Teams seat count, the features you actually use, server and database hosting, backup storage, on-call hours for patching and the Mattermost release cadence, and the one-time cost of migration. Teams chat history can only be pulled with the Microsoft Graph Teams Export APIs, which require an active Teams license on each exported user, so keep those licenses through the export window. Run the model for your user count at both the Team Edition and Professional tiers. If the gap is small, the decision usually rests on sovereignty, control and exit terms rather than on price alone.
Which cost components sit on each side, and which recur
This table sets Microsoft Teams licensing against self-hosted Mattermost and Jitsi by cost component, marking each row as one-time or recurring. Read the recurring rows first, since they set the long-term running cost, then use the one-time rows to scope the migration and rollout. Exact figures depend on your Microsoft agreement, Mattermost quote and infrastructure, so confirm each line before comparing totals.
| Cost component | Microsoft Teams | Self-hosted Mattermost and Jitsi | One-time or recurring |
|---|---|---|---|
| License or subscription | Teams comes bundled in suites or sold standalone, and the suite options available depend on what you held after April 1, 2024. Confirm your current offer with Microsoft or your reseller. | Mattermost Team Edition is free and MIT-licensed. Paid Professional, Enterprise and Enterprise Advanced plans are seat-based annual subscriptions. Jitsi Meet is Apache 2.0 licensed with no license fee. | Recurring |
| Export and exit access | Teams Export APIs need an active Teams license on each exported user and admin-approved application permissions. Plan to keep licenses active until extraction ends. | Mattermost history is stored on your servers, so no license is needed to keep data. Confirm the Mattermost edition limits, such as the 10,000 message history cap on Entry, before you commit. | One-time (exit), recurring while licenses run |
| Infrastructure and hosting | Largely included in the Microsoft cloud service fee. Your data residency and retention options depend on your tenant configuration and licensing. | You pay for servers or cloud accounts for Mattermost with PostgreSQL, and for Jitsi web, Prosody, Jicofo and videobridge hosts. High availability needs shared storage such as S3 or NAS on each node. | Recurring |
| Implementation and integration | Mostly configuration of Teams, Entra ID and Microsoft 365 links. Limited engineering effort for the core service. | You pay for design, installation, single sign-on setup (SAML, OIDC or AD/LDAP sync on paid plans), TLS certificates and Jitsi authentication. Usually a one-time project cost. | One-time |
| Migration of chat history | Export through Microsoft Graph requires admin setup and licensed users. Export is not a Teams import into another product. | Mattermost loads Slack-style exports through mmetl and mmctl. Teams data must first be converted, and integrations, custom emoji and user groups need rebuilding. Budget for mapping and testing. | One-time |
| Support and upgrades | Included in the subscription and handled by Microsoft's service operations. | Mattermost support comes with paid plans. Mattermost ships server releases on the 16th of each month, and extended support releases are available. Patching, upgrades and monitoring are your team's or a partner's work, and this recurs for the life of the platform. | Recurring |
| Internal skills and staffing | Admin skills centered on Microsoft 365 administration and policy. Fewer dedicated platform staff are needed. | You need staff or a retained partner for Linux, PostgreSQL, Mattermost administration, Jitsi operations and security patching. Confirm the hours your team can commit before choosing a model. | Recurring |
| Scaling and capacity changes | Capacity and feature changes are managed by Microsoft and priced through the license. | Adding Jitsi videobridges is horizontal scaling. Mattermost scaling uses database and search replicas on paid tiers. Each added node adds hosting and operations cost. | Recurring, varies with use |
What moves the cost comparison most
The total cost of self-hosted Mattermost depends on a few decisions that compound: how many users you have, which edition you need, and how much operating capacity you can staff. Each driver below points the cost in a direction you can test against your own numbers before you request a quote.
User count against the Team Edition line
Team Edition is free, open source and aimed at teams under 250 users that do not need single sign-on. Above that size, or once SSO is required, the license decision becomes the main cost line. Count active users, guests and contractors separately, because each group may fall on a different side of the line. Ask whether your Teams licenses map to a seat count you can carry over.
Edition choice across the paid tiers
Professional, Enterprise and Enterprise Advanced are sold as prepaid annual subscriptions based on seat licenses, and the pricing page lists no public prices. Each step up adds capabilities, so the cost rises with the features you need, not only with headcount. Request a written comparison of the editions against your required features, and confirm whether any seat minimum applies.
SSO and AD/LDAP requirements
SSO through SAML, OIDC or OAuth and AD/LDAP user sync are included from the Professional plan. If your identity provider already governs Teams access, moving to Mattermost without SSO shifts account lifecycle work to administrators. Decide early whether you need the paid tier only for these features, and ask the vendor to confirm which identity sources your directory supports.
High availability and shared storage
High availability requires the Enterprise or Enterprise Advanced plan and redundant application servers, database servers and load balancers. Each node also needs shared file storage on S3, an S3-compatible service or NAS, because local storage risks corrupting files. Read and search replicas add database capacity. Each of these adds hardware, licensing and operations effort, so ask for the cost of the storage tier alongside the software quote.
Data volume and retention
Mattermost Entry caps channel message history at 10,000 messages and lacks compliance features and high availability. Organizations that keep Teams-scale history, or must retain messages for legal or records purposes, will quickly move past that free tier. Estimate message and file volume from your Teams export, then decide the retention period. Storage growth, backup size and compliance export all scale with that decision.
In-house skills and operating effort
Mattermost runs as a single Linux binary on PostgreSQL, but a production cluster also needs database, storage, load balancer and monitoring skills. Monthly server releases and the support windows for each version create a recurring upgrade task. If your team lacks these skills, the largest cost is often staff time or an implementation and support retainer. Ask any partner to split the one-time build from the recurring operations in the quote.
How Teams licensing changes after the unbundling
The key point for buyers is that Teams is no longer guaranteed to come with Microsoft 365. Microsoft introduced Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites without Teams outside the EEA and Switzerland, effective April 1, 2024, alongside a standalone Teams offering. Existing suites that include Teams are no longer sold to new subscribers worldwide. If your organization renewed or expanded recently, the chat workload may now sit on a separate line item, which changes the comparison with a self-hosted platform. Confirm with your Microsoft partner or licensing team whether your current agreement still bundles Teams, which plan your users hold, and when the next true-up or renewal falls.
Before you model costs, check the scope of your existing licenses against the exit path. The Teams Export APIs in Microsoft Graph need admin-approved application permissions, and they only return content for users who hold an active Teams license. If you cut licenses before exporting, you may lose access to the history you need to move. Ask your Microsoft account team which licenses are required for the export window you plan to use, and confirm that your Entra ID administrators can grant the permissions in your tenant. Treat this as a dependency for the migration plan, not a late technical detail.
Finally, separate what you pay Microsoft from what you would pay to run a replacement. Dropping Teams from a suite changes the license line, but it does not remove the cost of hosting, backup, identity integration and administration that a self-hosted Mattermost deployment brings. Ask for a written breakdown of your Teams spend by product, including any meeting, telephony or storage components that may be billed separately. Those figures give you the baseline for the self-hosted cost model that follows.
How to build the Teams versus Mattermost model with your own numbers
This sequence turns a vague sense that Teams costs too much into a side-by-side model built from your own user counts, your current agreement and written quotes, so the totals hold up in a renewal or budget discussion.
Inventory users and active channels
Start by counting the people who would move: named users, guest accounts, shared-channel participants and service accounts that post messages. Then count active channels and direct message volume over a recent period, separating channels that are used every week from dormant ones. Ask your Teams administrator to export the tenant user list and channel list from the admin center so the numbers come from your directory rather than estimates. The step is done when you have one table with user counts by type and a channel count that you can defend if someone asks where it came from.
Pull current Teams licensing from your agreement
Open your Microsoft agreement or ask your Microsoft account team for the exact licenses in use: which suites include Teams, which standalone Teams licenses are assigned, and which users hold them. Note that since April 1, 2024, Microsoft has sold Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites without Teams outside the EEA and Switzerland, and suites with Teams are no longer sold to new subscribers worldwide, so your renewal may split the chat license from the rest of the suite. Record the term, the currency, the billing cadence and any discount that applies. Teams is often bundled, so separate the share that is attributable to chat from the rest of the suite before you compare. The step is done when each licensed user maps to one line in your model.
Select the Mattermost edition by SSO and availability needs
Decide which features are required before you ask for prices. Mattermost Team Edition is free and open source, aimed at teams under 250 users that do not need single sign-on. Single sign-on through SAML, OIDC or OAuth and AD/LDAP user sync come with the Professional plan, while high availability clustering and FIPS 140-3 compliance start at Enterprise, and air-gapped deployment is listed for Enterprise Advanced. Confirm your identity provider requirements, uptime expectations and compliance obligations with your security team, then choose the lowest edition that meets them. The step is done when you have a written feature list tied to one edition and you know which lines in the model are licensed and which are free.
Size infrastructure for PostgreSQL, file storage and nodes
Work with your platform team to size the server tier, the PostgreSQL database and file storage. Mattermost runs as a single Linux binary with PostgreSQL as its database. A high availability cluster needs redundant application servers, redundant database servers and redundant load balancers, plus shared file storage on Amazon S3, an S3-compatible service or NAS mounted on each node, since local file system storage will not work correctly. Read replicas and search replicas are available for scaling concurrent users. Use the Mattermost server deployment planning guidance and your own usage numbers to choose a topology, then ask your cloud or data center team to price the compute, storage, backup and network lines in your own accounts. The step is done when each infrastructure line has a quantity, a unit and an owner.
Price implementation and migration as written quotes
Request written quotes for the work that a license does not cover: deployment, single sign-on configuration, Slack or Teams history migration, integrations, backup design, hardening and documentation. Mattermost's pricing page lists no public prices and directs buyers to contact sales, so every license figure must come from a Mattermost quote. Ask partners and internal teams to scope each piece as a fixed deliverable with a named output. Include the cost of extracting Teams history through the Microsoft Graph Teams Export APIs, which require admin-approved application permissions and an active Teams license on each exported user, and remember that some content such as integrations and custom emoji images does not move in a migration. The step is done when every one-time item has a written source and a line in the model.
Add internal staff time
Estimate the internal effort that does not appear on an invoice: administrators who run the server and upgrades, the person who owns single sign-on and user provisioning, backup and restore testing, on-call coverage for a cluster, user training and help desk time during cutover. Mattermost releases a new server version in binary form on the 16th of each month, and each release needs a plan for testing and rollout, so include upgrade effort as a recurring line. Use your own staffing records and salary bands rather than external benchmarks. The step is done when each role has an hours-per-period figure and a stated loaded cost that your finance team has agreed to use.
Compare totals over a stated horizon
Put both models on the same horizon, for example a three-year or five-year period that your finance team chooses, and show one-time and recurring costs in separate rows for Teams and for Mattermost. Include the Teams licenses you would still pay during a parallel run and any exit costs in the Teams contract. Run the comparison with a low and a high case for user growth and staffing so the result shows sensitivity. Share the workbook with your procurement, security and platform leads and record the assumptions beside each number. The step is done when the output is a single comparison table where every figure traces to a vendor quote, your agreement or your own records, and you can name the owner of each assumption.
Which Mattermost path fits which organization
Team Edition suits a small group that needs chat without single sign-on. The software carries no license fee, so the recurring cost is server infrastructure and the staff time to run it. One or two administrators typically install the server, keep the PostgreSQL database backed up, apply releases and manage accounts by hand. Mattermost describes Team Edition as free, open source and aimed at teams under 250 users that do not need SSO.
- License terms: Compiled Team Edition binaries are MIT-licensed, while the server source code is AGPL v3.0 with a commercial alternative from Mattermost, Inc. Admin tools and configuration files are Apache 2.0. If you only deploy binaries, the MIT terms govern the build you run. If you modify and distribute the source, AGPL obligations apply.
- Hosting: One Linux server with PostgreSQL, attachment storage, backups and a reverse proxy with TLS. Size it to your user count and file volume using Mattermost's planning guidance.
- Upgrade rhythm: New server versions ship in binary form on the 16th of each month, so schedule a monthly patch window or move to the extended support track.
- Account management: Without SSO or AD/LDAP sync, provisioning and offboarding are manual, which becomes an audit question when staff turn over often.
Confirm which build your team will run and get the license terms in writing from counsel before you modify the source.
Professional adds SSO through SAML, OIDC and OAuth, along with AD/LDAP user sync. The cost shifts from administrator time toward a subscription and the identity integration work. Mattermost sells Professional as a prepaid annual subscription based on seat licenses, and its pricing page lists no public prices and directs buyers to contact sales. The quote therefore depends on seat count, term and support scope, and the identity work is a one-time build with recurring upkeep.
- Subscription: Ask how seats are counted, whether seats added mid-term are billed pro rata, and what the renewal terms are.
- Identity integration: Your identity provider must supply SAML or OIDC settings. Mapping groups and attributes is a one-time build cost, and identity provider licensing is separate.
- Directory sync: AD/LDAP sync removes manual provisioning but adds a directory service account and change control for group changes.
- Operations: A single-node deployment still needs an owner for backups, upgrades and incident response.
- Source terms: If you customize the server code, the AGPL source terms and the commercial license options both apply to your build, so confirm which applies before you start.
Before signing, test SSO and LDAP sync against your identity provider in a non-production tenant, and ask Mattermost for a written list of what each plan includes.
Enterprise and Enterprise Advanced add high availability clustering, and the pricing page places FIPS 140-3 compliance in Enterprise and air-gapped deployment in Enterprise Advanced. High availability is available only on these plans and requires redundant application servers, redundant database servers and redundant load balancers. Cost grows with every duplicated layer, the shared storage behind it and the staff needed to test failover.
- Plan selection: Enterprise Advanced is the tier for air-gapped estates. Confirm in writing which plan carries FIPS 140-3 and whether it applies to the version you deploy.
- Shared storage: Each cluster node needs Amazon S3, an S3-compatible service or a NAS mounted on every node. Local file storage will not work correctly and risks corrupting files, so storage platform costs belong in the estimate.
- Database capacity: Read replicas and search replicas spread reads, but writes still go to the primary database, so plan primary capacity and regular failover drills.
- Release lifecycle: Version 11.7 is an extended support release supported until 2027-05-15, and version 10.11 reached end of life on 2026-08-15. Long-lived estates need a dated upgrade plan.
- Licensing: Enterprise plans sit under Mattermost's commercial license alongside the AGPL source option, so confirm which terms apply to your modifications.
Ask for a written cluster architecture review and a staffing model for failover tests before you commit to a seat count.
Where Jitsi changes the meeting side of the bill
Jitsi Meet is licensed under Apache 2.0, so the software itself carries no license fee. The cost moves to the servers and the people who run them. A self-hosted deployment needs a web server (nginx or Apache), the Prosody XMPP server, Jicofo for conference focus and one or more Jitsi Videobridge media routers. The quick start expects ports 80 and 443 over TCP and 10000 over UDP to be open, and the handbook says a valid domain certificate is required, since self-signed certificates cause audio and video failures, especially on mobile. Budget for the certificate and the DNS record as recurring operational items, not one-time setup.
The Jitsi scalable setup guide suggests a 4 CPU, 8 GB machine for the central server and 4 or 8 CPU with 8 GB of RAM for each videobridge. Videobridges scale horizontally, so meeting capacity grows by adding bridges, and each added bridge is a recurring cost for compute, bandwidth and patching. Ask your infrastructure team to model peak concurrent participants against the bridge count, and confirm the figures with the Jitsi handbook before you commit to a hardware or cloud plan.
If you do not want to run the meeting servers, 8x8 offers JaaS (Jitsi as a Service), a managed option run by the team that builds Jitsi. It shifts operations to a vendor and replaces the server line items with a usage-based subscription. Ask 8x8 for current pricing and the terms for data location and recording before comparing it with your own servers, because the answer changes how much of the bill stays on your side. Confirm whether your Mattermost chat integration will be used with JaaS or with your own Jitsi instance.
Questions buyers ask about Teams and Mattermost costs
Does switching from Microsoft Teams to Mattermost cost less in year one?
It depends on what you count, and the answer is rarely a simple yes. Mattermost Team Edition is free to download and run, so the software line is zero, but year one still carries server and storage hosting, database operation, Jitsi or another meeting service, staff time, the migration project and any paid Mattermost plan you need for single sign-on (Professional includes SSO and AD/LDAP sync, according to Mattermost's pricing page). Teams costs depend on which Microsoft 365 license or standalone Teams offering you hold, and the Microsoft licensing news explains that suites with Teams are no longer sold to new subscribers worldwide. Build a side-by-side model that includes your Teams license, your hosting and your labor, then ask each vendor to confirm current pricing in writing.
How much ongoing effort does self-hosting Mattermost take?
Effort recurs every month because Mattermost publishes a new server version in binary form on the 16th of each month, and each release line has a defined support end date. Your team must plan upgrades, test them, back up the PostgreSQL database and file storage, monitor the server and renew any certificates. If you run high availability, you also operate redundant application servers, database servers, load balancers and shared storage, which is only available on the Enterprise and Enterprise Advanced plans. Confirm the support window of the release line you choose on the Mattermost server releases page before you commit to a upgrade cadence.
What skills does an internal team need to run Mattermost and Jitsi?
You need Linux administration, PostgreSQL administration, reverse proxy and TLS configuration, and DNS and firewall skills. For Jitsi you also need to understand the parts of a deployment: a web server, the Prosody XMPP server, Jicofo and one or more Jitsi Videobridge media routers. Jitsi's Debian and Ubuntu quick start requires OpenJDK 17 and open ports 80/TCP, 443/TCP and 10000/UDP, and the handbook says a proper domain certificate is necessary for working audio and video. Someone must also own identity integration, whether that is SAML, OIDC or LDAP, and the authentication method for Jitsi, such as JWT tokens. Check these skills against your staff before you decide whether to build or buy help.
How long does a Teams to Mattermost migration take, and what drives that time?
No duration is fixed in the research for this migration, so treat any timeline you receive as a planning estimate that needs written scope behind it. The main drivers are the volume of chat and file history you keep, how many teams, channels and private conversations must be mapped, and how much you rebuild by hand. Microsoft's Teams Export APIs require admin-approved application permissions and an active Teams license on each exported user, so access approvals and license checks can add lead time before any data moves. Mattermost's bulk import format carries users, channels, direct messages, threads and attachments, but not integrations, custom emoji images, user groups or Slack Connect channels, so every item you need beyond that must be rebuilt. Ask for the migration plan and its dependencies in writing.
Can our own team migrate and run Mattermost without outside help?
Yes, many organizations do, provided they have the skills and time described above and accept the recurring operations work. Mattermost Team Edition is free, open source and MIT-licensed as compiled by Mattermost, and its documentation covers installation and migration. Outside help is most useful for the parts that are hard to reverse: export and mapping of Teams data, identity integration, high availability design, and the first upgrade cycle. DeployOpen plans, implements, integrates, hardens, backs up, upgrades, documents and supports self-hosted platforms in your own infrastructure, typically under a fixed-scope agreement. Decide which parts you keep in-house and which you buy before you request a quote.
What should a quote for a self-hosted chat migration include?
A useful quote lists each deliverable in writing, not just a total. Ask for the scope of the Teams data export, the permissions and licenses required, the mapping of teams and channels, the Mattermost deployment design (single server or high availability), the identity integration, the Jitsi deployment and its sizing, the cutover plan, the backup and rollback approach, the documentation and the training. Ask which items are fixed and which are time-and-materials. DeployOpen issues quotes from written scope, does not publish a price list, and does not issue audit reports or certifications, so ask for any compliance evidence to come from your own assessor. Compare quotes on the same scope.
How do support and upgrades recur after go-live?
Upgrades and support are recurring costs, and they continue after the migration project closes. Each Mattermost release line has a support end date, so you need a schedule for moving to a supported version, including ESR lines that Mattermost publishes for longer support. Jitsi stable releases are tagged by build number, so you also need a regular update routine for the meeting stack, along with OS and Java updates. Ask each vendor what support covers, what the response expectations are, and whether an upgrade is included in your agreement. DeployOpen offers ongoing support, upgrades and continuous testing as retainers, which you should price against the scope you need.
Who runs a self-hosted Mattermost and Jitsi estate
Four roles have to be filled before a self-hosted Mattermost and Jitsi estate goes live, and each one carries recurring work that Teams never asked of you. A platform engineer owns the Linux hosts, the PostgreSQL database and the Mattermost server binary, including the monthly server release cycle, which the Mattermost server releases page places on the 16th of each month. A network or security owner handles TLS certificates, DNS and the firewall rules for the ports the stack needs. A Jitsi operator runs the video bridges, which the Jitsi scalable setup guide says can be added horizontally as load grows. An identity owner connects Mattermost and Jitsi to your directory. Mattermost SSO and AD/LDAP sync sit in the Professional plan and above, so the identity owner's work depends on which edition you pick.
Each role can be filled internally or by a fixed-scope outside team, and the choice moves cost between categories. Internal staff turn the work into salary and on-call load that recurs every month, and the hidden cost is the skills that leave with a single engineer. A fixed-scope team converts design, build, hardening and documentation into a one-time project fee, followed by either an internal handover or a retainer for upgrades and monitoring. Ask any provider to split the quote by role, to state who holds the on-call duty for each component, and to say which upgrades and monthly release cycles the retainer covers. A quote that lumps everything into one number makes it hard to compare with Teams licensing.
Confirm the operating model before you compare totals. Ask your own team whether it can cover a database restore, a certificate renewal and a video bridge failure outside office hours, and whether it has someone who can read Mattermost high availability requirements, such as the shared file storage that each cluster node must mount. If the answer is no for any role, the cost of that gap is a retainer or a staffing change, and it belongs in the comparison with the Teams license you are dropping.
How DeployOpen scopes a fixed-price Mattermost implementation
DeployOpen plans, implements, integrates, hardens, backs up, documents and supports self-hosted open-source platforms inside your own infrastructure. For a Teams to Mattermost move, we start with a written scope that separates licensing you would stop paying from the hosting, storage, migration and staffing you would take on.
How we scope
- Inventory of Teams seats, Microsoft 365 suite dependencies and the chat history that must be retained
- Decision on Mattermost edition, weighing whether SSO, AD/LDAP sync or high availability are required
- Hosting target, database, file storage and Jitsi sizing agreed before any work starts
- Engagements are fixed-scope, with deliverables and timelines agreed in writing first
How we build
- Deployment of Mattermost on your cloud account, data center or air-gapped network, with PostgreSQL and shared file storage
- Identity integration and channel mapping configured to match your directory and access policy
- Jitsi Meet deployed with JWT authentication and HTTPS certificates from your own domain
- Export extraction and bulk import tested on a copy of the data before any cutover
How we hand over
- Written runbooks covering installation, upgrades, backups, restores and Jitsi scaling steps
- Documentation of configuration, access controls and the evidence needed for compliance assessments
- Handover sessions with the administrators who will run the platform after go-live
- Clear record of what remains in your hands, so you know which costs continue internally
How we support
- Ongoing support, upgrades and continuous testing are available as retainers after handover
- Upgrade planning against Mattermost's monthly release cycle and published support end dates
- Backup and restore verification on a schedule agreed in the retainer
- Quotes follow from the written scope, so ask for each cost component to be listed separately
