head to head · open source
Mattermost vs UnKey
Mattermost has 39,093 GitHub stars, 9,000 forks, 1,012 open issues and last shipped yesterday. UnKey has 5,438 stars, 636 forks, 163 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Mattermost leads on adoption by 619% (39,093 vs 5,438 stars). Mattermost is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; UnKey is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. Mattermost has attracted 23% as many forks as stars, UnKey 12%. Mattermost was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Mattermost | UnKey | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 5.4K |
| License | Custom / other | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.0K | ⑂ 636 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Mattermost if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick UnKey if
- You want the UnKey feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and UnKey fits your workflow better
About Mattermost
Mattermost is an open core, self hosted collaboration platform for teams that need secure chat, workflow automation, voice calling, screen sharing, and AI integration while keeping the deployment under their own control.
read the full Mattermost overview →
About UnKey
Unkey is a developer platform for modern APIs, written in Go and published as a source available repository on GitHub. It brings several pieces of API infrastructure into one place: instant API deployment, globally distributed gateways that route and authenticate traffic, API key issuance and verification, ratelimiting, permissions and role based access control, usage analytics, and audit logs. The project describes itself as unifying infrastructure so that teams can ship faster, and it lives in the security and privacy space, specifically secrets management and API key management, alongside the broader API gatew…
read the full UnKey overview →
More in Security & Privacy
Related comparisons
More Data Security & Privacy projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Security & Privacy field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Mattermost or UnKey more popular?
Mattermost has 39,093 GitHub stars and UnKey has 5,438. Mattermost has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mattermost and UnKey free?
Neither Mattermost nor UnKey declares a licence in this registry, so check each project's own repository before relying on either for a commercial use. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Mattermost and UnKey?
Mattermost is written in TypeScript and UnKey in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Mattermost or UnKey?
Choose Mattermost if you want the larger community (39,093 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose UnKey if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.