head to head · open source
Rocket.Chat vs chat
Rocket.Chat has 46,361 GitHub stars, 14,076 forks, 4,023 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chat has 13,547 stars, 2,093 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Rocket.Chat leads on adoption by 242% (46,361 vs 13,547 stars). Rocket.Chat is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; chat is written in Go under GPL-3.0. Rocket.Chat has attracted 30% as many forks as stars, chat 15%. Rocket.Chat was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (chat, collaboration), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Rocket.Chat | chat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 14K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 14K | ⑂ 2.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Rocket.Chat if
- You weight community size — 46K 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 chat if
- You want the chat feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and chat fits your workflow better
About Rocket.Chat
The ultimate secure open source solution for team communications Rocket.Chat is an open source, secure, fully customizable communications platform developed in TypeScript for organizations with high standards of data protection. We are the ultimate solution for team communications, enabling real time conversations between colleagues, with other companies, and with your customers or citizens, regardless of how they connect with you. The result is an increase in productivity and user satisfaction rates. Every day, tens of millions of users in over 150 countries and in organizations such as Deutsche Bahn, The US…
read the full Rocket.Chat overview →
About chat
Tinode Instant Messaging Server Instant messaging full stack. Backend in pure Go (license GPL 3.0), clients for Android (Java), iOS (Swift), and web (ReactJS), as well as gRPC client support for C++, C , Go, Java, Node, PHP, Python, Ruby, Objective C, etc (all clients licensed under Apache 2.0). Wire transport is JSON over websocket (long polling is also available) or protobuf with gRPC. This is beta quality software: feature complete and stable but probably with a few bugs or missing features. Follow instructions to install and run or use one of the cloud services below. Read API documentation. Tinode is not…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Rocket.Chat or chat more popular?
Rocket.Chat has 46,361 GitHub stars and chat has 13,547. Rocket.Chat has the larger community by that measure.
Are Rocket.Chat and chat free?
Both are open source. Rocket.Chat has no licence declared in this registry, and chat is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Rocket.Chat and chat?
Rocket.Chat is written in TypeScript and chat 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, Rocket.Chat or chat?
Choose Rocket.Chat if you want the larger community (46,361 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose chat if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.