DISCLAIMER: This page is for information only. It is not legal, financial or procurement advice and does not replace your own due diligence. Licenses, ownership, features and certifications can change: confirm what your decision rests on with the official sources.
🩺 Vitals
- 🟢 Last active: 2026-11-03
- 📦 Latest release: v1.164.2 (2026-11-02)
- 🐞 Open issues: 2109
- 🌟 Stars: 4.8k
What do these metrics mean?
- Last active: when code was last pushed, as of our last check. The dot is green when that was recent, grey otherwise. A long gap can mean a tool is finished and stable, not only unmaintained.
- Latest release: the most recent stable version the maintainers published as a release on the forge. Some healthy projects publish only tags, or publish their versions elsewhere.
- Open issues: unresolved reports and requests. A high number is normal for a popular project and is not a warning on its own.
- Stars: how many people bookmarked the project on its forge. A rough popularity signal, not a measure of quality.
🏗️ Profile
- Official: element.io
- Source: github.com/element-hq/synapse
- License: AGPL-3.0-or-later (core; paid edition under its own terms)
- Deployment: Docker Container | Kubernetes (K8s) | Native System (Binary/Linux)
- Jurisdiction: United Kingdom 🇬🇧 (Element Creations Ltd)
- Compliance (SaaS): Element Matrix Services security and compliance page
- Compliance (Self-Hosted): Self-Hosted (User Managed)
- Complexity: High (4/5) - The vendor's official stack runs about eight services on one Kubernetes node: the Synapse server, PostgreSQL, sign-in and call services, web and admin apps, and HAProxy
- Maintenance: High (4/5) - A server release about every two weeks, with database migrations that block start-up and make rollback hard, and frequent breaking changes in the official Kubernetes chart
- User Management: Moderate (3/5) - Local accounts, OpenID Connect and SAML single sign-on, room and server admin roles and TLS in the free build; the audit log and SCIM come with a paid edition
What the scores mean: Reading the Scores
1. The Executive Summary
What is it? Element is a team chat and calling stack on the Matrix protocol: the Synapse server, with web, desktop and mobile apps. Direct messages and private rooms are end-to-end encrypted by default, and users can opt out. Rooms federate with other Matrix servers by default, so room data is copied to every server whose users join. A paid edition adds high availability, malware scanning of attachments and a federation firewall.
The Strategic Verdict:
- 🔴 For teams without Kubernetes operations staff: Caution. The official stack runs about eight services, and a server release comes about every two weeks, with migrations that block start-up (Complexity, Maintenance).
- 🟢 For organisations that chat with partners or other agencies on their own servers: Strong Buy. Private rooms are end-to-end encrypted by default and federate with other organisations' Matrix servers (What is it?).
2. Cost of Ownership
| Cost Component | Element (Self-Hosted) |
|---|---|
| Pricing Model | No license fee under AGPL-3.0-or-later; paid license for other terms; paid edition for some features |
| Operations | Single VM, several services (Synapse, PostgreSQL, sign-in, calls, web), grows with history and media; plus your team's time to run it (Maintenance, in the Profile) |
| Support | From the vendor: Element Matrix Services, a managed service, and paid support for self-hosted installs (enterprise support); elsewhere, a paid service provider |
| Exit | Per-user data export (JSON, admin command); keeps only media metadata, and media from encrypted rooms stays encrypted |
What each row covers: Total Cost of Ownership
3. Risk Assessment
- Jurisdiction: Element Creations Ltd, the project's vendor, is registered in the United Kingdom, under that country's law. The vendor runs Element Matrix Services, a hosted service where your data can live; its hosts include a party domiciled in or controlled from the US. Data that party holds for Element Matrix Services is within reach of the US CLOUD Act, wherever it is stored, if the party is based in the US or its US parent controls the data.
- The Compliance Shift: The vendor provides no security update management for the free edition and says commercial deployments should use its paid edition. Self-hosting moves the security and compliance duties of running the software to the operator (the operator's compliance checklist). Any audit of Element Matrix Services (such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001) covers the vendor's own systems, never your install.
- License Risk: Element is under AGPL-3.0-or-later, an OSI-approved network copyleft license (what it allows and requires). The project moved to these terms from Apache-2.0 in 2024. The vendor holds the rights to relicense contributed code through a contributor agreement, so future versions can move to other terms without contributors' consent. Element's contributor agreement lets it sell contributed code under its own license only while also offering it under an OSI-approved one.
4. Market Landscape
🏢 Proprietary Incumbents
- Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams is a cloud service for chat, calls and online meetings at work.
Data held by: Microsoft Corporation, United States 🇺🇸, subject to the US CLOUD Act for the data it holds, wherever it is stored.
Why teams leave: Encryption with its customers' own keys needs a top Microsoft plan or a paid add-on.
Exit: Teams Export APIs (Microsoft Graph)
With Element: Direct messages and private rooms are end-to-end encrypted by default (What is it?). - Slack: Slack is a cloud service for team messaging in channels.
Data held by: Slack Technologies, LLC, United States 🇺🇸 (controlled by Salesforce, Inc.), subject to the US CLOUD Act for the data it holds, wherever it is stored.
Why teams leave: By default it trains global predictive models on customers' messages and files; opting out takes an email.
Exit: Workspace export (JSON in a ZIP), partial export (files as links, private conversations only on higher plans, on application)
🤝 Open-Source Alternatives
- Mattermost: Open-core team chat server for messaging in channels and threads, run as one binary with PostgreSQL, under AGPL-3.0-only.
- Wire: End-to-end encrypted messaging and collaboration on the MLS protocol. Swiss/EU jurisdiction, ISO 27001 certified. The self-hosted server is AGPL-3.0 with SAML SSO and SCIM included.