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Business Instant Messaging

Rocket.Chat

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: 2 of 4 dimensions proven

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Rocket.Chat Technologies Corp. · www.rocket.chat

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The panel's verdict

Rocket.Chat is a business instant messaging tool whose strength is data custody: deployment & data custody sits at 8, resting on open-source code on GitHub and on-prem, private cloud, isolated VPC/VPN and fully air-gapped deployment, with a claimed 40+ classified air-gapped programs. Channels, threads & search is the weakest criterion at 2: the evidence confirms messaging, voice, video and screen sharing plus mobile and desktop apps, and is silent on channels, threads, search and history. Retention, discovery & co-determination holds at 4 — granular data retention policies and comprehensive audit logs are named, while export formats, legal hold and eDiscovery are not. The visible spreads turn on what self-hosting proves: encryption & access control spans 2-4 and sovereignty 2-4, higher scores crediting self-hosting for key custody and dropping the vendor from the data path, lower ones citing undocumented key handling and no sovereignty attributes on record. Integrations spans 4-6 over pre-built and custom apps with no documented REST API, webhooks or SCIM. The pricing page names Starter, Commercial, Defense and Government with no figures; pricing transparency is reported but not counted.

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Speaks for it

  • Open-source server code on GitHub, with self-hosting sold as the primary path, puts data custody in the customer's hands
  • Deployment options run from on-prem and private cloud to isolated VPC/VPN and fully air-gapped, with air-gapped collaboration claimed across 40+ classified programs
  • Granular data retention policies and comprehensive audit logs are named verbatim in the evidence
  • An apps marketplace offers pre-built and custom apps, backed by developer guides and documentation
  • A Starter plan exists for technical evaluation, small businesses, and non-profits, and the FAQ addresses pilot-to-production expansion

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Held against it

  • The evidence is silent on channels, threads, mentions, file handling, search and history limits, so old decisions cannot be shown to be findable
  • "Fully encrypted conversations" is asserted with no documented key handling, end-to-end mode, device verification or session revocation
  • No export format, legal hold, eDiscovery capability or migration path is evidenced; "no vendor lock-in" is a slogan, not a runbook
  • No documented REST API, webhooks, bot account model, SCIM provisioning or rate limits despite the marketplace
  • The contracting entity is a Delaware corporation with no sovereignty attributes on record and no named subprocessors; the only EU hosting evidence is a customer's own AWS deployment

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Best for

  • You need your messaging server on your own infrastructure — on-prem, private cloud, isolated VPC/VPN or fully air-gapped — with open-source code you can inspect on GitHub
  • You operate in defense, intelligence or public-sector environments where air-gapped deployment is a requirement
  • Your organization can hold the keys itself by running the server, resting encryption accountability on your own operations rather than the vendor's claims
  • You want to begin with a pilot or the Starter plan for technical evaluation before committing

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Avoid if

  • You need to prove that an eighteen-month-old decision can be found again — ask the vendor: the public pages we read do not show it
  • You need documented end-to-end encryption, key custody or session revocation before signing — only the slogans are on record
  • You need eDiscovery, legal hold and a documented export of files and metadata for compliance or for exit
  • You require a published European hosting chain and subprocessor list — the evidence records no sovereignty attributes, and the only EU example is a customer's own AWS deployment

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The scores

Channels, threads & search

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How this is scored

The daily surface: channel model, threading, mentions, files, and whether search can find a decision made eighteen months ago.

0 — Flat group chats with no threads; search covers recent messages only, and history is capped.

3 — Channels and direct messages with basic search, but threading is awkward or absent and file handling is a plain attachment list.

5 — Public and private channels, real threads, mentions and reactions, file sharing with previews, and full-text search across the whole history.

8 — Cross-organisation or guest channels with clear boundaries, message editing history, pinned and saved items, search with filters by channel, person and date, and a documented history limit or none at all.

10 — The archive is a working knowledge base: search that ranks well across years, threads that stay readable, channel lifecycle management (archive, rename, merge) without losing history, and export of a conversation in a form a human can read.

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The Team Lead

The homepage sells messaging bundled with voice, video, screen sharing and apps, but not one word about channels, threads, mentions or search — I cannot confirm my team can find last spring's decision at all. Threads and readable history are the whole game on a busy Tuesday, and this sheet is silent on both. 1

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The Security Officer

The evidence confirms only that messaging, voice, video and screen sharing exist with mobile and desktop apps; channel model, threading, mentions, file handling and search are evidenced nowhere. Silence on search and history is information — I cannot score past the basic-chat anchors. 1

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The Works Council Advocate

Messaging, voice, video and screen sharing with desktop and mobile apps are evidenced, but the evidence says nothing about channels, threads, mentions, file handling or search. For a works council the archive only counts if an eighteen-month-old decision can be found again, and on search the vendor is entirely silent — silence is the finding here. 1

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The Compliance Counsel

The only messaging evidence is 'Unify messaging, voice, video, and screen sharing' with mobile and desktop apps; the evidence is silent on channels, threads, search, and history limits. When I need to find a decision made eighteen months ago, silence on search is a finding in itself. 1

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The Platform Engineer

The evidence proves messaging, voice, video and screen share exist and nothing else — no channel model, no threading, no search, no history handling. For a criterion about whether search can find an eighteen-month-old decision, total silence on the subject is the answer. 1

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The Skeptic

The evidence offers 'messaging, voice, video and screen sharing' and stops there — no channels, no threads, no mentions, no file handling, no search, and no history limit stated anywhere. Whether a decision made eighteen months ago is findable is precisely the question this evidence cannot answer, which leaves it just above the floor. 1

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Encryption & access control

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How this is scored

What is encrypted and against whom, plus who can reach which room. Judged on documented mechanism, since "encrypted" in this category usually means the vendor holds the keys.

0 — Transport encryption only, undocumented; no role model beyond admin, guests indistinguishable from members.

3 — TLS and encryption at rest with vendor-held keys, basic roles, and guest access that mostly works.

5 — The above plus configurable roles per channel, SSO, guest accounts with scoped visibility, and a clear statement of what the vendor can read.

8 — Optional end-to-end encryption for direct messages or private rooms with the trade-offs named, device verification, session management an admin can revoke, and documented key handling.

10 — End-to-end encryption as a first-class mode — documented or open cryptography, cross-device key management that ordinary users survive, identity verification, and the vendor stating plainly what it cannot decrypt.

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The Team Lead

"Fully encrypted conversations" and "advanced access and identity controls" are assertions without mechanism: no word on who holds keys, end-to-end mode, device verification, session revocation or how guests are scoped. Self-hosting at least puts the server under my roof, which keeps this off the floor. 1 2

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The Security Officer

I judge encryption on documented mechanism, and 'fully encrypted conversations' is an unexplained marketing line — no end-to-end mode, no device verification, no admin-revocable sessions, no statement of what the vendor can read. Self-hosted and air-gapped deployment is the only real assurance here, and the 'planned for release in 2026' footnote means I cannot assume any security feature ships today; that lands it at vendor-held-keys level. 1 2

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The Works Council Advocate

"Fully encrypted conversations" and "advanced access and identity controls" are homepage bullets with no mechanism behind them: no key-holder statement, no roles, no SSO, no guest model. The one genuine mitigation is that self-hosted and air-gapped deployment means we, not the vendor, can hold the keys — but the vendor never documents key handling, device verification or session revocation. 1 2

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The Compliance Counsel

'Fully encrypted conversations' and 'advanced access and identity controls' are asserted with zero documented mechanism — no statement of key custody, no E2EE, no session revocation, no guest scoping. Self-hosting means the customer can hold the keys, but nothing on this sheet documents that they do. 1

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The Platform Engineer

"Fully encrypted conversations" and "advanced access and identity controls" are asserted with zero documented mechanism — no key handling, no device verification, no statement of what anyone can read. By this category's own rule, undocumented encryption means keys held by whoever runs the server until proven otherwise. 1

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The Skeptic

'Fully encrypted conversations' is a slogan, not a mechanism: the evidence never says what is encrypted, against whom, who holds the keys, whether E2EE exists as a mode, or where SSO and guest scoping live. Only the self-hosted and air-gapped deployment, which keeps the keys with the customer by construction, lifts this off the floor. 1 2

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Retention, discovery & co-determination

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How this is scored

The archive as a legal object: retention policies, export for discovery, audit, and the monitoring features a works council will ask to have switched off.

0 — No retention policy, no export beyond a manual copy, no audit log, and presence or activity analytics that cannot be disabled.

3 — Manual export of some data and a global history limit, but no per-channel retention, no audit log and no admin control over analytics.

5 — Configurable retention per channel or workspace, admin export in a documented format, an audit log of administrative actions, and status or presence that a user can control.

8 — Legal-hold and eDiscovery export including edits and deletions, retention executed per policy and evidenced, full admin audit trail, and activity analytics switchable off organisation-wide.

10 — Built to pass a works agreement and a subpoena on the same day: granular retention with documented deletion, discovery export a lawyer can use, complete audit, and no individual-level productivity scoring anywhere in the product.

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The Team Lead

"Granular data retention policies" and "comprehensive audit logs" are named outright, which clears the low bar. But export format, legal hold, eDiscovery and whether any analytics can be switched off organisation-wide are entirely absent — a works council gets half an answer. 1

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The Security Officer

'Granular data retention policies' and 'comprehensive audit logs' are named, which clears the no-retention floor, but there is no export format, no legal hold or eDiscovery, and nothing on the analytics or presence controls a works council will demand to switch off. With the 2026 roadmap footnote standing over the feature list, I treat these as assertions, not mechanisms. 1 2

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The Works Council Advocate

"Granular data retention policies" and "comprehensive audit logs" are claimed verbatim, which is half of what this criterion needs; the rest — documented export format, legal hold, eDiscovery, user-controlled presence — is absent. And critically, there is not one word about activity analytics or whether anything can be switched off organisation-wide: retention that deletes must be proven, and monitoring must be negotiable away. 1

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The Compliance Counsel

'Granular data retention policies' and 'comprehensive audit logs' are named, which is more than most sheets give me, but nothing evidences legal hold, an eDiscovery export format, or whether the audit trail captures edits and deletions. The words I need appear; the mechanisms a court will ask about do not. 1

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The Platform Engineer

Granular retention and comprehensive audit logs are claimed as adjectives, but no export format, legal hold, eDiscovery capability or analytics control is evidenced anywhere. Retention and audit posture asserted, discovery artefacts absent — that's the gap between rubric level 3 and 5, landed just above 3. 1

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The Skeptic

'Granular data retention policies' and 'comprehensive audit logs' appear as feature names, never as documented behaviour — no export format, no legal hold, no eDiscovery, no analytics switch-off. Named but unproven parks this between the manual-export floor and the configurable-retention anchor. 1

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Deployment & data custody

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How this is scored

Whether the customer can hold their own archive: self-hosting, private cloud, open source, federation, and what an exit actually looks like.

0 — Cloud-only, proprietary, with export limited to a partial archive.

3 — Cloud-only, but with a documented full export in an open-ish format.

5 — A private-cloud or dedicated-instance option, or a self-hosted edition that lags the cloud significantly; full export documented.

8 — A genuine self-hosted edition close to feature parity, or open-source core with a documented upgrade path, plus complete export including files and metadata.

10 — Custody is the customer's: open-source or source-available server, self-hosting supported as a first-class deployment, open protocol or federation, and a migration path in and out that the vendor documents rather than resists.

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The Team Lead

Open source on GitHub, on-prem / private cloud / isolated VPC / fully air-gapped options, air-gapped across 40+ classified programs, and "full control over where and how your data is stored" — custody genuinely sits with the customer. What's missing is a documented complete export with files and metadata and a migration path the vendor spells out; "No vendor lock-in" is a slogan, not a procedure. 1 2

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The Security Officer

Custody is genuinely on offer: server code is open on GitHub, and on-prem, private cloud, isolated VPC and fully air-gapped deployment are sold as first-class, backed by a claim of 40+ classified air-gapped programs. What keeps it off the top anchor is the absence of a documented export including files and metadata, and no federation or documented migration path in the evidence. 1 2

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The Works Council Advocate

Open-source code on GitHub plus self-hosting sold as the primary path — on-prem, private cloud, isolated VPC/VPN, fully air-gapped, with 40+ classified programs cited — puts custody genuinely in the customer's hands. What keeps it from the top anchor is exit: no export or migration path in or out is evidenced anywhere in the evidence. 1 2

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The Compliance Counsel

Custody is genuinely evidenced: open-source code on GitHub, a self-hosted server, and on-prem, private cloud, VPC/VPN and fully air-gapped options claimed across 40+ classified programs. What withholds a higher score is exit: no export format, files and metadata included, is documented anywhere on this sheet, and 'no vendor lock-in' is a slogan, not a migration path. 1 2

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The Platform Engineer

Open-source code on GitHub, self-hosting and full air-gap as headline deployments backed by 40+ classified programs, plus enumerated on-prem/private cloud/VPC/air-gap options — custody is a supported deployment here, not a hobby build. It stops short of 10 because the evidence shows no open protocol or federation and no documented migration path; "No friction. No vendor lock-in" is a slogan, not a runbook. 1 2

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The Skeptic

Open source on GitHub, plus on-prem, private cloud, isolated VPC/VPN and full air-gap with 40+ classified programs cited — custody really can be the customer's, and the self-hosted edition is clearly the flagship rather than a laggard. What the evidence never shows is the exit: no documented export format or migration path, which holds this below the top anchor. 1 2

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Integrations & extensibility

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How this is scored

Bots, webhooks, app framework, identity — whether the chat becomes the place work is noticed, and whether that is buildable without a partner agreement.

0 — No API, no webhooks, no bots.

3 — Incoming webhooks and a handful of native integrations; no bot framework, no documented limits.

5 — Documented REST API, incoming and outgoing webhooks, slash commands, a bot account model, and SSO.

8 — A proper app framework with interactive components, event subscriptions with retries, SCIM provisioning, documented rate limits and a sandbox.

10 — A platform: versioned API with a deprecation policy, an app directory or plugin system with permissions a customer can audit, and integrations the vendor maintains rather than lists.

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The Team Lead

A marketplace with pre-built and custom apps, plus developer guides, is a real framework story — better than a webhook stub. But there is no documented REST API, webhooks, slash commands, SCIM, rate limits or sandbox anywhere in the evidence, so I'd be committing my team to an ecosystem I can't audit or build against predictably. 1

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The Security Officer

An apps marketplace with pre-built and custom apps plus developer guides suggests a buildable platform without a partner agreement. But there is no documented REST API, webhook, slash command, bot account model or SCIM evidence, let alone rate limits or a sandbox — I score what is documented, not what an open-source codebase implies. 1

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The Works Council Advocate

A marketplace of pre-built and custom apps plus developer guides is more than a handful of native integrations, but the evidence never documents a REST API, webhooks, slash commands, a bot account model or SSO. I score what is on the page, and the page stops at "no friction, no vendor lock-in" — a slogan, not a surface. 1

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The Compliance Counsel

An apps marketplace with both pre-built and custom apps plus developer guides evidences a real extensibility surface beyond a webhook list. But the evidence says nothing about a documented API, bot model, SCIM provisioning, or rate limits — a framework is named, its plumbing is not. 1

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The Platform Engineer

Pre-built plus custom app development with developer guides is a genuine app-framework posture, but there is no evidence of API versioning or a deprecation policy, no app permission model a customer can audit, no SCIM, no documented rate limits. Buildable without a partner agreement — likely; auditable — unevidenced. 1

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The Skeptic

An apps marketplace with pre-built and custom apps, plus developer guides, says there is a buildable platform without a partner agreement. But webhooks, bot account model, SCIM provisioning and documented rate limits are all unlisted, so this lands at the documented-API anchor rather than the app-framework one. 1

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European sovereignty panel opinion

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How this is scored

Where the archive and its metadata live, who the contracting entity is, which subprocessors touch it. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; scored here as this buyer weighs it.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated or non-EU, subprocessors unnamed.

3 — EU data residency offered for message content while metadata, search indexes or support tooling remain non-EU, or the contracting entity sits outside the EU.

5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but parts of the chain — notifications, AI features, analytics — are non-EU without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, full subprocessor list published, any non-EU processing named with its legal basis.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: vendor, entity, hosting and every subprocessor European, certification published, and a self-hosted option that removes the question.

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The Team Lead

The sovereignty pipeline has nothing on record: the contracting entity is a US Delaware corporation, hosting is unstated, subprocessors are unnamed, no certification published. The only European story is a customer testimonial about hosting it themselves on AWS — self-hosting can rescue custody, but the vendor's own chain is opaque, and a marketing line about a "sovereign cloud" option is not a subprocessor list. 1 2

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The Security Officer

The contracting entity is a Delaware corporation with no sovereignty attributes on record and subprocessors unnamed — that alone sits at the bottom anchors. Deployment can be sovereign cloud, on-premises or air-gapped with an EU-on-AWS example and a 'free from foreign jurisdiction' claim, and self-hosting removes the vendor from the data path entirely, which is the only reason I rise above 3. 1 2

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The Works Council Advocate

The contracting entity is Rocket.Chat Technologies Corp. of Wilmington, Delaware, no sovereignty attributes are on record, and the sole EU-hosting evidence is one customer's testimonial about running it on AWS themselves. That this lands above the bottom is architecture, not commitment: on-premises and air-gapped deployment lets us hold the entire archive inside our own jurisdiction, but "free from foreign jurisdiction" is a marketing line with no published subprocessor list or certification behind it. 1 2

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The Compliance Counsel

The contracting entity is a Delaware corporation, the pipeline records no sovereignty attributes, and no subprocessor is named. The only EU datum is a customer's own AWS deployment testimonial, plus an unspecified 'sovereign cloud' deployment option for government — an option is not a jurisdiction, and 'free from foreign jurisdiction' is asserted, not evidenced. 1 2

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The Platform Engineer

No sovereignty attributes on record, the contracting entity is a US Delaware corporation with subprocessors unnamed, and the only EU-hosting data point is a customer's own AWS deployment — that's rubric level 3 territory. Genuine self-hosting and air-gap options let you drop the vendor from the data path entirely, which is the only reason I lift it above 3. 1 2

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The Skeptic

No sovereignty attributes on record and the contracting entity sits in Wilmington, Delaware — subprocessors unnamed, vendor hosting unstated. The only EU hosting in evidence is a customer's own AWS deployment, and 'sovereign cloud' is a deployment mode, not a European chain; this product answers the question by letting you host it yourself, which earns partial credit and nothing more. 1 2

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Pricing transparency

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How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the annual invoice for their headcount — including the retention, compliance and guest features they actually need — from public pages alone.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A per-user headline exists, but the tier where retention control, SSO or compliance export begins is unstated.

5 — Per-user prices public with billing period stated, but at least one commonly needed capability (unlimited history, SSO, eDiscovery) sits in an unpriced enterprise tier.

8 — Every tier priced publicly with per-user maths, history and storage limits, feature boundaries, minimum term and VAT treatment stated; self-hosted licensing priced too where offered.

10 — Complete price computability: annual invoice derivable for a given headcount and deployment choice, including guest users, storage and any per-instance licence.

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The Team Lead

Three captures of the pricing page produced plan names, FAQs about pilots and non-profit rates, and a "planned for release in 2026" footnote — not a single per-user figure, billing term, storage limit or VAT note. I cannot compute an annual invoice for forty people from this, so every real tier is a sales conversation. 2 2 2

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The Security Officer

Three captures of the pricing page produced named plans (Starter, Commercial, Government, Defense) and deployment menus but not a single per-user price, billing period or tier feature boundary. The special-rates, pilot and professional-services FAQs point straight to a sales conversation — rubric level 0 is nearly matched, and tier names alone earn the one point. 2 2 2

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The Works Council Advocate

Three snapshots of the pricing page yield plan names (Starter, Commercial, Defense, Government) and FAQs about pilots, professional services and special rates — and not a single figure, per-user rate or billing term. The annual invoice is a sales conversation, which for us means the works agreement cannot be costed in advance. 2 2 2

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The Compliance Counsel

Three captures of the pricing page yielded plan names, FAQs about special rates, pilots and professional services, and a Starter tier for evaluation — not one per-user figure, billing period, or feature boundary. I cannot compute an annual invoice from this, and I cannot tell which tier buys the retention and audit controls; that is sales-conversation pricing with extra steps. 2 2 2

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The Platform Engineer

A pricing page exists and names Starter, Commercial, Government and Defense targets, but the evidence contains no actual price, billing period, history limit or feature boundary — I cannot compute an annual invoice from this. Features starred as "planned for release in 2026" mean the page is selling roadmap, not product. 2

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The Skeptic

Three captures of the pricing page and not one number: no per-user price, no billing period, no VAT treatment, no tier boundaries. What we get is the existence of a Starter plan, a special-rates FAQ, and a footnote admitting some listed features are 'planned for release in 2026' — plan labels, not a computable invoice. 2 2 2

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European sovereignty — proven facts

2 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency EU optional ⚠ unverified 1/3 pts 1 Report an error
Subprocessors US CLOUD Act reach ⚠ unverified 0/2 pts 1 Report an error

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

Sources (13)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor homepage www.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Pricing www.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 +2 earlier captures: 11 Sep 2026, 31 Aug 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Terms of service docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Channels, threads & search — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Channels, threads & search — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Encryption & access control — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Encryption & access control — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Retention, discovery & co-determination — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Retention, discovery & co-determination — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Deployment & data custody — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Deployment & data custody — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Integrations & extensibility — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  13. 13 Integrations & extensibility — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →