whats-best.ai
Search Sign in

Business Instant Messaging

Stackfield

EU-Made Report an error

Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

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

by Stackfield GmbH · www.stackfield.com

Report an error on this page Is this your product? →

Link to this page

Stackfield: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai Stackfield: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai (dark)

Add ?theme=dark to the image address for dark backgrounds. The badge shows the category and the month of the latest evaluation, and EU-Made where that is the product’s provenance. It never shows a score.

Stackfield at a glance

Vendor
Stackfield GmbH
Headquarters
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 19 Oct 2026
Data hosting
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 19 Oct 2026
Free plan
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 19 Oct 2026
Starting price
“STARTER € 9 per User and Month (when paid yearly)” (vendor’s words) source, captured 21 Sep 2026
Panel verdict
The AI panel rates Stackfield 3/5, the mean of 6 judges. Stackfield is a business instant messaging product strongest where it advertises: encryption and access scored 8 to 9, on client-side AES and RSA encryption, per-room passwords, admin-enforceable policy, a whitepaper, and statements that neither the vendor nor its subcontractors can read enabled rooms. how scores are made
As of
Vendor pages captured 21 Sep 2026 to 19 Oct 2026; evaluated by the panel 20 Oct 2026. all sources

Stackfield alternatives, European ones first →

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

The Security Officer

Weighted verdict

Assumes the archive will one day be read by someone it was not meant for. Wants end-to-end encryption that ordinary users survive, device verification, sessions an admin can revoke, and a plain statement of what the vendor cannot decrypt.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Security Officer

Panel median The Security Officer This judge’s scores over the panel median. Each label opens its reasoning below.
Scores per criterion, in stars out of 5
Criterion Panel median The Security Officer
Channels, threads & search 2.5 of 5 3 of 5
Encryption & access control 4 of 5 4 of 5
Retention, discovery & co-determination 2 of 5 2.5 of 5
Deployment & data custody 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5
Integrations & extensibility 3 of 5 2.5 of 5
European sovereignty 4 of 5 4 of 5
Pricing transparency 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5

Channels, threads & search

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.

Report an error

The Security Officer

Direct messages and group chats carry mentions, reactions and a real files module with versioning, and rooms can be archived, renamed, restored and exported as PDF with the who-and-when documented. We found no public information on threading inside chats, on search filters or ranking, or on any history limit — so whether an eighteen-month-old decision stays findable rests on a global search the pages only mention in passing. 1 6 7 10 11

Report an error

Encryption & access control

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.

Report an error

The Security Officer

This is the vendor's pitch and it holds up on the pages: client-side end-to-end encryption of rooms and direct messages using AES and RSA, admin settings that can force it always on, a downloadable whitepaper, and the plain statement I look for — Stackfield has no access to the room keys and can read nothing in encrypted rooms, with even the export trade-off named since encrypted rooms stay unexportable unless an admin opts in. I hold it here because we found no public information on device verification or on sessions an administrator can revoke, and the room keys are entangled with the login password, which an ordinary user will one day lose. 5 8 9 10

Report an error

Retention, discovery & co-determination

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.

Report an error

The Security Officer

Exports are real and documented — rooms as PDF, views as CSV or Excel, a global export at the top tier — and both settings changes and archiving actions are reported with who and when. But automated deletion rules are announced for the third quarter of 2026 from Premium onwards rather than shipped today, and we found no public information on legal hold or on any switch for the per-user login reporting a works council would ask about. 4 5 8 10 11

Report an error

Deployment & data custody

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.

Report an error

The Security Officer

Custody can genuinely be the customer's: an on-premise edition that runs without internet on the organisation's own network, a private-cloud variant with Active Directory, white-labelling and external users, and a vendor-run migration project from cloud to on-premise. We found no public information on open source, federation, or how the self-hosted edition's functions compare with the cloud, and that edition starts at a minimum of 100 licenses. 12 13

Report an error

Integrations & extensibility

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.

Report an error

The Security Officer

There is a documented API with error codes, incoming webhooks that can be secured with a JSON Web Token, a long list of webhook content types, and a Microsoft Teams integration whose rights synchronize from the source organisation and which admins can switch off entirely. We found no public information on a bot framework, slash commands, SCIM provisioning, documented rate limits or a sandbox, so this reads as solid plumbing rather than a platform. 5 8 14 15

Report an error

European sovereignty

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.

Report an error

The Security Officer

Stackfield GmbH of Munich is the contracting entity, hosting sits in German ISO-certified data centers, subcontractors are stated to be EU-based with AWS, Google Cloud and Azure named as not in use, and the certificates are downloadable. Two things hold it back: we found no published list of the individual subprocessors, and the captured pages give different statements on processing location — one says exclusively EU servers including telemetry, the other names the EU plus countries the EU classifies as safe, with US services certified under the Data Privacy Framework. 3 4 5 8 12

Report an error

Pricing transparency

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.

Report an error

The Security Officer

Every cloud tier carries a public per-user yearly price with the add-ons itemised separately and VAT treatment stated, so an annual invoice for a given headcount on the cloud is largely computable. The monthly figure appears only as a percentage saving, and we found no public information on storage or history limits, contract terms, guest pricing, or any price for the on-premise edition beyond its 100-license minimum. 2 12 2 2

Report an error

European sovereignty — proven facts

0 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 Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Subprocessors Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error

Questions about Stackfield

Is Stackfield European?

Yes. whats-best.ai classifies Stackfield as EU-Made.

Where does Stackfield store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 19 Oct 2026.

Does Stackfield have a free plan?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 19 Oct 2026.

What are the best alternatives to Stackfield?

As of 21 Oct 2026, the panel rates Element (3.5/5), Mattermost (3.5/5) and Wire (Messaging) (3/5) highest among the other 19 Business Instant Messaging products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is Element (UK / wider Europe). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made. The full list, with European products first: Stackfield alternatives.

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.

Do you know more about Stackfield? Tell us Report an error on this page

Sources (15)

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

  1. 1 Vendor homepage www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Pricing www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 +3 earlier captures: 13 Oct 2026, 30 Sep 2026, 21 Sep 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Imprint www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Privacy policy www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Security / trust page www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Channels, threads & search — found from sitemap www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Channels, threads & search — found from sitemap www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Encryption & access control — found from sitemap www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Encryption & access control — found from sitemap www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Retention, discovery & co-determination — found from sitemap www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Retention, discovery & co-determination — found from sitemap www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Deployment & data custody — found from sitemap www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 Details →
  13. 13 Deployment & data custody — found from sitemap www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 Details →
  14. 14 Integrations & extensibility — found from sitemap www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 Details →
  15. 15 Integrations & extensibility — found from sitemap www.stackfield.com Checked 19 Oct 2026 Details →