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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

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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 Team Lead

Weighted verdict

Runs a distributed team and needs the tool people actually open. Wants threads that stay readable, search that finds last spring's decision, and channels that can be tidied without losing history. Unmoved by feature lists that do not survive a busy Tuesday.

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

Scored by The Team Lead

Panel median The Team Lead 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 Team Lead
Channels, threads & search 2.5 of 5 3 of 5
Encryption & access control 4 of 5 4.5 of 5
Retention, discovery & co-determination 2 of 5 2 of 5
Deployment & data custody 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5
Integrations & extensibility 3 of 5 3 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.

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The Team Lead

Rooms carry a team chat, threaded discussions and comments, @-mentions including @all, and files organised in folders with version history — a surface that survives a busy Tuesday. Archived rooms and single entries stay reachable through global search and can be restored without losing history, and a room exports to PDF a human can read. I found no public information on search filters by person or date, message edit history, or any stated history limit, so I cannot confirm how reliably search finds last spring's decision. 1 6 7 10 11

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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.

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The Team Lead

End-to-end encryption is a first-class, admin-enforceable mode — client-side AES and RSA with a downloadable whitepaper, the vendor stating plainly it holds no room keys, and trade-offs named for making chats encrypted retroactively and for exporting encrypted data. Access control is equally serious: fine-grained rights per room, four roles with scoped guest behaviour, single sign-on, centrally enforced two-factor and an IP whitelist. I found no public information on device verification or sessions an admin can revoke, which is the only distance from the top mark. 6 8 9 10

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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.

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The Team Lead

The archive is handled with discipline — every archiving is documented with who and when, organisation-settings changes land in a report, and rooms export to PDF, CSV or Excel with scope bounded by each user's rights. But the automated deletion rules are dated for the third quarter of 2026 and gated to the Premium package, so retention automation is announced rather than evidenced in operation, and I found no public information on legal hold, per-room retention, or a switch for the login reporting that shows when employees last logged on. 5 8 10 11

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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.

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The Team Lead

On-premise on your own servers is genuine — no internet connection required, end-to-end encryption in both versions, Active Directory and white-labelling, and a documented migration project from the cloud onto your own machines run by their team. It stays proprietary with a minimum order of 100 licenses, and I found no public information on a complete export including metadata; the organisation-wide global export sits in the Enterprise tier. 10 12 13 2

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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.

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The Team Lead

The API is documented down to error codes, incoming webhooks take JSON and can be JWT-secured, and event webhooks cover seventeen content types from chat messages to user and room lifecycle — enough wiring to make chat the place work is noticed. A Microsoft Teams integration with synced rights and an admin kill-switch, user provisioning via API, and Zapier/IFTTT guides round it out. I found no public information on bot accounts, an app framework with interactive components, rate limits or a sandbox. 8 14 15

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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.

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The Team Lead

German entity and contracting party, hosting in German ISO 27001-certified data centres with all processing including telemetry on EU servers only, subcontractors stated to be EU-based with no AWS, Google Cloud or Azure, German and EU jurisdiction only, downloadable ISO 27001, 27017, 27018 and BSI C5 certificates, plus an on-premise option that removes the question. The captured pages describe subcontractors as EU-based but I found no public information on a published, item-by-item subprocessor list, which is the one gap short of a clean sweep. 3 5 8 12

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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.

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The Team Lead

Every cloud tier carries a public per-user price — € 9, € 14, € 18 and € 28 per user and month when paid yearly — with VAT stated as net and exclusive, a stated 17 percent yearly saving against monthly billing, priced add-ons such as the AI add-on at + 3,90 € per user and month, and boundaries clear enough to see deletion rules start at Premium while single sign-on and the global export sit at Enterprise. The monthly figures and any minimum term are not on the captured pages, and on-premise licensing appears only as a minimum of 100 licenses with a pointer to a separate overview — enough to price the cloud, not yet the whole invoice. 8 12 2 2

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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 →