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Zoho Cliq

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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 Zoho Corporation · cliq.zoho.com

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Zoho Cliq: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai Zoho Cliq: 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.

Zoho Cliq at a glance

Vendor
Zoho Corporation
Headquarters
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026
Data hosting
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026
Free plan
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026
Panel verdict
The AI panel rates Zoho Cliq 2/5, the mean of 6 judges. Zoho Cliq is a cloud business-messaging service from Zoho Corporation. how scores are made
As of
Vendor pages captured 13 Oct 2026; evaluated by the panel 15 Oct 2026. all sources

Zoho Cliq alternatives, European ones first →

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

The Compliance Counsel

Weighted verdict

Will one day have to produce this archive, edits and deletions included, to a regulator or a court. Wants legal hold, an export a lawyer can work from, retention per channel, and an audit trail that survives the admin who made the change.

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

Scored by The Compliance Counsel

Panel median The Compliance Counsel 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 Compliance Counsel
Channels, threads & search 2 of 5 2.5 of 5
Encryption & access control 3 of 5 3.5 of 5
Retention, discovery & co-determination 2 of 5 2 of 5
Deployment & data custody 1 of 5 1 of 5
Integrations & extensibility 3 of 5 3 of 5
European sovereignty 1 of 5 1 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 Compliance Counsel

Channels are categorised into organisation, team, external and personal with permission controls on every type, external collaboration keeps its data in a separate space, and the unified search reaches messages, users, channels and departments with tags to narrow results. I found no public information on threading behaviour, message edit history, pinned items or any documented history limit, and the detailed export mechanics in the captured pages belong to Zoho Mail rather than to conversations. An archive whose long-term limits are unstated is exactly what I will later be asked to produce. 2 3 7

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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 Compliance Counsel

Encryption in transit and at rest is documented in real depth — TLS 1.2/1.3 with forward secrecy, AES-256 per service, a DEK/KEK hierarchy under an in-house key management service with six-monthly rotation, and KMS access restricted and audited. Bring-your-own-key through external key managers hands the ultimate key control to the customer rather than the vendor, and permission-based controls across all channel types plus directory-based identity round out the model. I found no public information on end-to-end encryption, device verification, or sessions an administrator can revoke. 3 4 5

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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 Compliance Counsel

Retention policies, eDiscovery and audit logs are each asserted for audits and legal proceedings, and conversation archiving is mentioned, which clears the basic bar. But the only export mechanics documented in detail belong to Zoho Mail — EML files in a ZIP, at most a year at a time — while for chat conversations export is described only as user data import and export with no format stated; I found no public information on legal hold, on whether exports capture edits and deletions, or on switching activity analytics off organisation-wide. An archive I cannot show a lawyer in a documented format is not yet a discovery object. 3 4 7

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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 Compliance Counsel

The captured pages show a cloud service whose only documented on-premise component is an Active Directory sync tool; I found no public information on a self-hosted edition, an open-source core, or federation. For exit, the fully documented export path belongs to Zoho Mail, and for Cliq itself only user data import and export is asserted with no format, scope or metadata coverage stated — a custody question I cannot answer from public material. 3 7 9

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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 Compliance Counsel

A marketplace where organisation-wide installs are admin-only while team installs are open to users, slash commands, bots with an explicit consent flow, more than fifty integrations with flexible APIs, and directory-based identity sync give a genuine platform surface. I found no public information on documented rate limits beyond a passing mention of throttling, on event subscriptions with retries, on SCIM provisioning, or on a sandbox. 3 8 10 11

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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 Compliance Counsel

An EU support address and EU among the regions listed for bots hint that European processing exists somewhere in the offering, but nothing is named. I found no public information on the contracting entity, on where hosting and metadata sit, or on any subprocessor — the three things a court will ask me first. 3 8 11

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Pricing transparency not rated — the vendor publishes no price

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 Compliance Counsel

Plan tier names — Free, Standard, Professional, Enterprise — surface only through poll and vote limits; beyond that I found no public prices, billing periods, storage or history limits, and no statement of which tier carries retention and eDiscovery. Nothing in the captured pages lets a buyer compute an annual invoice for a given headcount. 10

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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 — uncited Report an error
Subprocessors Not determined — uncited Report an error

Questions about Zoho Cliq

Is Zoho Cliq European?

Not determined: the vendor’s pages as captured do not say where Zoho Cliq is based.

Where does Zoho Cliq store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026.

Does Zoho Cliq have a free plan?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026.

What are the best alternatives to Zoho Cliq?

As of 21 Oct 2026, the panel rates Element (3.5/5), Mattermost (3.5/5) and Stackfield (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: Zoho Cliq 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 Zoho Cliq? Tell us Report an error on this page

Sources (11)

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

  1. 1 Vendor page cliq.zoho.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Channels, threads & search — found from sitemap www.zoho.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Channels, threads & search — found from sitemap www.zoho.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Encryption & access control — found from sitemap www.zoho.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Encryption & access control — found from sitemap www.zoho.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Retention, discovery & co-determination — found from sitemap www.zoho.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Retention, discovery & co-determination — found from sitemap www.zoho.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Deployment & data custody — found from sitemap www.zoho.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Deployment & data custody — found from sitemap www.zoho.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Integrations & extensibility — found from sitemap www.zoho.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Integrations & extensibility — found from sitemap www.zoho.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →