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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 Platform Engineer

Weighted verdict

Would rather run it than rent it, and wants to know whether that is a supported deployment or a hobby build. Cares about open protocols, federation, a plugin system with real permissions, and an upgrade path that does not orphan the customisations.

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

Scored by The Platform Engineer

Panel median The Platform Engineer 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 Platform Engineer
Channels, threads & search 2 of 5 2.5 of 5
Encryption & access control 3 of 5 3 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 Platform Engineer

Channels are real and well-typed — organisation, teams, external and personal — with unified search across messages, users, channels and departments plus search tags to narrow results, and conversations archived for future reference. Threads are only confirmed in passing on the AI integration page, and I found no public information on pinned items, message-edit history, or a documented history limit. A solid daily surface, nothing that makes the archive a working knowledge base. 2 3 8

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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 Platform Engineer

The crypto documentation is unusually concrete: AES-256 at rest with a DEK/KEK/master hierarchy, six-monthly key rotation, a restricted and audited in-house key management service, TLS 1.2/1.3 with forward secrecy, and bring-your-own-key through Zoho Directory with named external key managers. Access control runs deep — per-channel permission settings, roles, two-factor, IP restriction, mobile device management, and external networks stored separately. I found no public information on end-to-end encryption, device verification, or a plain statement of what the vendor itself can decrypt. 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 Platform Engineer

eDiscovery, retention policies and audit logs are all named on the security page, which is more than many clouds manage, but at marketing depth — nothing on per-channel retention, legal hold, or whether exports capture edits and deletions. Cliq's own export is described only as quickly importing or exporting user data; the detailed export documentation I found, EML files in a ZIP with PST migration, sits on the Zoho Mail help pages, a different product. I found no public information on admin control over presence or activity analytics. 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 Platform Engineer

This is a rented platform: cloud-only and proprietary, and I found no public information on self-hosting, federation or an open-source core — the nearest things are an on-premises Active Directory sync client and an MCP server that opens channels, threads and past conversations to AI clients. Custody of the archive stays with the vendor, and the export path for chat history is undocumented; the only detailed export pages cover Zoho Mail. For a buyer who wants to hold their own archive, that is the whole question. 3 8 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 Platform Engineer

There is a real extension platform here: a marketplace with installs scoped to the organisation or to specific teams, organisation-wide installs restricted to org admins, slash commands, and bots whose permissions a user consents to per action — exactly the auditable permission model I look for in a plugin system. The MCP server is a genuinely model-agnostic bridge layered over the data, with throttling noted. I found no public information on SCIM provisioning, webhooks, a sandbox, or an API deprecation policy. 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 Platform Engineer

The captured pages hint at Europe — an EU support address and extensions listed as available in an EU region — but I found no public information on the contracting entity's jurisdiction, where the archive and its metadata reside by default, or the subprocessors involved. For a buyer who wants the sovereignty question answered in writing rather than inferred from a support email, this is an open sales conversation, not a documented posture. 3 10 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 Platform Engineer

Plan names surface incidentally — Free, Standard, Professional and Enterprise, with a 99.9% uptime guarantee plus priority support and dedicated success resources named for the top tier — but I found no public prices, no per-user maths, no history or storage limits, and no statement of where retention, single sign-on or compliance export begin. An annual invoice is not computable from these pages; every real tier boundary is a conversation with sales. 8 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 →