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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 Skeptic

Weighted verdict

Reads for the message-history cap, the tier where SSO appears, and what "unlimited" excludes. Has seen "end-to-end encrypted" mean direct messages only, on request, with search disabled — and wants that sentence found rather than assumed.

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

Scored by The Skeptic

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

Channels come in four categories with permission controls over who adds participants or sends, and search is described as unified across messages, users, channels and departments with tags to narrow results. The word "threads" appears only in the AI server's list of what an agent can access, and we found no public information on threading in the interface, mentions, reactions, file previews, message history limits, or how far back search reaches. Search is a step above basic; the rest of what makes an eighteen-month-old decision findable is untested on these pages. 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 Skeptic

Encryption in transit and at rest is documented in unusual depth — key hierarchy, six-month rotation, self-encrypting drives, restricted and audited key-service access, and bring-your-own-key through six named external key managers — with per-channel permissions and external collaboration stored separately. The default mode has the vendor's own key service allotting each organisation its key. We found no public information on end-to-end encryption, single sign-on, device verification, or a plain statement of what the vendor can read in message content. 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 Skeptic

eDiscovery, retention policies, audit logs and archiving are each named on the security page, a step above the manual-copy floor. But the only export format documented in the captured pages is the mail service's — EML files in a ZIP, exportable up to one year — so we found no public information on what an export of the chat product itself contains or whether edits and deletions are captured. Retention granularity, legal hold and an organisation-wide switch for presence and activity analytics are likewise unevidenced, while the security page promotes real-time monitoring of threats, leaks and risks delivered to channels. 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 Skeptic

The captured pages describe a multi-region cloud — the Poll extension lists US, IN, EU, AU and CN, and the support address sits at eu.zohocliq.com — and we found no public information on a self-hosted edition, source availability, or federation. The closest on-premises artefact is a Windows installer for the directory-sync tool, which synchronises Active Directory rather than hosting anything. Import and export of user data is claimed available, but with no documented format or completeness for the chat product, an exit is a claim rather than a path. 3 7 9 10

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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 Skeptic

Bots are real here: a marketplace where admins install for the whole organisation and users for their team, slash commands, and a per-action consent popup before a bot acts; over fifty integrations with flexible APIs are claimed. The vendor maintains its own model-agnostic MCP server exposing channels, threads, users and roles to AI clients. We found no public information on webhooks, single sign-on, or documented API rate limits and a sandbox in the captured pages. 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 Skeptic

The independently collected attributes come back unstated on legal entity, ownership, data residency and subprocessors. The only European signals in the captures are an EU support address and EU appearing in the extension region lists — a hosting region, not a contracting entity or a subprocessor list. The captured compliance page documents only first-party tracking tools, and we found no public information on certifications. 3 6 8 10

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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 Skeptic

Four plan names surface only through a Poll extension limit — 1,000 polls and poll votes on Free and Standard against 10,000 on Professional and Enterprise — with no prices, billing period, VAT treatment or feature boundaries anywhere in the captures. We found no public information on per-user pricing or on which tier single sign-on, retention control or compliance export begins. A buyer cannot begin to compute an invoice from these pages. 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 →