Mattermost VPS Docker Hosting

Mattermost is an open-source, self-hosted team collaboration platform used for messaging, file sharing, voice calling, screen sharing, and workflow automation across the team in a single server install on Linux. It is built around persistent channels, threaded conversations, native search, and integrations with the developer tooling most teams already run, including GitHub, GitLab, Jira, Jenkins, and ServiceNow. The same server hosts three workflow products under one roof: Channels for chat, Playbooks for repeatable runbooks, and Boards for Kanban tracking on the same DB.

Yes. The Mattermost server is published on GitHub primarily under AGPLv3, with some Apache 2.0 components for admin tools and a monthly compiled distribution released under the MIT license for downstream use. Enterprise-only code lives in a separate directory under the Mattermost Source Available License, which is not OSI-approved. That split lets the open-source community run the platform freely under AGPL while Mattermost gates paid features such as clustering, SAML SSO, and advanced compliance export behind a commercial license.

A small Mattermost server needs 2 GB RAM and 2 vCPU minimum for up to 1,000 registered users, with 4 GB RAM recommended for production at that scale. For 250 to 500 users, plan on 2 vCPU and 4 GB RAM with 45 to 90 GB of storage. For 500 to 1,000 users, plan on 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, and 90 to 180 GB of storage. PostgreSQL 13 or higher is required.

Yes. Mattermost is one of the most widely adopted Slack alternatives in self-hosted deployments today and was ranked the number one Most Loved Slack alternative in the Stack Overflow 2022 Developer Survey. The product borrows familiar UI patterns from the Slack web app to ease migration, including channels, threads, slash commands, and a similar message-composer layout. The DevOps integrations and self-hosting model differentiate it from Slack.

The native Calls plugin handles 1:1 voice calling and optional screen sharing on every tier, including free Team Edition, without any extra setup beyond the plugin itself. Group voice calls up to 50 concurrent participants, call recording, live captions, and transcription are gated to Enterprise, Professional, or Cloud tiers. For richer video conferencing on free Team Edition, Mattermost integrates with Zoom, Webex, Pexip, and Microsoft Teams through first-party plugins that drop directly into channels.

Yes. Mattermost Team Edition is fully free and open source for self-hosting at any scale, intended for teams under 250 users where SSO is not required. Mattermost Entry is a separate free tier that exposes more Enterprise-level features behind hard limits, including a 10,000-message channel-history cap and community-only support. The paid tiers — Professional, Enterprise, and Enterprise Advanced — start around $10 per user per month and add SSO, group sync, clustering, and compliance export.

Yes. Mattermost is designed for self-hosting on Linux, with Docker images, Ubuntu and RHEL packages, and a tarball install on any 64-bit Linux host you control. The official documentation walks every install method end-to-end, including the reverse proxy in front, the PostgreSQL setup behind, and the data-directory layout for file uploads on disk. On a VPS with root access, the apt install path is the most common, with NGINX terminating TLS in front of port 8065 on loopback.

PostgreSQL is the supported database, with version 13 as the minimum and version 14 or higher recommended for new production deployments. MySQL is being deprecated starting with Mattermost v11, which steers all new deploys onto PostgreSQL directly without a migration path back to MySQL. On a self-hosted VPS, the install runs PostgreSQL on the same host as the Mattermost server for small teams. Larger deployments separate the database onto its own host.

Self-hosted Mattermost gives you full data ownership on infrastructure you control, supports TLS termination through a reverse proxy, role-based access control across teams, AD/LDAP integration on Enterprise tiers, SAML 2.0 SSO with Okta, OneLogin, and Microsoft ADFS, multi-factor authentication, and advanced audit logging from v9.3. The product is used in regulated environments including defense, intelligence, and critical-infrastructure customers, and ships a CMMC compliance reference for teams that need it.

First-party plugins cover GitHub, GitLab, Jira across Server, Data Center, and Cloud editions, Jenkins for build alerts, ServiceNow for incident workflows, Zoom and Webex for video, and Microsoft Teams for cross-platform federation. Beyond first-party plugins, a marketplace hosts community plugins for every common tool category, and inbound and outbound webhooks plus slash commands let you wire in anything else through HTTP without writing a plugin from scratch.