Team chat apps replace internal email with channels, direct messages, calls and file sharing. European options stand out for end-to-end encryption, hosting in Europe and versions you can run on your own servers. The strongest European options are Element (United Kingdom) for public sector and regulated teams needing self-hosted chat, Wire (Switzerland) for teams that need encrypted chat and calls and Nextcloud (Germany) for organisations that want to run the platform themselves.
Best first. Headcount and founding year come from LeadWave's database; prices, hosting and G2 ratings from each company's own pages and G2, checked in November 2026.
| Alternative | Headquarters | Founded | Employees | G2 rating | Free plan | Paid plans from | Your data | Open source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 Element | London, United Kingdom | 2017 | — | 4.2 (43 reviews) | Yes | Free | Self-hosted | Yes |
2 Wire | Zug, Switzerland | — | — | 4.2 (61 reviews) | Yes | €7.45/user/month | In Europe | Yes |
3 Nextcloud | Stuttgart, Germany | 2016 | — | 4.4 (171 reviews) | Yes | €71.29/user/year | Self-hosted | Yes |
4 Infomaniak | Geneva, Switzerland | — | — | — | Yes | Free | In Europe | No |
5 Threema Work | Pfäffikon SZ, Switzerland | 2012 | — | 4.4 (9 reviews) | No | CHF 3/user/month | — | No |
6 Stackfield | Munich, Germany | 2012 | — | 4.3 (14 reviews) | No | €9/user/month | In Europe | No |
7 Teamwire | Munich, Germany | — | — | 4.4 (52 reviews) | No | €79/account/month | In Europe | No |
8 Twake Workplace | Issy-les-Moulineaux, France | — | — | — | No | — | Self-hosted | Yes |
9 ginlo Business | Munich, Germany | — | — | — | No | — | In Europe | No |
10 Talkspirit | Paris, France | — | — | 4.6 (117 reviews) | No | — | — | No |
11 openDesk | Berlin, Germany | — | — | — | No | — | Self-hosted | Yes |
Each page ranks the European options for that tool's users and says how each one compares.
Secure team messaging built on Matrix
Messaging and calling platform from the team that created the Matrix open standard. Organisations self-host it or buy a managed server. Used by several European governments, including in openDesk.
End-to-end encrypted messaging, calls and file sharing
Encrypted messenger for teams with chat, voice and video calls, and file sharing. Offered as a cloud service with servers in the EU, or on your own servers. Free for teams of up to five.
Self-hosted files, office editing, chat and calls
Open-source collaboration platform you run on your own servers or through a hosting partner. Nextcloud Hub covers file sync, online document editing, Talk chat and video calls, mail and calendar.
Swiss email, cloud storage, chat and video meetings
Swiss hosting company whose kSuite bundles email, kDrive storage with online document editing, kChat messaging and kMeet video calls. Runs in its own data centres in Switzerland.
Swiss encrypted messenger for companies
Business edition of the Swiss Threema messenger, with central user management and end-to-end encryption. Works without a phone number. Built for mobile messaging rather than channels and integrations.
Team chat, tasks and video calls in one tool
German collaboration tool that combines chat rooms, tasks, documents and video meetings in one workspace. Made and hosted in Germany.
Business messenger hosted in Germany
Secure messenger for companies and public bodies, with chats, calls, user management and alerting. Runs in a German cloud, a private cloud or on premises.
Open-source mail, chat, drive and calendar
Open-source workplace suite from the French company Linagora, with Twake Mail, Twake Chat, Twake Drive and a calendar. Available as a cloud service or installed on your own servers.
Encrypted business messenger from Munich
Encrypted messenger for companies with a management cockpit for users and devices. Operated only in certified data centres in Germany.
French collaborative workspace with team chat
French workplace platform that combines team chat, groups, a news feed and shared documents for internal communication.
Open-source workplace suite for public administration
Office and collaboration suite for the public sector, built from open-source parts such as Nextcloud and Element by ZenDiS, a German federal company. Covers mail, files, documents, chat and video calls.
A company counts as European if it's headquartered in Europe: the EU, the EEA, Switzerland, the UK, or elsewhere in geographic Europe, never Russia or Belarus. Headquarters means where it's run from, not a registered office. Companies founded in Europe but headquartered elsewhere today are listed separately, and a non-European owner is always named.
Each company was checked against its own legal notice, pricing page and data-processing terms, and its G2 page. The order weighs how fully each one replaces the US leaders, its track record and its ratings. No company paid to be listed or ranked.
Element (United Kingdom) for public sector and regulated teams needing self-hosted chat, Wire (Switzerland) for teams that need encrypted chat and calls and Nextcloud (Germany) for organisations that want to run the platform themselves. Each is headquartered in Europe; the table compares their hosting, prices and G2 ratings.
Element, Wire, Nextcloud and Infomaniak have a free plan with no time limit.
Wire, Infomaniak, Stackfield, Teamwire and ginlo Business store customer data in Europe by default. Being European doesn't make a tool GDPR compliant on its own: check its data processing agreement too.
Yes: Element, Wire, Nextcloud, Twake Workplace and openDesk, which you can also host on your own servers.
Yes. Element, Nextcloud Talk and Twake Chat are open source and run on your own servers, and Wire and Teamwire offer on-premises editions. Mattermost, Rocket.Chat and Zulip are often suggested too, but they are not European companies.
Wire and Threema Work encrypt all messages end to end. Element does it by default in direct messages and private rooms. Encrypted apps can make search and integrations more limited than in Slack or Teams.
