Compare Mattermost and Centrifugo on pricing, features, platforms, and ratings — both Team Chat tools, Freemium vs Open Source / Freemium pricing to decide…
At a Glance
Mattermost
Centrifugo
Primary category
Team Chat
Team Chat
Rating
Not documented
Not documented
Pricing model
Freemium
Open Source / Freemium
Starting price
Free (Starter, self-hosted); Professional from $10/user/month
Free (self-hosted)
Free plan
Yes
Yes
Free trial
Not documented
Not documented
Platforms
Web, iOS, Android, Mac, Windows
Not documented
Team collaboration
Not documented
Not documented
AI features
Not documented
Not documented
Public API
Not documented
Yes
Pricing Compared
Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.
Mattermost
Starter — Free N/A
Professional — $10/user/month annual
Enterprise — Custom annual
Centrifugo
Open Source (Apache 2.0) — Free N/A
Centrifugo PRO — Custom N/A
Pros & Cons
Mattermost
Pros
Fully open-source core with self-hosted and air-gapped deployment options
Strong fit for regulated industries, government and defense customers
Playbooks provide built-in workflow automation not native to Slack
Deep integrations with developer and DevOps tooling
Lightweight architecture (single Go binary) makes self-hosting comparatively simple
Cons
Smaller app/integration marketplace than Slack or Microsoft Teams
Enterprise pricing is custom-quoted and not publicly transparent
Self-hosting requires ongoing server maintenance and updates
UI and mobile experience is generally considered less polished than Slack
Annual prepaid billing only for official Professional and Enterprise licenses, no monthly option
Centrifugo
Pros
Free, Apache 2.0-licensed core with no per-connection or per-message fees
Production-proven at scale by companies including VK, Badoo, ManyChat, and Grafana
Supports multiple transports and scaling backends rather than locking teams into one stack
Broad official SDK coverage across web, mobile, and backend languages
Cons
Requires engineering effort to deploy, secure, and integrate versus a plug-and-play hosted API
Centrifugo PRO pricing is not publicly listed, requiring direct contact for enterprise features
Self-hosted operation means the adopting team is responsible for uptime, scaling, and monitoring
No official company headquarters or large support organization behind the open-source core
Use Cases
Mattermost
Incident response and DevOps workflows — Engineering teams use Playbooks to coordinate incident response with automated checklists and dedicated channels.
Regulated and government communication — Public-sector and financial-services organizations need self-hosted or air-gapped messaging to meet compliance requirements.
Secure internal team chat — Organizations that want Slack-like messaging while keeping full control of where data is stored.
Centrifugo
In-App Chat & Live Comments — Development teams use Centrifugo to power real-time chat and live comment features without depending on a hosted third-party API.
AI Response Streaming — Applications use Centrifugo to stream partial LLM/AI responses to clients as they are generated.