The Most Private Slack Alternatives

The Most Private Slack Alternative For Big Organizations

One of the best Slack alternatives for large organizations that need absolute privacy is Mattermost. But this particular solution will require some funding and technical administration time, despite being open source.

A quick look at the Mattermost website gives you a decent overview of their philosophy: End-to-end encrypted, secure collaboration. As a side benefit to this, and a nice side effect of their stellar reporting tools, Mattermost is a great compliance tool as well: HIPAA, FINRA, GDPR, and CCPA for starters.

But the real benefit for journalists, non-profits, and other organizations that might fear private or government reprisal: Mattermost provides unfettered collaboration without fear. It implements multi-factor authentication, encryption of data in transit and at rest, private Cloud deployment options, air gapping options, and intricate audit controls. Properly administered, this is a powerful platform that would require the ability to brute force 2048-bit RSA keys in order to breach. That level of protection should be sufficient until the early 2030s unless there's a major breakthrough on the quantum cryptography side. And by then, it's likely Mattermost will simply up their game as well.

In much less nerdy language: Mattermost is an alternative to Slack that will protect your organization's collaboration for the next decade, as long as it is properly implemented. But it will cost you.

The Most Private Slack Alternative For Small Organizations

Anyone familiar with the topic isn't going to be surprised that Element is in the conversation when it comes to private Slack alternatives for small organizations and even freelancers. And though there are some notable contenders, there are lots of reasons why Element is the top choice for private collaboration.

First of all, as part of its dedication to free communication for everyone, Element Community ownership is free, forever. Element's personal edition, particularly suitable for mobile devices, is also free forever. This is attractive to any organization on a budget.

Second of all, the developers of Element are also the developers of Matrix. And Matrix is the core of the Element product line. That means everything within Element is intertwined with open-source, secure, decentralized, real-time communication protocols. It also means that Matrix VOIP and chat can be added to existing infrastructure without too much additional hassle.

The benefit of all this to journalists, freelance reporters, activists, protestors, and other small organizations that value their privacy is simple: Free collaboration with end-to-end encryption. Two-factor authentication is available. Access from just about every operating system and device on the planet is possible.

Adding Secure Browsing

Security and encryption are only effective in layers. Collaboration and encrypted chat are a good start, but without secure browsing, you can easily leak private details that will make you easy to identify online.

Using a privacy app can protect you from one of the most insidious tracking methods of the 2020s: Device and browser fingerprinting. A government entity, advertiser, or hacking group can use your particular combination of hardware, software, and settings to pinpoint exactly who you are. AmIUnique can illustrate this possibility quite clearly.

By taking advantage of private browsing you can obfuscate your true location and setup, and ensure that there's no direct link back to you.

Read the fine print of any privacy app VERY carefully, make sure their private network is entirely encrypted, and they don't keep any logs or E-mail addresses.

Such tools are a great way for journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens to research topics that might otherwise raise red flags via government monitoring.

Conclusion

By using Mattermost or Element, in combination with a privacy app, you can create the most private Slack alternative on the market today. This will allow you to evade the most common types of online communication interception used by law enforcement organizations around the world.