Businesses today are composed of teams that work online and need central hubs for collaboration and communication. Online platforms satisfy that need, enabling people to work together no matter where they are in the world. In 2017, Smartsheet interviewed 1,000 IT decision-makers at businesses across North America and found that collaboration apps are no longer "just nice to have", but are a necessity in order for businesses to compete. If you have been shopping around and aren't sure which platform is best for your company's needs, this blog will compare two industry-leading options, Mattermost vs. Microsoft Teams. Learn about the features, pros and cons, and recommended uses of each, in this Brightscout article.
Mattermost
First up, Mattermost is an open source, team collaboration platform designed for enterprises. It differentiates itself from other platforms by offering higher levels of privacy, scalability, legal compliance, customization, and security. Further, it caters to different sized companies with three editions:
- The Open Source Team Edition for dozens of users
- The Enterprise Edition E10 for thousands of users
- The Enterprise Edition E20 for tens of thousands of users
Here’s a look at the features of each edition.
Features
Open Source Team Edition
- Group messaging
- One-on-one messaging
- Unlimited search history
- Unlimited integrations
- Webhooks and commands
- Multi-language interface
- Custom emojis
- File sharing
- Archiving
- Web, mobile, and PC apps
Enterprise Edition E10
- All open source team edition features
- Advanced access control
- Commercial support
- AD/LDAP single-sign-on and syncAll Team Edition features
- Multi-factor authentication
- Custom branding tools
Enterprise Edition E20
- All E10 features
- Performance monitoring
- Okta, ADFS, SAML, SSO
- Compliance reporting
- Horizontal scaling
Pros and Cons
Next, let's look at the pros and cons.
Mattermost Pros
- Improves communication and collaboration within companies
- Deploys where you want (i.e., public, private, or hybrid cloud)
- Run it within your existing security parameters
- Single-tenant, high availability solution
- Own your data even after canceling a subscription
- Compatible with vendor-agnostic integrations
- Highly scalable
- Open source code enables full customization
- Full white-labeling possible
Mattermost Cons
- Users can’t share screens
- No video conferencing
- No audio conferencing
- Small organizations may find it to be more than they need
Now you know the basics of Mattermost, so let's take a look at Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams aims to enable intelligent communications in Office 365 by bringing conversations, files, meetings, Office apps, and third-party integrations together in one place. It is built on Microsoft technologies, powered by the Microsoft cloud, and woven together by Office 365 Groups. If you’re not a fan of Office 365 for your business, Teams won't be a good fit as it requires one of the following Office 365 subscriptions:
- Small Business Plans: Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium
- Enterprise Plans: Office 365 Enterprise E1, Office 365 Enterprise E3, Office 365 Enterprise E4 (retired), and Office 365 Enterprise E4 (retired)
- Education Plans: Office 365 Education, Office 365 Education Plus, and Office 365 Education E3 (retired)
However, you can try Microsoft Teams with a free trial of Office 365.Here is a look at its features.
Features
- Collaborate in real-time through chat, voice calls, and video conferencing
- Share files and collaborate on shared deliverables
- Connect tools in the workspace like GitHub, Planner, etc.
- Share data and insights from the Microsoft Graph
- Invite anyone with an email account as a guest
- Manage users and guests
- Schedule meetings using the Outlook calendar integration
- Use connectors, bots, and tabs to extend capabilities with Teams
- Hold meetings on a desktop, mobile device, or via Skype Room Systems with HD video.
- Available in 39 languages
Pros and cons
Next, let's look at the pros and cons.
Microsoft Teams Pros
- Provides a central hub for communication and collaboration within Office 365
- Integrates other Microsoft applications and services
- Video and audio conferencing
- Enterprise security and compliance
- Can invite any person with an email address as a guest
- Multi-language
Microsoft Teams Cons
- Only works in collaboration with Office 365
- Maximum of 300 users
- Lack customization and scalability
- Data is stored with Microsoft
Mattermost vs. Microsoft Teams: Which is better for your business?
The best platform for your business is...drumroll….going to depend on your business. First, Microsoft Teams is the central hub within Office 365. It brings users together while integrating Microsoft apps and services to create a rich collaborative environment. Being so, it could be a great fit if your company has 300 or fewer users and if you're already using Microsoft Office apps and services(Outlook, Skype, SharePoint, Exchange, Word, Excel, etc.)
However, if your organization doesn’t subscribe to Office 365 and doesn’t want to, Teams isn't going to work out. Beyond that, Mattermost offers much more flexibility and security. You can access the source code, drivers, open source integrations, APIs, and more, enabling you to customize the platform to your specific needs. See the Uber case study for a great example of what is possible.
Further, the fact that you can run Mattermost within your own security parameters on a private cloud, provides a higher level of security and control. All of your data will truly be yours and you will never be paywalled from it. Although Microsoft Teams states they do not use or share your information for any purpose, it is still vulnerable to their security parameters and policies. Mattermost removes that risk.
The Bottom Line
In conclusion, if your company already uses Microsoft Office 365 in daily activities and you are okay with the out-of-the-box platform Microsoft has created, Teams will likely work well for you. On the other hand, if you are looking for a customizable, highly secure, scalable solution, Mattermost is a better fit.
Brightscout is a partner of Mattermost that helps global enterprises to successfully leverage the Mattermost platform. We transform messaging and communication within organizations to help them achieve their objectives more efficiently and effectively. If you're interested in a custom Mattermost solution, contact us today to learn more. What if neither of these platforms sounds like a good fit?
Check out our blogs Mattermost vs. Slack and Mattermost vs. Hipchat/Stride.
