Element is the messenger for people who want to own their chat infrastructure. It runs on the open Matrix standard — federated like email, hostable like a website, and fully open source. We award 8.2 / 10: noticeably below Signal because end-to-end encryption is opt-in per room (not default), but stronger than any messenger that locks you into one company's server.
Reviewed by the xchat.directory editorial team · Last reviewed
Element at a glance
What Is Element?
Element is the most popular client for the Matrix protocol — an open standard for real-time communication, kind of the messaging equivalent of email's SMTP. Element is built and maintained by Element (the company, formerly New Vector) in the UK. The Matrix homeserver reference implementation (Synapse) and the protocol itself are open source under the Apache 2.0 license.
What makes Element different from Signal, Threema, and Wire is federation.
Any individual or company can run a Matrix homeserver. Homeservers talk to each other
through the open Matrix protocol — so a user on matrix.org can chat with a
user on acme-corp.example.com without any central party granting permission.
That's the architectural difference: Element users control where their account and
message data physically live.
Element is targeted at three audiences: open-source communities who want a chat tool that integrates with their git workflow, businesses who need to self-host chat data on their own infrastructure, and privacy-aware users who don't want to be locked into Meta's, Google's, or any single company's chat service.
Privacy & Security — Federated, Open, but Opt-In E2EE
Element's privacy model is unique and worth understanding in detail:
- Open standard. Matrix is developed by the Matrix.org Foundation under an open governance model. The protocol specs, server reference implementation (Synapse), and all Element clients are open source.
- Federation. No single company controls the network. If element.io shut down tomorrow, the network would keep running because matrix.org, kde.org, and thousands of other homeservers would still be online.
- E2EE uses the Olm/Megolm protocol, audited multiple times by independent firms. It is strong crypto but works differently from the Signal Protocol.
- Self-hosting. You can run your own Matrix server (with or without Element as the client). For a regulated business this is the killer feature: full data sovereignty.
The catch — and the reason Element doesn't beat Signal on everyday privacy — is end-to-end encryption is opt-in per room. New 1:1 conversations are E2EE by default in modern Element, but new group rooms start server-side encrypted and have to be flipped on in settings. Most users never flip that switch.
This is a deliberate trade-off in the Matrix protocol: server-side encryption enables features like search, cross-device search history, and E2EE compatibility bridges to Slack and Discord — features that are impossible with strict default E2EE. For most users, the trade-off is fine. For an activist checking who knows what in their chat server, it's not.
Bridges — the practical superpower
The Matrix ecosystem runs bridges that connect Matrix rooms to other chat systems: mautrix bridges for WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Slack, Discord, SMS, Instagram, Facebook, and more. The result: you can use one Element app to interact with contacts on other platforms, through encrypted bridges. The catch: bridges typically run on third-party servers and the bridge operator sees the unencrypted traffic on each side.
Features — Closer to Slack Than to WhatsApp
Element is positioned between a messenger and a team collaboration tool:
- 1:1 and group rooms up to 1,000 members
- Threaded replies, public room listings, room invites by link
- End-to-end encrypted rooms (opt-in per room)
- Voice and video calls using WebRTC — encrypted when the room is E2EE
- Spaces — workspace-style groupings of rooms (think Slack workspace or Discord server)
- Search across history — works because most history is server-side encrypted (a real trade-off if you want strict E2EE)
- File sharing and inline preview up to ~100MB per file
- Cross-platform clients: iOS, Android, Web (works in any browser), macOS, Windows, Linux
- Bots and integrations via webhooks and bots (smaller than Slack's ecosystem but real)
- Bridges to WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Slack, Discord, SMS
What Element doesn't ship: Stories, public broadcast channels, sticker economy. Matrix doesn't try to be a social app — it tries to be an open replacement for Slack and Discord that you can self-host.
Cost — Free, With a Hosted Option
Element Web is free. Element Desktop and mobile apps are free. The Matrix network has free public homeservers you can register on. If you want a hosted, premium experience, Element sells Element Cloud (their hosted Matrix service) and Element Enterprise On-Prem (self-hosted with commercial support). Pricing for the hosted plans is per-user, per-month, starting around $5/user/month.
Self-hosting Matrix is operationally heavier than running a Signal server. A minimal homeserver (Synapse in monolith mode) can run on a small VPS, but production-scale deployments for thousands of users typically require real ops work — Postgres, worker processes, federation tuning, etc.
Who Should Use Element?
Element is the right choice if:
- You want to self-host your chat data — for compliance, sovereignty, or ideological reasons
- You run an open-source community and want chat that integrates with GitHub, GitLab, or your forum
- You're building cross-platform chat features with bridges to Slack / Discord / WhatsApp
- You want a Slack replacement that doesn't sell your message metadata
- You participate in federated communities — Matrix.org hosts many public rooms for open-source projects, FOSS communities, and hobby groups
If your priority is "easy E2EE for daily chat," Signal wins with default-on encryption. If you're a business looking for E2EE collaboration with SSO and admin controls out of the box, Wire is the more polished pick. If you need zero server-side metadata, Session or Threema are better picks.
Element vs Signal vs Wire vs Slack — Quick Comparison
Vs Signal: Signal is a single nonprofit with one app; Element is an open standard with many client and server implementations. Signal's E2EE is default; Element's is opt-in per room. Pick Signal for daily encrypted chat; pick Element for infrastructure control.
Vs Wire: Both target teams with E2EE. Wire has better-built-in admin (SSO, audit logs, conference calls). Element has better self-hosting and federated control. Pick Wire if you want a polished SaaS; pick Element if you want to own the stack.
Vs Slack: Element gives you everything Slack does — channels, threads, integrations, voice rooms — but with E2EE and self-hosting. Slack has more polished integrations and a bigger user base. Element is the right answer if Slack's pricing or data ownership is the problem.
The Honest Verdict
Element is not the messenger most people will adopt for daily chat with their family. The UX is rougher than WhatsApp, the group size limit is half of Telegram's, and the E2EE-default situation means privacy is one toggle away from being broken. For most consumers, Signal or Threema will be the right pick.
What Element is, uniquely, is the only well-maintained, fully open-source, federated chat protocol that's actually viable as a Slack or Discord replacement. For open-source communities, self-hosting businesses, and anyone who wants their chat infrastructure to outlive any single company, Element is the strongest choice in 2026 — and it's only getting better.
What we like
- Open standard (Matrix) with federated server model — no single point of control
- E2EE rooms + interoperability bridges to Telegram/Slack/Discord
- Self-hostable for organizations
What we don't
- E2EE must be turned on for each new room (not default)
- User experience is rougher than WhatsApp/Telegram
- Smaller consumer user base than major players