Team messaging, files and documents, open source, hosted in France
The team chat you are free to leave.
Channels, threads, files and documents edited together, in one workspace. The code is open, your history is never capped, a full export is always one click away, and you can host the whole thing yourself for free. Nothing keeps you here except the tool itself.
Free for up to 5 users, no card needed. After that, €5.50 excl. VAT per additional user per month.
- AGPL-3.0The code is public, auditable and reusable.
- Unlimited historyEven on the free plan. Nothing hidden, nothing deleted.
- 4 imports readySlack, Teams, Mattermost, Nextcloud.
- 6 languagesFrench, English, Spanish, German, Italian, Polish.
the product
What Ruchoir already does. No promises.
Only what runs today on real instances is listed here. What is coming is listed just below, with its actual status.
Public or private channels, one-to-one or group conversations, and threads so the channel does not drown.
Mentions understand accents and full names. Pin, save, find again.
A file space per team, attachments with previews, link previews fetched without a third party.
Documents, spreadsheets and presentations are edited together, live, in editors that keep the habits of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Office and OpenDocument files stay in their own format.
Personal and space calendars, invitations and answers, several reminders, a year view, search and printing. A calendar can be shared, and your phone subscribes to it over iCal.
Ctrl+K searches everything, accent-insensitive: “reunion” finds “réunion”.
Your company, your association, a client: each workspace keeps its unread count, visible at a glance.
Owner, admin, member, guest. A leadership channel stays with the people who belong in it.
Browser notifications, sound and quiet hours, set channel by channel.
Included in every plan. A daily backup, and a restore we have actually tested.
Detailed description of the preview
The preview shows Ruchoir open in the “Nantes Studio”
workspace. On the left, a column of icons switches between workspaces: one of the other two has 2 notifications, the last one unread activity. At the foot of that column is the avatar of the person signed in.
The sidebar carries the workspace's name and the notifications (3 unread), then search (Search for a channel or a person…), Threads, Mentions (2 unread), Workspace files and Saved. Under “Favourite channels”
: product (3 unread) and dev. Under “Channels”
: general, design (2 unread), leadership, a restricted channel marked with a padlock, support, marked as imported from Slack, and old-site, archived. Under “Direct messages”
: Léa Martin (1 unread), Hugo Bernard and Deployments, a bot.
The open channel is #general, 7 members, “News and life of the studio”
. Today's messages:
- 09:02, Inès Moreau, pinned message:
“Reminder: team meeting on Thursday at 10:00. Agenda in the thread.”
It has 3 thumbs-up reactions, 1 party reaction and 3 replies. - 09:14, Karim Haddad:
“Last night's backup went fine, restore tested on staging.”
- 09:30: Sophie Lefèvre joined the channel.
- 09:41, Sophie Lefèvre, mentioning Camille Roux:
“Hello! @Camille Roux I'll send you the town hall's quote this morning.”
Attached: Town-hall-quote-2026.pdf, 248 KB. - 09:52, Camille Roux:
“Thanks Sophie, I'll read it before noon.”
(edited), with 1 heart reaction.
At the bottom, the message field reads “Message #general”
, above the formatting, attachment, mention and emoji buttons and the send button. Underneath: “Enter to send · Shift+Enter for a new line”
.
Under construction, and saying so
No invented dates. When a piece ships, it moves to the list above.
- plannedVideo: an open connector, Vuisio by default
- plannedMobile and desktop apps
- plannedGoogle and Microsoft sign-in, free
the migration
What comes over. What stays behind.
Each import was written against a real instance, then checked line by line. The import screen shows what will not come over before anything starts: an import that loses things without saying so is the one failure we do not allow ourselves.
A standard Slack export only contains public channels; private channels and direct messages need a compliance export, which Slack reserves for paid plans. Files are links that expire, so the conversion runs while the export is fresh.
| Item | Comes over | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Public and archived channels | yes | Archived ones arrive read-only. |
| Private channels | partly | From a compliance export, or those the token's owner belongs to. |
| Direct messages | partly | Only from a compliance export: reading someone's messages with their token is not a migration. |
| Threads, reactions, mentions | yes | Reactions keep who reacted; mentions become names. |
| Attached files | yes | Downloaded during the conversion, stored once. |
| Accounts | yes | Matched by email; each one activates by invitation. |
| Custom emoji | no | Not in the export: they stay as :name:. |
| Canvases, lists, workflows, huddles | no | No equivalent today, declared before the import. |
Passwords never come over: everyone signs in again here. Gaps that depend on an upcoming feature are tracked with that feature.
Contrary to what is often written, a Mattermost export does contain private channels and direct messages. An archived channel, on the other hand, is missing from it entirely: we say so before you migrate, not after.
| Item | Comes over | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Teams | yes | A team becomes a workspace, visibility included. |
| Public and private channels | yes | Purpose and header merged into one topic. |
| Direct and group messages | yes | Placed in a workspace their participants share. |
| Threads, reactions, pins, attachments | yes | With who reacted, who uploaded, and when. |
| Saved messages, favourites, reading position | yes | What each person had kept comes with them. |
| Archived channels | no | Missing from Mattermost's own export. |
| Roles and permission schemes | no | Mapping them automatically would grant rights nobody chose. |
Passwords never come over: everyone signs in again here. Gaps that depend on an upcoming feature are tracked with that feature.
Established against a real Nextcloud 34 instance with Talk 24. Files are read from the data directory, not the cache: the cache says what Nextcloud thinks it has, the disk says what it has.
| Item | Comes over | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts | yes | Matched by email when there is one; otherwise the admin decides. |
| Talk group and one-to-one conversations | yes | One-to-one ones become direct messages. |
| Threads, reactions, pins | yes | With who reacted. |
| Every account's files | yes | Deduplicated: on our test set, 392 MB becomes 63 MB. |
| Favourites and reading position | yes | Talk names the last message read, and we keep it as is. |
| Shares between accounts and groups | no | The biggest gap, being worked on. |
| Versions, trash, tags | no | Only the current content comes over. |
| Calendars | yes | Series, exceptions, guests and their answers, reminders: each calendar lands with its owner. |
| Contacts | no | Out of scope, for good. |
Passwords never come over: everyone signs in again here. Gaps that depend on an upcoming feature are tracked with that feature.
Teams has no export a customer can download. We read your tenant through Microsoft Graph, with an app you register yourself and seven read-only permissions. Validated against a real Microsoft 365 tenant.
| Item | Comes over | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Teams, standard and private channels | yes | A team becomes a workspace; an archived team arrives read-only. |
| Shared channels | partly | Members from other organisations do not come in. |
| Threads, reactions, mentions | yes | Names that Teams splits into two mentions are joined back. |
| Posted files and the team library | yes | Filed like an upload: a private channel stays private. |
| Each person's Outlook calendars | yes | Optional, with an eighth permission (Calendars.Read). Team calendars stay in Outlook. |
| People who left | yes | Kept as authors, as deactivated accounts. |
| Private chats | no | By decision: we do not ask for the right to read everyone's chats. |
| Pinned and saved messages, favourites | no | Microsoft Graph does not give them to an app. |
| Meetings, recordings, Loop, Planner | no | Declared before the import. |
Passwords never come over: everyone signs in again here. Gaps that depend on an upcoming feature are tracked with that feature.
the comparison
Why not Slack, Teams, or another European alternative?
Facts, with their source and date. And on the last row, what the other one does better than us: if that is what you need today, take it.
| RuchoirFrance · AGPL-3.0 | SlackSalesforce · United States | |
|---|---|---|
| Publisher | Ruchoir, France | Salesforce, United States |
| Source code | Open source, AGPL-3.0, end to end | Proprietary |
| Self-hosting | Yes, free and with no user limit | No |
| Free plan | Hosted: up to 5 users, 5 GB, unlimited history | Yes, but 90 days of visible history, and deleted after a year1 |
| Paid price | Cloud: €5.50 excl. VAT per additional user per month, from the 6th, 100 GB | Pro: $7.25 per person per month2 |
| Scope | Messaging, threads, files, document co-editing, calendar. Video under construction | Messaging, huddles, canvases, lists, workflows |
| What they do better | This row is theirs. | Thousands of integrations, mature mobile and desktop apps, built-in audio and video. |
| Criterion | Ruchoir | Slack | Microsoft Teams | Mattermost | Nextcloud | kSuite (Infomaniak) | Whaller | Hexagone | La Suite numérique |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Publisher | Ruchoir, France | Salesforce, United States | Microsoft, United States | Mattermost, Inc., United States | Nextcloud GmbH, Germany | Infomaniak, Switzerland | Whaller, France | Interstis and a consortium of 7 companies, France 203012 | French State (DINUM) |
| Source code | Open source, AGPL-3.0, end to end | Proprietary | Proprietary | Team Edition open source (MIT, AGPL); paid editions under a commercial licence5 | Open source, AGPL | kChat: interface derived from Mattermost, server built in-house8 | Proprietary | No public repository found as of 24 September 2026 | Open source |
| Self-hosting | Yes, free and with no user limit | No | No | Yes | Yes | No: kChat needs an Infomaniak account with kSuite9 | As a paid option (“All On Premise”)10 | Not announced by the publisher | The code can be reused |
| Free plan | Hosted: up to 5 users, 5 GB, unlimited history | Yes, but 90 days of visible history, and deleted after a year1 | Not recorded here | Team Edition, “under 250 activated users”; Entry, commercial, capped at 10,000 visible messages5 | Yes, self-hosted | Not recorded here | Up to 100 members and 5 communities10 | No free plan on the pricing page11 | Free, reserved for French State public servants and their partners13 |
| Paid price | Cloud: €5.50 excl. VAT per additional user per month, from the 6th, 100 GB | Pro: $7.25 per person per month2 | Microsoft 365 Business Basic with Teams: €6.07 excl. VAT per person per month3 | Professional: $10 per person per month6 | Enterprise from 100 users: €71.29 excl. VAT per person per year, Talk on top (€42)7 | Not recorded here | Pro: €3 excl. VAT per person per month10 | Full suite from €6.49 per person per month11 | No commercial offer |
| Scope | Messaging, threads, files, document co-editing, calendar. Video under construction | Messaging, huddles, canvases, lists, workflows | Messaging, meetings, telephony, Microsoft 365. Also sold without Teams in Europe since the September 2025 commitments4 | Messaging; files as attachments, no file space | Files, calendar, contacts, office suite, Talk | Messaging, mail, calendar, kDrive, kMeet | Enterprise social network: spheres, news feed, documents, video | Mail, calendar, files, co-editing, video, messaging | Tchap, Visio, Docs and other tools |
pricing
Free up to 5. A price per user after that. Zero on your servers.
Your first 5 users cost nothing, and you only pay for the ones after them: 10 users is €27.50 excl. VAT per month. Our limits are those of our hosting, never those of the software: on your servers it is the same product, without a ceiling.
Free
€0
1 to 5 users
5 GB of storageCloud
€5.50 excl. VAT / month
per user from the 6th
100 GB of storageEnterprise
On quote
Tailored storage
Organisation modules, committed supportSelf-hosted
€0
No limit on users
or storage
€38.50 excl. VAT per month
The first 5 are free: you pay 7 × €5.50 excl. VAT. 100 GB of storage, unlimited history, imports and security included.
For comparison, at 12 users
- Ruchoir, hosted€38.50 excl. VAT
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic with Teams3€72.84 excl. VAT
- Slack Pro2$87
- Mattermost Professional6$120
- Nextcloud Enterprise and Talk7from 100 usersMinimum 100 users, so €944.08 excl. VAT per month at the lowest.
Public prices per person per month, billed annually, checked on 24 September 2026. Dollar amounts are shown as quoted, without conversion.
Never paid for
- Your history, all of it
- Imports, every one
- Two-factor authentication
- Backups and export
- Roles and restricted channels
- Google and Microsoft sign-in planned
Enterprise, on quote
- Tailored storage
- SAML and directory sync (SCIM)
- Custom roles
- Audit log export to a SIEM
- High availability
- Support with a committed response time
If you stop paying
Your workspace becomes read-only, then an export window opens. Nothing is deleted, nothing is hidden, and a feature published as open source will never be taken back to be sold to you.
on your servers
On your servers, it is free and without a ceiling.
The same software as our hosting, under the AGPL. No crippled edition, no user limit, no activation key for the core product. Your servers, your backups, your rules.
- An API in RustOne binary, which also serves the interface.
- PostgreSQL and ValkeyOpen building blocks, governed by their communities.
- Garage for filesS3-compatible storage, built by the French non-profit Deuxfleurs.
- No mail server neededInvitations by link, resets with recovery codes.
who it is for
For organisations. Not for individuals.
Companies and SMEs
A team of 5 starts for free; beyond that, a readable price per user, with no sales call to try it.
Associations
Volunteers, staff, the board: a channel per committee, files in the same place, and a budget that stays with the cause.
Local authorities and public bodies
Code your IT team can audit, and a choice of hosting: ours, in France with PulseHeberg, or in-house.
Cooperatives and networks
Several organisations, one account per person, one workspace per organisation, and the code in common.
Ruchoir has no plan for personal or family use, and will not have one: the whole product is designed for teamwork.
questions
What people ask us before switching.
- What is Ruchoir?
- Team messaging with a built-in file space and document co-editing, published under the AGPL-3.0 open source licence. You use it hosted by us with PulseHeberg in France, free for up to 5 users, or installed on your own servers, free and without limits.
- Why you, when there are already plenty of tools?
- Because leaving us costs nothing: the code is public, the export is complete and self-hosting is free. A tool you can leave at any time has to earn your staying, and that is the only promise we make.
- How much does Ruchoir cost?
- Hosted, Ruchoir is free for up to 5 users with 5 GB of storage. From the 6th, each additional user costs €5.50 excl. VAT per month, with 100 GB of storage: 10 users cost €27.50 excl. VAT per month, 50 cost €247.50. The Enterprise plan is on quote. Installed on your servers, Ruchoir is free and unlimited, and history is never capped, whatever the plan.
- Where is my data hosted?
- On our hosting, with PulseHeberg, in France; another European region is possible if your organisation asks for it. Self-hosted, wherever you decide. Either way, nothing goes to a third-party service.
- What do I lose when leaving Slack?
- What Slack's standard export does not contain: private channels and direct messages (they need a compliance export, reserved for Slack's paid plans), custom emoji, canvases, lists and workflows. The details are in the migration section.
- Does Ruchoir replace Teams for meetings?
- Not yet. Video is coming as an open connector: Vuisio by default, or the service of your choice. If meetings are your main use today, keep them where they are until it lands.
- Can several people edit Word, Excel or PowerPoint files together?
- Yes, live, in editors that keep the habits of the Office suite. Of 75 recognised formats, 28 are edited as they are, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OpenDocument among them; 35 older or from elsewhere (Office 97-2003, Pages, Numbers, Keynote) are first converted to a modern format; 12 open read-only, PDF and Visio diagrams among them. Files with macros can be edited, but their VBA macros do not run.
- How is it different from Infomaniak kSuite?
- kSuite is a complete suite hosted in Switzerland, whose kChat messaging reuses Mattermost's interface on a server built in-house; it requires an Infomaniak account. Ruchoir is open source end to end and runs on your own servers.
- And from Nextcloud?
- Nextcloud covers much more ground (contacts, hundreds of apps) and remains an excellent base. Ruchoir focuses on team conversation and what goes with it (files, documents, calendar), and imports an existing Nextcloud, Talk and calendars included.
- What happens if Ruchoir disappears?
- The code stays public under the AGPL: anyone can keep running it. And you keep the full export of your workspace, in a documented format.
Try it with five. Stay if it is worth it.
Create a workspace in two minutes, bring over your Slack, Teams, Mattermost or Nextcloud history, and invite your team with a simple link.