Since 2023, we’ve been expanding Mattermost’s mission from open source DevSecOps to supporting national security and resilience communities. To support this broader focus, v11 introduces updates to the free offerings from Mattermost, Inc., aligning them with the needs of critical infrastructure environments.
These changes DO NOT affect the Mattermost open source project, which remains under the same AGPLv3 license it has used since 2015. Community members can continue to compile, use, and contribute to the project as always.
With v11, we’re building on earlier steps to prevent oversized, unsupported deployments by setting clear user limits and guiding larger organizations toward commercial or nonprofit licensing. This ensures that high-stakes deployments are secure, compliant, and sustainable, while still maintaining a strong open source foundation at our core.
Deprecating GitLab Mattermost & GitLab SSO
We are grateful to GitLab and its community, which played a major role in the early success of the Mattermost open source project and the founding of Mattermost, Inc.
In 2015, when Mattermost was bundled into GitLab Omnibus, two exceptions were made:
- Compiled releases from Mattermost, Inc. used a special MIT-Compiled License instead of Mattermost’s reciprocal AGPLv3 open source license.
- GitLab SSO was included for free, even though SSO was otherwise part of our commercial offering, in order to support GitLab’s distribution.
GitLab Mattermost first shipped in August 2015 with GitLab 7.4 as an open source Slack alternative. Since then, Mattermost has grown into a sovereign, self-hosted Intelligent Mission Environment with messaging, workflow automation, project management, audio and screensharing, and AI agent capabilities for critical infrastructure industries. As a result of our growth, Mattermost now accounts for 30% of the size of the GitLab Omnibus package.
To streamline their distribution, GitLab approached us to deprecate GitLab Mattermost. We understand and support this decision and are working with GitLab on migration plans. A challenge is that some organizations have deployed the free, unsupported GitLab Mattermost far beyond its intended scale, creating compliance and security risks. These deployments will need to transition either to Mattermost’s commercial editions, nonprofit licensing, or the new v11 free tiers.
As part of this change, Mattermost Team Edition—the compiled version that underpins GitLab Mattermost—will deprecate GitLab SSO and lower its user limit from 1,000 to 250. Organizations needing GitLab SSO or larger deployments can move to Mattermost Entry, an upcoming free commercial offering with SSO and full feature access (with rate limits), or upgrade to a paid subscription that includes SSO.
In addition, we continue to offer nonprofit licensing, and we are considering special pricing for smaller for-profit organizations with less than $10 million USD in annual operating budget.
What’s Changing in v11 (October 2025)
Starting with v11, Mattermost will have two distinct free options:
1. Mattermost Entry (Free, Commercial License)
- New default free edition for small teams (25–50) and evaluation of subscription products.
- Includes expanded SSO support (SAML, Entra ID, OpenID, etc.).
- Full Intelligent Mission Environment feature set—ChatOps, Playbooks, Boards, AI Agents, Calls, Enterprise Advanced capabilities—with usage rate limits.
- Can be upgraded in-place to paid subscriptions.
- New terms in commercial license will cover re-distribution to ensure trademark, branding, security, and compliance requirements are met.
2. Mattermost Team Edition (MIT-Compiled License)
- For hobbyists, personal projects, and organizations requiring open source licensing.
- User limit reduced to 250 (from 1,000).
- GitLab SSO removed, consistent with GitLab’s deprecation of GitLab Mattermost.
In short:
- Mattermost Entry becomes the go-to free option for trying Mattermost with broad features and SSO.
- Mattermost Team Edition remains available for small, open source–only use cases, but with tighter limits to discourage oversized, unsupported deployments.
Why Now?
Mattermost’s mission has expanded since 2023—from DevSecOps into national security and critical infrastructure. As part of that shift, we’ve been working to reduce risks from oversized, unsupported free deployments, which can create compliance and safety concerns in critical environments.
At the same time, GitLab is working on a deprecation plan for GitLab Mattermost, which currently represents ~30% of the GitLab Omnibus package size. With Mattermost v11 serving as a natural transition point, this is the right moment to align our free offerings with their intended scope: supporting small teams, hobbyists, and open source preference users, while guiding larger organizations toward sustainable commercial or nonprofit options.
What This Means for Existing Deployments
- Paid Customers: No action required—your deployments are unaffected.
- Critical Infrastructure Enterprises: Can now evaluate advanced capabilities with Mattermost Entry—no trial license key needed within usage limits.
- Partners: Contact your Mattermost rep for v11 briefing and regional comms plans.
- Community / Small Teams (<250 users, no GitLab SSO): No impact—continue using Team Edition or GitLab Mattermost.
- Open Source Forks: No material changes; AGPLv3 licensing continues.
- Large Deployments (>250 users with GitLab SSO): Stay on v10.11 ESR for 12 months of security/maintenance updates while exploring commercial or nonprofit options.
- GitLab Omnibus Upgrades: Supported until the earlier of (1) August 2026 (v10.11 ESR EOL) or (2) GitLab removes Omnibus support. Evaluate the Mattermost Kubernetes Operator for smoother upgrades.
- Redistributors (for-profit): If you haven’t yet, please join the Mattermost Partner Program or contact Sales to have early understanding of re-distribution changes.
FAQ
1. Is Mattermost changing it’s open source license?
No. The Mattermost open source project remains AGPLv3, as it has since 2015. Nothing changes for people compiling from source or maintaining open source forks. The only changes affect compiled binaries from Mattermost, Inc., which are distributed under either a commercial license (Mattermost Entry) or the MIT-Compiled License (Mattermost Team Edition).
2. Why change the free tiers now?
Mattermost has been openly discussing since 2023 the risks of unsupported large-scale Team Edition deployments in critical infrastructure. Combined with GitLab’s plan to deprecate GitLab Mattermost (which makes up 30% of GitLab Omnibus), v11 is a natural transition point to align the product with mission-critical, sustainable use cases while still supporting small teams and open source adoption.
3. Why remove SSO from Team Edition?
SSO is part of Mattermost’s commercial feature set, and was added to GitLab Mattermost in 2015 as a special exception to support GitLab Omnibus distribution. With GitLab discontinuing GitLab Mattermost, that exception no longer applies, and Mattermost is aligning Team Edition with its original open source scope. GitLab SSO will still available for free in Mattermost Entry, which is under a commercial license.
4. If GitLab Mattermost wasn’t discontinued, would Mattermost have removed SSO?
Yes, eventually. Our intention was always to have SSO as a commercial feature, and its inclusion in GitLab Mattermost was an exception made in 2015 for distribution purposes. Continuing that exception indefinitely undermined Mattermost’s ability to sustain its commercial business. Even if GitLab hadn’t deprecated GitLab Mattermost, Mattermost likely would have moved SSO back into commercial tiers to ensure sustainability and fairness across its customer base.
5. Are these user limits going to change again?
Mattermost has already lowered limits over time (from thousands of users per “team,” to 1,000, and now to 250) to discourage unsustainable deployments. The intent is to stabilize limits at levels appropriate for hobbyist and small team use. Larger deployments will be guided to commercial or nonprofit licensing.
6. What happens after August 2026 if I can’t find funding for a purchase?
If you can’t purchase a commercial subscription and your deployment exceeds free tier limits, you have options:
- Apply for a nonprofit license ($250 for 3 years, up to 1,000 users).
- Re-size to fit within Mattermost Entry or Team Edition limits.
- Compile your own instance from source under AGPLv3.
If you need more time to purchase due to budgetary cycle limitations, please contact our Mattermost customer teams to see if accommodations can be made.
7. What are the limits on Mattermost Entry?
The current plan is for Mattermost Entry as a free platform for evaluating purchase to be limited to 10,000 messages, 10,000 push notifications/month, 1,000 board cards, 5 playbook runs/month, 40-minute call durations, 250 agent queries/month. Some scale and compliance features not typically needed for compliance will be omitted as well.
8. What would be the pathway to use a forked version of Mattermost?
A forked version of Mattermost compiled from the Mattermost open source project should be licensed under a reciprocal AGPLv3 open source license for the full derivative work, and the trademarked Mattermost name and logo from the system and user interface should be replaced by another work.