Happy Valley

Front vs Mattermost

Front and Mattermost are both team communication tools. Front is aimed at small businesses and enterprise, while Mattermost is aimed at enterprise and developers. Only Mattermost has a free plan.

Front

Shared inbox for customer-facing teams

Mattermost

Self-hosted secure collaboration

PricingPaid · $35Open source
Starting price$35/moNot published
Free planNoYes
Free trial14 days—
Built forSmall businesses, EnterpriseEnterprise, Developers
Platformsweb, macos, windows, ios, androidweb, macos, windows, linux, ios, android
CountryFR · 2013US · 2015
Rating——

Choose Front if

Email-heavy, collaborative customer teams in B2B and services.

  • Natural for teams living in email
  • Excellent collaboration features
  • Omnichannel without a ticket mindset

Look elsewhere if: High-volume consumer support (Zendesk, Freshdesk) or small teams on a budget (Help Scout).

Choose Mattermost if

Organizations needing self-hosted secure chat.

  • Full control and security
  • Open source
  • DevOps-focused

Look elsewhere if: Teams wanting Slack's ecosystem.

Front vs Mattermost pricing

Front

  • Starter$35/seat/mo$25 billed annually; up to 10 seats
  • Professional$85/seat/mo$65 billed annually; up to 50 seats, omnichannel
  • Enterprise$105/seat/moAnnual billing only; advanced AI tools

Mattermost

  • Free$0Self-hosted, community support
  • ProfessionalCustomAnnual seat licenses; SSO, access controls
  • EnterpriseCustomCompliance, HA, 24x7 support
  • Enterprise AdvancedCustomAir-gapped, Zero Trust, classified controls

Front · Key features

  • Shared and personal inboxes in one email-like interface
  • Internal comments, assignments and collision detection
  • Rules, SLAs and workload balancing
  • Front AI for drafts, summaries and tagging
  • Knowledge base, chat widget and customer profiles
  • Analytics and CRM integrations

Cons

  • Expensive per seat
  • Starter plan limited to 10 seats
  • Ticket-style reporting is weaker than Zendesk

Mattermost · Key features

  • Self-hosted team chat
  • Playbooks for incidents
  • Boards
  • DevOps integrations
  • Compliance and security
  • Air-gapped deployment

Cons

  • UX behind Slack
  • Self-hosting effort
  • Smaller app ecosystem

Front vs Mattermost: FAQ

Do Front and Mattermost have a free plan?

Front has no free plan, a 14-day free trial. Mattermost has a free plan.

Which is better for small businesses, Front or Mattermost?

Front lists small businesses as a core audience, while Mattermost is aimed more at enterprise and developers.

Not sure yet?

Front vs Mattermost (2026): Pricing and Features