Category
Team chat
Channels and direct messages for staff. Microsoft Teams keeps chat in Canada for tenants provisioned there, and Slack offers Canada on its Business+ and Enterprise plans; the tools you can host yourself have their vendors' clouds outside Canada, but can be run on Canadian servers.
Also shown here, from other categories: Microsoft Teams (listed under video calls); Google Workspace (listed under office suites); Nextcloud (listed under office suites).
Run it yourself: 5; US-owned, Canadian region: 2; Data leaves Canada: 1
No Canadian-owned team chat tool that keeps data in Canada could be confirmed. This is one of the gaps the research found.
What to ask any team chat tool
- Are messages, files and the search index stored in Canada, and on which plans?
- Which data stays outside the region anyway: profiles, membership lists, logs, AI features?
- If you run it yourself, where do mobile push notifications pass through?
Compared side by side
Run it yourself
Software you install on servers you choose. The vendor never holds your data.
| Listing | Tier | Stored in Canada? | Owner | Servers run by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Element | Self-hosted: Run it yourself | If you host it yourself | United Kingdom | US company |
| Mattermost | Self-hosted: Run it yourself | If you host it yourself | US | US company |
| Rocket.Chat | Self-hosted: Run it yourself | If you host it yourself | US | US company |
| Zulip | Self-hosted: Run it yourself | If you host it yourself | US | US company |
| Nextcloud | Self-hosted: Run it yourself | If you host it yourself | Germany | Owner not stated |
US-owned, Canadian region
Data can be stored in Canada, and the owner is a US company.
| Listing | Tier | Stored in Canada? | Owner | Servers run by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slack | Tier 4: US-owned, Canadian region | Yes, if you choose it | US | US company |
| Microsoft Teams | Tier 4: US-owned, Canadian region | Yes | US | US company |
Data leaves Canada
No Canadian storage option, whoever the owner is.
| Listing | Tier | Stored in Canada? | Owner | Servers run by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Workspace | Tier 5: Data leaves Canada | No | US | US company |