Unbloat your teams.
Your team doesn't want another loading spinner. Native desktop. Low RAM. Encrypted end-to-end. No Copilot in the pipeline. No Microsoft ecosystem required. Half the price of M365.
Teams is the app your team complains about. It's heavy. It's slow. Features are buried three menus deep. Copilot — if licensed — reads your messages. It comes bundled with an Office suite you didn't ask for. And if you're not on M365, the pricing hurts. We built the opposite. Native. Fast. Encrypted end-to-end. No AI in the pipeline. No Microsoft tenant required. It's honestly almost not fair.
Feature-by-feature
Don't take our word for it — self-host it free and see for yourself.
The bill, over time
5 years, 50 users. Cumulative list-price spend. Both lines plotted in €; competitor converted at $1 ≈ €0.92.
List prices, annual billing. Discounts, negotiated terms, and FX drift may vary.
Why teams choose TheChatApp
- →Native. Not a browser-in-a-window wrapped in a trench coat. The app opens fast, stays fast, and doesn't spin your fan when you switch channels.
- →Low RAM. Low CPU. Runs on laptops Teams would bring to its knees. Your battery will notice.
- →Encrypted end-to-end by default. Every channel. Every DM. Every call. Teams never encrypts channels or DMs end-to-end — and meetings require a Premium add-on.
- →GDPR-native. Built in the EU, hosted in the EU. Not bolted on after the fines.
- →No Microsoft ecosystem required. No Entra. No SharePoint. No Azure tenant. No 'to use this feature, just add four more Microsoft products.'
- →Cheaper. Way cheaper. 50 users: €1,690/year vs $3,600 for M365 Business Basic. Office apps in the mix? €5,890 vs $7,500. It's almost not fair.
- →Find things where you'd expect them. No features buried three menus deep. No 'where did that file go?' No menu maze.
- →Your data leaves when you do. Self-host export, GDPR export on cloud. No Microsoft tenant hostage situation.
- →Self-host it on your hardware. Or let us run it. Either way, your chat isn't someone else's leverage.
Frequently asked questions
Is TheChatApp really a Teams alternative?
Yes — if you're not already entangled in Microsoft 365. Channels, threads, DMs, voice, video, meetings, search. The whole workflow, minus the browser-in-a-window bloat, the Copilot reading your chats, the M365 tax, and the Microsoft tenant lock-in.
Why would a team move off Teams?
The usual reasons: the app is heavy and slow (the #1 Teams complaint), features are buried three menus deep, notifications arrive out of order across devices, Mac performance lags, Copilot reads everything you write, and you can't self-host. Oh, and you're probably paying for an Office suite you didn't really want.
Does Teams support end-to-end encryption?
Only partially. Teams supports E2EE for 1:1 calls (opt-in) and for scheduled meetings — but meetings E2EE requires a Teams Premium licence ($10/user/month add-on). Channel messages, group calls, and DMs are never end-to-end encrypted — they're encrypted in transit and at rest, but Microsoft holds the keys. Enabling E2EE in Teams also disables recording, transcription, and compliance features. TheChatApp encrypts every channel, every DM, and every call by default. No add-on, no trade-off.
What's this about Copilot reading my chat?
Microsoft 365 Copilot is a paid add-on ($30/user/month) that, once licensed, is designed to read your messages, files, and meetings through Microsoft Graph — that's how it powers its AI features (via grounding/RAG, not foundation-model training). It's opt-in at the tenant level, but the architecture assumes Microsoft can reach your content. TheChatApp doesn't have Copilot. Our search runs on your device. We don't route your content through any LLM. It's architecture, not a toggle.
Can I self-host TheChatApp the way I can't self-host Teams?
Yes. First-class self-hosted server, one-time licence, optional annual maintenance. Messages, files, audit logs — all on your infrastructure. Teams is cloud-only. Their cloud. Their rules.
Can I get my data out if I want to leave?
Yes. Self-host means your data is already on your infrastructure — export it anytime. On cloud, GDPR export gives you a full machine-readable archive of your messages, files, and metadata at any time. No paywall. No sales call. Teams locks you into a Microsoft tenant with no self-host escape hatch.
Is TheChatApp actually cheaper than Teams?
Materially. We compare against M365 Business Basic ($6/user/month) because it's the cheapest Microsoft plan that actually matches our feature set — Teams Essentials ($4/user/month) is missing advanced audit and SCIM. At 50 users, that's $3,600/year vs our €1,690/year. Less than half. Most Teams users end up on M365 Business Standard ($12.50/user/month = $7,500/year for 50 users) once they want Office apps — that's over 4× our price. It's almost not fair.
See how TheChatApp fits your team
Try the Free tier on your own server, or start a managed Cloud workspace in minutes.
Comparison drawn from publicly available pricing and documentation as of April 2026. Microsoft pricing fetched from microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/compare-microsoft-teams-options and microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business/compare-all-plans. We compare against M365 Business Basic ($6/user/month) as the cheapest Microsoft plan matching our feature set — Teams Essentials ($4/user/month) lacks advanced audit and SCIM. Re-verify vendor pricing before quoting in procurement.
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