Team Chat
Mattermost on your desktop, inside Franz
Point Franz at your own Mattermost server and run it as a desktop app on Mac, Windows, and Linux, right beside the rest of your chat.
- macOS
- Windows
- Linux
Mattermost is the team chat a lot of organisations run on their own infrastructure, precisely because the conversations stay on a server they control. The catch is that a self-hosted tool still has to live somewhere on your desktop, and "somewhere" usually means a pinned browser tab that gets lost behind everything else. Franz runs Mattermost as a first-class service tab in a single window, so your private team server sits right next to Gmail, WhatsApp, and any other Mattermost instance you connect to.
Point Franz at your own Mattermost server
Mattermost rarely lives at one fixed address. You might be on a hosted your-team.cloud.mattermost.com workspace, a self-managed instance behind your company VPN, or both at once. When you add Mattermost in Franz, you give it the server address, and Franz connects that tab to exactly that instance. Because each tab keeps its own login session, you can run a cloud workspace and an on-prem server side by side without one signing the other out. That is the part the plain web app makes awkward, and the part Franz is built to make trivial.
Notifications from a server you control
Self-hosting should not cost you a working notification. Franz surfaces native desktop alerts for your Mattermost instance, including the notification sound, so a direct message or a channel mention reaches you the same way the official client would. Your unread badge counts the messages that are genuinely aimed at you rather than the full firehose of busy channels, and it stays accurate across every Mattermost server you have added. You get the privacy of your own infrastructure with the responsiveness of a native desktop app.
Mattermost on macOS, Windows, and Linux
Franz is a native app for all three desktop platforms, and your Mattermost server behaves identically on each: the same alerts, the same taskbar or dock badge, the same quick switching between tabs. If your team runs Linux on the servers and a mix of operating systems on the laptops, everyone points Franz at the same instance and gets the same experience. You keep the full Mattermost web client, channels, threads, and integrations, with the difference that it is one tab in a window you use for everything.
Other Team Chat services
Frequently asked questions
Which platforms does Mattermost work on in Franz?
Franz runs Mattermost as a native desktop app on macOS, Windows, and Linux, with the same notifications, badges, and fast switching on every operating system.
Can I use multiple Mattermost accounts at once?
Yes. Franz lets you add Mattermost as many times as you need, one tab per account, all signed in at once. Each tab keeps its own session and unread badge, so you never sign out of one to check another.
Is Mattermost in Franz free?
Franz is free to use with Mattermost and every other service. A free account covers the essentials and takes minutes to set up; paid plans add extra features, but running Mattermost in Franz costs nothing to start.