Teable
Secrets get encrypted at rest while the computed-field engine keeps getting shored up
Comparison · Collab
HumHub vs Mattermost
A side-by-side editorial comparison of HumHub and Mattermost — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
HumHub vs Mattermost: at a glance
What is HumHub?
HumHub's public feed carries only betas, and 1.19's is still about surviving the upgrade.
The four releases visible here are all pre-release: 1.19.0-beta.2 and beta.1, and 1.18.0-beta.6 and beta.5 before them. The 1.19 line is dominated by upgrade-path and data-integrity repair — a foreign key violation aborting the comment content_id migration on databases with orphaned rows, fatal errors when purging content whose underlying record was gone, and in beta.2 a fatal SCSS build loop left behind when the 1.19 move of static/themes into protected/humhub stranded an empty theme skeleton. Beta.2 also fixes a real leak: activities from private spaces appearing in the summary mail and dashboard of users holding only a pending invite or join request.
What is Mattermost?
Every v11 release pushes ABAC further out; the blog sells the air-gap story around it.
Mattermost ships a v11.x release roughly monthly, and each one extends attribute-based access control another layer: v11.9 reached channel-level policies and ranked attributes, v11.10 adds team-level ABAC membership and native user attributes. Between releases the feed is marketing content aimed at defense, federal, and other air-gapped buyers. The product work and the publishing calendar are pulling in the same direction.
HumHub vs Mattermost: editorial side-by-side
HumHub
5.0COLLAB
HumHub's public feed carries only betas, and 1.19's is still about surviving the upgrade.
◆ Current state
The four releases visible here are all pre-release: 1.19.0-beta.2 and beta.1, and 1.18.0-beta.6 and beta.5 before them. The 1.19 line is dominated by upgrade-path and data-integrity repair — a foreign key violation aborting the comment content_id migration on databases with orphaned rows, fatal errors when purging content whose underlying record was gone, and in beta.2 a fatal SCSS build loop left behind when the 1.19 move of static/themes into protected/humhub stranded an empty theme skeleton. Beta.2 also fixes a real leak: activities from private spaces appearing in the summary mail and dashboard of users holding only a pending invite or join request.
◆ Where it's heading
The 1.19 cycle is being spent making the migration survivable on real installations rather than adding capability, which is the usual shape when a schema and directory-layout change meets databases and webroots that have accumulated years of drift. Beta.2 extends that into the installer itself, where an unreachable database was offering to re-set-up a live instance during a transient outage. The permission and visibility fixes point the same way: tightening authorisation and content boundaries is cleanup of an existing model, not an extension of it.
◆ Prediction
Only beta tags appear in this feed, so a 1.19.0 stable is the obvious next milestone, but nothing here dates it. The beta.1-to-beta.2 gap of about a month is a faster rhythm than the roughly six months between the 1.18 and 1.19 betas.
Mattermost
5.0COLLAB
Every v11 release pushes ABAC further out; the blog sells the air-gap story around it.
◆ Current state
Mattermost ships a v11.x release roughly monthly, and each one extends attribute-based access control another layer: v11.9 reached channel-level policies and ranked attributes, v11.10 adds team-level ABAC membership and native user attributes. Between releases the feed is marketing content aimed at defense, federal, and other air-gapped buyers. The product work and the publishing calendar are pulling in the same direction.
◆ Where it's heading
ABAC is being built out as the organizing primitive — first channels, now teams, with user attributes moving from an integration concern into the platform itself. The surrounding posts on agentic AI in disconnected environments read as demand-shaping for the AI features shipping in the same releases. Expect the two lines to converge on running agents inside a network that cannot call out.
◆ Prediction
The next v11 release should extend ABAC to a further scope or add policy administration tooling, and the agent features will keep being framed around operating without external model APIs.
Alternatives to HumHub and Mattermost
Other Collab products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either HumHub or Mattermost.
GitHub
Security and governance controls catch up to the Copilot build-out
Elgg
A social-networking engine in careful maintenance across two supported branches.
NetNewsWire
7.1.3 ships on the Mac, closing a release spent almost entirely on rebuilding Feedly sync.
Hive
Hive keeps tightening the same three seams: planned time, admin control, and AI review scope
AFFiNE
A dated canary most days, with the beta line carrying the same commits later.
See all HumHub alternatives → · See all Mattermost alternatives →
Recent activity from HumHub and Mattermost
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 15h agoHumHubPrivate-space activity leak, installer 503 handling and the stranded theme skeleton
- 1d agoMattermostCan Agentic AI Work in Air-Gapped Environments?
- 5d agoMattermostMattermost v11.10: Team ABAC Membership, Native User Attributes in ABAC, AI Agent Enhancements & More
- 9d agoMattermostWhat Is an Air-Gapped Network?
- 12d agoMattermostYour Teams Are Already Translating Sensitive Data. The Question Is Where It Goes.
- 16d agoMattermostThe Collaboration Gap in Zero Trust: Why Sovereignty Can’t Stop at the Perimeter
- 21d agoMattermostAgentic AI for Mission-Critical Operations: What Enterprise Leaders Need to Know
- 29d agoHumHub1.19 upgrade migration and orphaned content fixes
- 7mo agoHumHubLogin screen, theming and validator fixes
- 9mo agoHumHubGroup manager options and assorted UI fixes
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between HumHub and Mattermost?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. HumHub and Mattermost are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 5.0 vs 5.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is HumHub better than Mattermost?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. HumHub and Mattermost are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 5.0 vs 5.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Collab products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to HumHub?
Top HumHub alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "HumHub alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/humhub for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Mattermost?
Top Mattermost alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Mattermost alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/mattermost for the full list with editorial commentary on each.