Building a connected future: Native federation and Matrix partnership

Over the years, we’ve been on an incredible journey at Rocket.Chat—working to make communication more interoperable, secure, and sovereign. Today, we’re excited to share three big updates on this journey: the alpha release of native federation, our continued support for Matrix.org, and what you can expect from us at the Matrix Conference 2025.

The journey to native federation

From the start, we’ve believed that no organization should be locked into a single vendor or platform. That’s why we embraced the Matrix protocol and experimented with an external home server approach. It allowed us to show the value of federation—connecting across platforms, breaking down silos, and enabling open collaboration—but it also exposed significant challenges: operational complexity, dual databases, and performance issues.

We listened to your feedback, and it was clear we needed to go further. Native federation has been one of our most ambitious engineering efforts to date, requiring us to rethink core systems, redesign architecture, and test tirelessly. Throughout this journey, our team has gained deep expertise in how to optimize the use of the Matrix protocol itself—from rethinking how data is stored and synchronized, to improving state resolution for federated rooms, and addressing scalability from the ground up.

And now, we’re excited to announce the alpha version of native federation, coming soon with the upcoming Rocket.Chat v7.11 release.

This release marks an important first step toward a fully integrated federation experience. As an alpha, it’s designed for testing, exploration, and feedback. While it’s not yet optimized for performance or reliability at scale, it will include the full set of core federation functionalities from our previous implementation—now built natively into Rocket.Chat.

“Alpha release marks the moment when federation becomes part of Rocket.Chat’s core architecture. We’ve rethought how data is stored, synchronized, and resolved across federated environments to simplify configuration and improve scalability. There’s still work ahead on performance and UX, but this release gives us—and our users—the framework to evolve faster together.”
Rodrigo Nascimento, CTO

Our focus in this phase is to validate architecture, gather real-world insights, and refine usability so we’re inviting our customers, interested prospects, and partners to test the alpha, give feedback, and help shape native federation into a robust, trusted standard for interoperable communications. 

👉 To explore the alpha, test how it could work for your needs, and share feedback, get in touch with your Customer Success Manager or request a guided evaluation with our experts.

Strengthening the Matrix ecosystem

This evolution does not replace our commitment to the Matrix protocol—it strengthens it. Sponsoring Matrix.org is our way of contributing back to the ecosystem that has been critical to driving open, federated communication forward.

Together, we share the same mission: empowering organizations to collaborate across boundaries—without sacrificing sovereignty, privacy, or control.

“Launching native federation is not just a technical milestone—it is part of the journey we’ve been on with Rocket.Chat users. We are making federation practical, scalable, and ready for the organizations who need it most. Together with our sponsorship of Matrix.org, this strengthens our mission to make interoperability the global standard.”
Gabriel Engel, CEO

Meet Us at Matrix Conference 2025

We’re also excited to be heading to Matrix Conference 2025.

Our CEO, Gabriel Engel, will be joining the event to host a session, and throughout the conference our team will be at our booth running live demos, answering questions, and exploring how Rocket.Chat can support your interoperability strategies.

On Wednesday evening, we’ll co-host the welcome party with Matrix.org and Element—a relaxed opportunity to meet the teams, network, and celebrate the community driving interoperable communication forward.

Join the journey

We’re just at the beginning of this new chapter in interoperability—and we’d love for you to be part of it. We can’t wait to hear your feedback, meet you at the conference, and keep pushing what’s possible together.