Matrix gains ground in Europe, but replacing Teams is another matter
European governments are adopting Matrix-based messaging for digital sovereignty, but most are adding it alongside Teams rather than replacing established tools.
Matrix-based messaging is gaining ground across European public services, but the movement away from Microsoft Teams is likely to be gradual. Governments and agencies are attracted to open, federated communications because they offer more control over sensitive data and reduce dependence on a single US supplier. The trade-off is that replacing a mature collaboration suite is much harder than deploying a new chat server.
Why governments are looking at Matrix
Matrix is an open messaging standard for decentralised communications. Different services can communicate through the protocol, allowing organisations to use compatible products such as Element, Rocket.Chat and Beeper rather than being locked to one vendor. Computerworld reports that 65 national- and international-scale Matrix deployments are being tracked in Europe, with the issue of digital sovereignty helping to drive interest. 1
France’s Tchap service is used by more than 400,000 civil servants each month, while Germany has Matrix-based deployments in the armed forces and healthcare. In Sweden, the SAFOS Chatt service is used by 19 public authorities. These projects show that Matrix is more than a developer experiment, although their scale and technical arrangements vary considerably. 1
The European Commission has also rolled out Element’s Matrix-based application to desktop computers, with an eventual target of more than 40,000 employees. The project is intended to improve resilience, data control and procurement leverage, but it is not being positioned as a one-to-one replacement for Teams. Early challenges include finding people across different servers and performance problems that led the Commission to disable live presence. 1
Interoperability is the promise and the problem
Swedish agencies are exploring federation between different Matrix-compatible applications, including Element and Rocket.Chat. A proof of concept demonstrated that the systems could interoperate, although some capabilities still need improvement. The approach could make collaboration between public bodies easier, but it also creates questions about governance, access control and which organisations should be allowed to connect. 1
Matrix Conference 2026 in Malmö placed public-sector deployments, federation and digital sovereignty among the ecosystem’s central topics. The official conference programme describes a community spanning public-sector operators, vendors, developers and policy representatives. 2 3
Our opinion
Matrix does not need to beat Teams feature for feature to matter. Its strongest argument is strategic: organisations may accept fewer conveniences if they gain clearer control over where communications live and how systems can interoperate. The danger is treating sovereignty as a simple software swap. Procurement, training, support, identity management and links to the rest of an organisation’s productivity stack all remain.
The likely future is therefore coexistence rather than a dramatic replacement day. Matrix can become the sovereign layer for sensitive conversations while Teams continues to handle broader collaboration. That is less exciting than a clean migration, but it is far more credible.