Self-hosted chat options

Require message-level E2EE (your stated minimum)

Agent access

Showing all options.

Step 1: pick the chat. Step 2: pick the host from the ladder.

Two real finalists. Everything on "All options" is a side channel or a niche pick.

Where this landed

The working stack is Matrix on Tuwunel: Element X on iPhone, Element Web on the Mac, E2EE human rooms, an invite-only unencrypted #ops room for alerts, and agents through MCP. One app ecosystem, no second chat client. Hosting is a separate ladder ordered biggest to smallest in the Hosting tab; the jurisdiction rule is one line - the CLOUD Act follows the company, not the region.

Tools and MCP: see the Tools & MCP tab. Setup: seven steps in the Setup plan tab. Nothing in this project touches the kaz GitHub repos.

	Mattermost	Matrix
Feels like	Slack, exactly. Channels, threads, search.	Close to Slack. Slightly less polished.
Mac app	Official, updated last week.	No official one. Use it in the browser, or a third-party app (Nheko).
iPhone app	Official, updated last week.	Element X. Genuinely good, built actively.
Alerts from CI / Devin / Vercel	Easy. One webhook.	Easy - and you already wrote it (shotgunpicks PR #73).
Who can read your messages	Anyone who gets the server disk. Stored readable, like Slack - but on your machine.	Only the two of you. Encrypted rooms - the server itself only holds scrambled text.
Vendor risk	They keep moving free features to paid. Fine today, drifting.	No vendor owns it. Nobody can pull features from you.
Setup effort	Small.	Small, plus a one-time "verify each other's devices" ritual.
Pick it if...	...app polish on Mac and iPhone matters most, and "our server, readable" is OK.	..."nobody but us can read it" matters most. The Mac app is the trade-off.

Matrix in one minute

Matrix is the network, not an app. It works like email: many providers, all compatible.

The server - you run or rent one. Synapse is the original: zero surprises, a bit heavier. Tuwunel is newer and lighter. Same job. For 2 people either works; Tuwunel is the cheaper, simpler one.
The apps - each person picks their own, like Gmail vs Apple Mail. Element X on iPhone, Element Web in the Mac browser, FluffyChat or Nheko as alternates. Swap apps anytime; your history stays on your server.
"Element" is just the main app brand. Not the server, not the network.

Why not Session?

Session lost for exactly one reason: there is no way for bots or alerts to post into it. No API at all. The apps are nice and it needs zero hosting, so as a second, private, humans-only channel it's a fine pick. As the company chat it fails: no alerts, no search, no export, and the network is run by token stakers with no independent security audit.

Newer clients worth knowing

Element X (the new iPhone app, rewritten on a modern engine), FluffyChat (every platform, but no official Mac build), Nheko (a proper native Mac app), Cinny (web, pretty, mid-rebuild). Beeper got bought and went closed - skip it.

The Drive half (do this after the chat is settled)

Three honest picks for a 2-person team on a small EU box.

OpenCloud - German company (Heinlein), Apache-2.0, single binary, no database. Real native Mac and iPhone apps. Best "drop-in" Drive in 2026 if you trust a 2-year-old project.
Seafile - the sync-engine veteran, Apple clients maintained, Pro is free for 3 users (so free for you). Pick this if "it just syncs" matters more than modern stack.
Nextcloud - heaviest, but it ships Drive, calendar, and Talk (the chat app) in one box. Pick this if you want one app to do both jobs instead of running Mattermost/Matrix alongside.

For S3 / object storage (chat attachments, file backend):

Garage (French, single Rust binary, 1GB RAM, ARM-friendly) - the right answer on a 2-4GB EU box.
SeaweedFS or RustFS - reasonable alternates.
Avoid MinIO entirely. The repo was archived in April 2026, no Docker images, no binaries, and the README itself says do not deploy it.

Hosting, ordered biggest provider first

The box is tiny, so you are not choosing horsepower. You are choosing a jurisdiction and an ops model. The pattern: the biggest clouds are US-owned and reachable by US legal process wherever the region sits; jurisdiction improves as you work down the list. Google Cloud in Europe sits at #3 for exactly that reason - an EU region is a data-residency promise, not a jurisdiction change.

#	Provider	Jurisdiction	Price/mo	The difference for this box
1	AWS (Amazon)	US	$3.50-12 (Lightsail) or EC2	The biggest catalog and the most managed services. CLOUD Act and FISA 702 apply in every region, eu-* included. For one container this is pure overhead.
2	Microsoft Azure	US	~$9-13 (B-series)	Same US jurisdiction. The EU Data Boundary is a contract, not a legal shield.
3	Google Cloud	US	~$13 + egress	EU regions are real; the jurisdiction is not. Google is a named FISA 702 provider, and the CLOUD Act reaches the company, not the rack. Fails the stated concern and costs the most of the practical options.
4	Oracle Cloud	US	$0 (Always Free ARM) / ~$10+	The most generous free tier in the industry (4 ARM cores, 24 GB). Still US-owned, so the free box carries the same warrant exposure.
5	IBM Cloud / Alibaba Cloud	US / China	varies	Enterprise catalogs; neither jurisdiction helps here, and Alibaba adds Chinese state-access rules.
6	OVHcloud	France (EU)	~€4-8 (VPS)	The largest EU-owned cloud. Good anti-DDoS and object storage; support is variable. First row where the CLOUD Act does not reach the provider.
7	IONOS	Germany (EU)	~€3-10	Large EU hoster with S3-compatible storage and a simple console; less developer polish than Hetzner.
8	Scaleway	France (EU)	~€3-6	EU-owned, clean console, object storage. Good cloud-stack feel at small scale.
9	T-Systems / Open Telekom Cloud	Germany (EU)	enterprise quote	German sovereign cloud, enterprise pricing; overkill for one VM.
10	Hetzner	Germany / Finland (EU)	~€4.50-6.50 (CAX11)	The safe default: best price/performance, best docs, ARM images for Tuwunel. A German judge, not a US one, is the legal path.
11	UpCloud	Finland (EU)	~$9-10 (2 GB)	Reliable EU alternative; pricier than Hetzner, similar posture.
12	Netcup / Contabo / Hostinger	Germany / Lithuania (EU)	~€2.50-8	Cheapest EU capacity; less polished support and more oversubscription risk. Fine for chat, not for your only backup.
13	Exoscale	Switzerland (EU-owned parent, A1 Austria)	~CHF 5-15	Swiss data centers with a managed-cloud surface (Kubernetes, object storage). The middle path if you want Swiss metal and a console.
14	Infomaniak	Switzerland (non-EU, non-US)	CHF 2.70 (annual prepay)	The privacy-per-dollar pick: Swiss company, Swiss datacenters, outside both US and EU legal reach. Smallest tier is plenty for Tuwunel.
15	ungleich	Switzerland	from CHF 2.50 (VM)	Swiss co-op, renewable datacenter, operates Swiss-government Matrix. Hosted Matrix price still needs a five-minute check.
16	etke.cc (managed Matrix)	Germany / Finland (EU), they run it	~€12 base, ~€30 with push	Zero ops: they run the server and backups. You hand metadata to a vendor and pay 5-10x - a valid trade only if you never want to SSH.
17	Njalla / 1984 / FlokiNET	Sweden / Iceland / Iceland-Romania-Finland	€5-15+	Privacy hosts with crypto payment and no-logging posture. Niche; root-only or thin support. Use only if anonymous payment is part of the threat model.

Prices approximate and point-in-time (Oct 2026); confirm at purchase. Jurisdiction means whose courts and intelligence services can compel the provider - not where the metal sits. The ladder is ordered by provider size, not by recommendation.

Stack	Server / self-host	iOS + macOS clients	Bots, webhooks, API
Matrix (Tuwunel)	Tuwunel, matrix.org docs	Element X iOS / Element apps, Element Web (self-hostable), Nheko (native mac)	bot SDK, hookshot (generic webhooks), rust SDK (DIY)
Mattermost	releases/ARM tarballs, docs	macOS desktop, iOS mobile (both official, open source)	Incoming/outgoing webhooks, REST API v4
SimpleX	simplex-chat repo (relay)	official iOS + macOS	Bot SDKs (TS/Haskell), no webhooks
Managed Matrix	etke.cc, ungleich (CH)	same Element apps	same Matrix API surface

Agents, alerts and MCP - already solved for Matrix

You wanted tools and MCP, not a chat app that needs a human in the loop. Matrix has all three layers today; none of the agent-side pieces are first-party polish, so treat them as a separate, unencrypted workspace.

Layer	Tool	What it does / status
MCP - agents read and post	@sagelabs/matrix-mcp-server	v1.0.2 (Oct 2026). 15 MCP tools: send_message, send_html_message, send_dm, send_reaction, get_room_messages, get_joined_rooms, join/leave room, invite, kick, presence, room/user aliases. Access-token auth, Node 22+, HTTP endpoint. Claims E2EE support - treat that part as experimental.
MCP alternative	mjknowles/matrix-mcp-server	56 stars, active Oct 2026; chat plus room administration. Pick one MCP server, do not run both.
Agent bridge (opencode)	ominiverdi/opencode-chat-bridge	110 stars, Oct 2026; bridges OpenCode, Ferrum and other ACP agents into chat with permission-based security. The closest match to your agent roster.
Bot / alerts	matrix-bot-sdk 0.8.x	Dedicated bot account; the pattern shotgunpicks PR #73 already uses. One token, one room.
Webhooks	matrix-hookshot 7.5.x	GitHub, Vercel, uptime and Sentry webhooks into a room. No code changes in any repository - configure it on the box.
Comparison point	Mattermost MCP (cloud-ru-tech, pvev)	MCP exists for Mattermost too (48 and 44 stars, both active). Tooling is not what separates the two stacks; E2EE and vendor independence are.

The safety rule

Agents live in #ops and #agents - unencrypted and invite-only. The MCP server and bots never join E2EE human rooms; E2EE bot support is the brittle part of every Matrix stack.
Human rooms stay bot-free and encrypted. That split is the point: alerts and agent chatter are designed to be readable by a server; your conversations are not.
The MCP token is a password. One bot account, one room scope, exposed on localhost or Tailscale only - never a public port. Rotate it if a laptop is lost.

What "cloud stack" means here

One VM (compute) + Cloudflare DNS + optional S3-compatible object storage (Tuwunel has native S3 support) + nightly age-encrypted backups off the box + one uptime check. That is the whole cloud footprint. You do not need managed Kubernetes, a managed database, or a hyperscaler account to run this for two people.

The 7-step setup (about 2-3 hours, once)

Deliberately plain. No Matrix documentation reading required. Pick a host from the ladder in the Hosting tab; the steps are identical on Infomaniak or Hetzner.

Buy the box and point DNS. Smallest VPS tier (1-2 vCPU, 2 GB is plenty), Ubuntu 24.04. Add an A/AAAA record for chat.kaz.markets in Cloudflare. Open only ports 22, 80 and 443.
Install Tuwunel and Caddy. Docker Compose on the box: Tuwunel with RocksDB and a registration token, Caddy for automatic TLS. Serve /.well-known/matrix/client so Element X finds the server when you type the domain.
Create two accounts and close the door. Register Dan and Jacob with the token, then disable open registration. No public signup, no guests.
Log in on both devices. Element X on iPhone; Element Web served from the same box in the Mac browser (Nheko is the native fallback). Verify each other's devices with the emoji comparison once - that is what makes E2EE real.
Create the rooms. #ops: invite-only and unencrypted (alerts and agents). Project and human rooms: encrypted by default. Two members, no exceptions.
Wire the tools. Create a bot account for alerts, point shotgunpicks PR #73 at chat.kaz.markets plus #ops, run matrix-hookshot for GitHub/uptime, and run the MCP server on localhost or Tailscale for Devin, opencode and Cursor. Details in the Tools & MCP tab.
Back up and watch it. Nightly RocksDB plus media backup, encrypted with age, copied to a second location; one uptime check on the endpoint; restore once so you know it works. Steady state is about 15 minutes a month.

Hard boundary: nothing goes in the kaz repos.

This project never touches the kaz GitHub repositories - no code, no docs, no alert wiring, no chat references. Alert integration stays in shotgunpicks PR #73 and in webhooks configured on the box. This review site is a personal Cloudflare Pages project, outside GitHub.

Not included: buying the server or deploying it for you. When you pick a host, the deployment can be walked through live - these steps are the runbook.

The best path, end to end

Assumes the Hetzner CAX11 (ARM, ~$6) or Hostinger KVM1 ($6.49, 4GB) box. The one decision that matters up front: official Docker images are amd64-only, so on ARM you run the ARM64 tarball + systemd, or use Cloudron which ships an arm64 build.

Box + base - Ubuntu 24.04 ARM, create admin user, ufw allow ssh+80+443 only, fail2ban, unattended-upgrades. ~20 min.
Panel (the "more managed" part) - install Cloudron (free tier covers 2 apps; updates, backups, TLS, SSO handled for you, and they cannot see your server) and one-click Mattermost. This replaces hand-rolling Postgres + nginx + systemd + certbot, and it's the honest answer to "Rackspace-feel under $10". Coolify is the free-OSS alternative; Cloudron is the polished one.
DNS - chat.kaz.markets AAAA/A to the box in Cloudflare (you already run the zone), TLS cert issued by Cloudron/Let's Encrypt. Do not expose 8065; Cloudron proxies.
Kill the phone-home, first login - System Console > Environment > Logging: Enable Diagnostics and Error Reporting = false (that single toggle covers telemetry + Sentry + NPS); also turn off Security Fix Alert email and the notices fetcher, and set the GIF picker off. Then restrict server access: closed team, no public sign-up, guests off.
Accounts - for 2 people skip email-password: use email OTP (built in) or Cloudron SSO. Enable per-user MFA via TOTP in Mattermost itself; MFA enforcement is a paid gate but you can police it by convention with two users.
The bot - System Console > Integrations > Bots: create kaz-alerts, copy its PAT, create an incoming webhook for ops-alerts. Wire the same helper pattern as shotgunpicks PR #73 - a postMattermostAlert() that POSTs {"text","channel"} to the webhook URL, throttled. Devin/CI get their own bot accounts so you can tell them apart.
Backups that survive the host - Cloudron does nightly app+DB backups; point it at an rclone target (your own Second Drive / S3-compatible EU bucket) so the box can die and the data can't be quietly subpoenaed from snapshots. Mattermost message content is plaintext in Postgres at rest - backups are where jurisdiction discipline matters most.
Desktop/iOS - store apps work against your server URL out of the box; nothing to compile.

Self-compiled iOS app via TestFlight - yes, and you're already set up for it

mattermost-mobile is Apache-2.0 (clean license, unlike Element X's AGPL), iOS 18.0+ supported, server 11.7+. You and Jacob are developers, so the path is real:

Apple Developer Program membership ($99/yr, one account covers both of you as team members) - if ShotgunPicks already ships to the App Store, the account already exists; add a new bundle id like com.kaz.markets.chat.
Clone mattermost-mobile, follow its developer-setup doc (developers.mattermost.com): pinned Node/Ruby per .node-version / .ruby-version, pod install, set MattermostServerUrl (or leave it prompt-based) and the app display name/icon.
Archive in Xcode with your team's certificates and upload - it lands in TestFlight internal testing: up to 100 testers, no App Review, available within minutes. External groups would need review; internal is exactly the two-of-you case.
Push for your own build requires the self-hosted push proxy (mattermost-push-proxy) with your own APNs key - which ShotgunPicks already configures for its iOS app (APNS_KEY* env vars), so you have the key type on hand. Apple's APNs still sits in the path; that part is inescapable.

Honest caveats: a fork you compile is a fork you maintain - every monthly mobile release is now a task, and a signing mistake means silent push loss until someone notices. The store app against your own server gets you 95% of it. And if "we compile everything ourselves" is the actual goal, the same argument favors Element X iOS over anything else on this page, since it's also open source.

Rocket.Chat - one genuinely good 2026 change: the free tier now has end-to-end encrypted rooms. But it needs MongoDB alongside (extra moving part), free push notifications route through their US gateway (bad fit for you), and the licensing keeps reshuffling (SSO goes paid in v9). If you want encrypted rooms, Matrix gives you that without those catches.
Bitdefender (the product you half-remembered) - confirmed: no chat product exists, they are endpoint/XDR only. The category you meant is Wire/Threema/Silent Circle; Wire and Threema were researched, verified solid for tiny Swiss/EU teams, then dropped from this review by decision (closed clients, thin bot/webhook surface for CI alerts).
Silent Circle / White Canyon - Silent Text was discontinued in 2015 (merged into Silent Phone); pricing is contact-sales enterprise, no self-serve 2-seat purchase, HQ history is Nevis -> Geneva -> Washington DC, and the "Zero-Knowledge Federation" claim could not be found on their own site. Skip.
AWS Wickr - yes, it's the old distributed-secure-chat Wickr (acquired 2022). Now Amazon: US jurisdiction, enterprise sales. The cautionary tale for "buy a secure chat company."
Session - apps are current (iOS/macOS/desktop, free, groups + open communities), but: the network routes through staked Session Nodes (Oxen rebranded to Session Network; running one = staking tokens, so you cannot "just host" the transport), open-group servers ARE self-hostable, and there is no bot/API story beyond admin tricks on those. No team workspace or admin model. Fine as a personal channel; useless as an ops console.
Status - the p2p messenger pivoted into status.app: a wallet + browser super-app on its own L2. Chat exists but the company's center of gravity moved; self-hosting the Waku mesh is undocumented effort.
Keet (holepunch) - effectively dead as a product: their site is serving a broken TLS cert, the keet repo is gone from the GitHub org, and the team's energy is all on the Bare/Pear runtime. Never had iOS.
Nostr DMs (Damus + self-hosted relay) - relays are trivially self-hostable and Damus is alive (iOS 16+/macOS 13+), but its DMs are still legacy NIP-04 on its own compliance list - no gift-wrapped NIP-44/59, no push you control, no membership model. Supplement, not system of record.
Mostly Mattermost (the "EU fork without gating" I hunted down after the YunoHost catalog mentioned it) - the repo URL it implied is a 404; could not verify it exists as a maintained product. Not counting it.
Revolt/Stoat - Discord-style, renamed mid-transition, no official Apple apps story. Web wrapper at best.
Signal - third-party self-hosting is a registration hack that breaks with updates. Backup channel for humans, not your work console.
Zulip - great async tool, but you've said the interface doesn't work for you; hosted is US-jurisdiction anyway (~$8/user/mo).
UK or Canada hosting - both Five Eyes; UK's Investigatory Powers Act compels providers directly. Buys nothing a Swiss box doesn't.
Rackspace - US company, entry cloud sunset, managed fees from ~$499/mo. Fails budget and jurisdiction.
Tor onion-only homeserver - Element apps can't reach onion endpoints without Orbot gymnastics. Desktop-Tor only.
Build your own client (as primary) - best case is a ~1-month thin internal client on matrix-rust-sdk (official examples: getting_started, login, timeline, verification; reference client "multiverse"), but push (your own Sygnal + APNs) and forever-maintenance are the hidden months. Element X iOS itself is AGPL - copying its code into your app has license teeth. Compile-don't-build instead (see Stacks verdict on Matrix).