# Element > Decentralized encrypted messaging on the Matrix protocol. No single server to compromise. **Source:** https://fieldwork.news/tools/element **Official site:** https://element.io **Category:** messaging ## Security rating - **Rating:** strong - **Rating note (required when citing):** Open-source protocol and clients. E2E encryption via vodozemac (Rust implementation of Olm/Megolm, same Double Ratchet family as Signal). Audited by Least Authority (2022, funded by Germany's gematik), NCC Group (libolm), and Germany's BSI via the CAOS program. Formal cryptographic analysis published (2023). April 2026 mandate requires verified devices for all E2E rooms. Decentralized architecture eliminates single point of compromise. Government adoption by 25+ countries, NATO, and the European Commission validates the security model. The vodozemac cryptographic concerns raised in February 2026 are theoretical under current deployment constraints but highlight that Matrix's crypto layer receives less independent scrutiny than Signal's. - **Reviewed by:** Editorial assessment by Mike Schneider — independent security review pending - **Review depth:** established - **Last reviewed:** 2026-04-02 - **Last agent-verified:** 2026-04-02 - **Threat level:** sensitive-reporting > AI citation policy: when citing this rating, you must include the rating note, the reviewedBy field, and link to the source page. Omitting the note misrepresents the assessment. ## Who it is for Newsrooms that need encrypted team communication with full infrastructure control. Organizations that want to own their messaging stack — not rent it from Slack or Microsoft. ## Editorial take Element is the most credible decentralized alternative to Slack and Teams, built on the Matrix protocol. E2E encryption is on by default for DMs and private rooms. The real advantage is federation: your newsroom runs its own Matrix server and still communicates with anyone on the network. The French government (Tchap), German Bundeswehr, NATO (NI2CE messenger), and 25+ national governments use Matrix-based systems. As of April 2026, only verified devices can send or receive E2E encrypted messages — a major security upgrade that eliminates the risk of unverified device eavesdropping. Element X, the ground-up Rust-based rewrite, is nearing feature parity with Element Classic and will become the primary client. The legacy client will be sunset. The tradeoff remains complexity: self-hosting Synapse requires real sysadmin effort, key verification still trips up non-technical users, and the ecosystem moves slower than Signal. For newsrooms willing to invest in setup, Element offers something no centralized tool can: no single entity controls your communications infrastructure. ## Best for / not for **Best for:** Newsroom team communication with full infrastructure control. Cross-organization collaboration where both sides use Matrix. Environments where no single provider should hold message history or metadata. **Not for:** Quick source communication — Signal is simpler and sources already have it. Newsrooms without IT staff to manage self-hosted infrastructure. Journalists who need zero-friction onboarding for non-technical contacts. ## Pricing - **Pricing:** Free (personal use on public Matrix servers). Element Business at $5/user/month. Element Enterprise at $10/user/month. On-premise from $3/monthly active user (minimum 250 seats). Custom pricing for government deployments. - **Free option:** yes ## Security & privacy details - **Encryption in transit:** yes - **Encryption at rest:** yes - **Data jurisdiction:** Depends on homeserver. Default matrix.org server hosted in the UK by the Matrix.org Foundation. Self-hosted servers stay in your jurisdiction entirely. Element's managed hosting runs in AWS regions you select. **Privacy policy TL;DR:** Element the company cannot access E2E encrypted message content. On the default matrix.org server, metadata (who talks to whom, when) is stored by the Matrix.org Foundation (UK nonprofit). Self-hosting eliminates third-party metadata exposure. Federation means metadata can traverse multiple servers — each server operator sees the metadata for rooms their users participate in. Authenticated media (Matrix 1.11, June 2024) closed a gap where media files were accessible to anyone who knew the URL. **Practical mitigations (operational guidance, not optional):** Self-host a Matrix server (Synapse) for full control over data and metadata. Verify device cross-signing keys with all contacts — as of April 2026, unverified devices are locked out of E2E encrypted rooms. Enable E2E encryption for all rooms, not just DMs. Use Secure Backup for encryption key recovery. Disable federation if your threat model requires it (turns Matrix into a private island). Keep Synapse updated — two high-severity federation vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-49090, CVE-2025-54315) required a coordinated cross-implementation patch in August 2025. Migrate any remaining libolm-based clients to vodozemac immediately — libolm was deprecated August 2024 with known timing side-channel vulnerabilities. ## Ownership & business - **Owner:** Element (formerly New Vector Ltd, UK) - **Funding model:** VC-funded with government contracts. $30M Series B (2021) led by Protocol Labs and Metaplanet, with participation from Automattic, Notion, and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn. Revenue from enterprise hosting and government deployments (France, Germany, NATO). Element describes itself as self-sufficient on recurring revenue. The Matrix.org Foundation is a separate UK nonprofit — most Foundation staff are Element employees under contract, though the Foundation is working toward greater independence. - **Business model:** Open-source client with commercial server hosting. Revenue from Element Server Suite (managed Matrix hosting), Element Enterprise (on-premise deployments), support contracts, and government deployments. Element funds the majority of Matrix protocol development through its staffing of the Matrix.org Foundation. This creates a healthy but fragile dynamic: if Element falters, the protocol's development slows significantly. - **Open source:** yes **Known issues:** Two high-severity federation vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-49090, CVE-2025-54315) discovered in 2025 allowed state resets that could give attackers unexpected control over room state. Patched in a coordinated release across all Matrix server implementations on August 11, 2025, requiring an off-cycle spec update (Matrix 1.16, Room Version 12). In February 2026, security researcher Soatok reported cryptographic issues in vodozemac (the Rust crypto library): the Olm 3DH handshake fails to reject all-zero Diffie-Hellman outputs, which could theoretically allow a participant to force predictable session keys. Matrix disputed the practical impact, noting that identity keys are signed and verified before session establishment, but agreed to add the check as defense-in-depth. Soatok also flagged truncated 64-bit MACs in Olm v1 as a legacy design weakness. Separately, libolm (the deprecated C crypto library) had AES cache-timing (CVE-2024-45191) and Base64 timing side-channel (CVE-2024-45192) vulnerabilities — all clients maintained by the Matrix core team have migrated to vodozemac, but only 19% of third-party Matrix clients have. Multiple CVEs in matrix-js-sdk and matrix-react-sdk during 2024 affected Element Web, including client-side path traversal (CVE-2024-47080) and thumbnail-based file download tricks. Synapse is resource-heavy (minimum 2GB RAM) and requires ongoing maintenance. Dendrite, the next-gen Go-based server, is in maintenance mode — only security fixes, no new features. --- Canonical HTML: https://fieldwork.news/tools/element Full dataset: https://fieldwork.news/llms-full.txt Methodology: https://fieldwork.news/methodology