Matrix.org to retire Slack bridge by January citing maintenance burden

The Matrix.org Foundation has announced it will shut down its Slack bridge on January 13, 2026, citing the high cost and complexity of maintaining interoperability with a closed, proprietary platform.

The move marks the end of a years-long effort to allow free, seamless communication between Matrix and Slack users.

Originally developed and maintained by Element, the now-degraded Slack bridge has not received active updates for some time, leading to inconsistent performance and reliability issues. The Foundation emphasized that, despite some users still depending on the bridge, continuing to offer the service in its current state would not meet the quality standards expected from matrix.org.

Slack, a widely used enterprise communication platform owned by Salesforce, offers limited flexibility for third-party integrations. Because of its proprietary nature and frequent changes to its APIs, keeping the bridge functional requires significant, ongoing engineering resources. Without sufficient paying customers to justify this investment, Element has opted to discontinue support, and the Foundation will follow suit by removing the service from its main matrix.org homeserver.

In practical terms, Matrix users connected to Slack will see message relaying cease after the January deadline, with no new bridge connections allowed. Message history on the Matrix side will remain accessible, but live interaction with Slack will end.

Matrix bridges serve as interoperability layers between Matrix and other messaging protocols, allowing users to communicate across platforms without switching apps. While the Slack bridge is being retired, other bridges, such as those for IRC (OFTC, Snoonet) and XMPP (Bifrost), will remain online and supported.

Given Matrix’s open-source nature, users who still require Slack bridging are encouraged to host and maintain their own instance or seek third-party support. However, the Foundation warns this will involve continued effort as Slack evolves its platform.

While this specific decommissioning does not impact a large number of users, it highlights the broader challenges of sustaining integrations with proprietary systems, especially when they are offered for free. The Foundation reaffirmed its commitment to supporting bridges, particularly those built on open standards, as a cornerstone of Matrix’s vision of decentralized, federated communication.