Rocket.Chat 8.0: Intelligent, Connected and Secure by default

In environments where security, governance, and operational continuity are non-negotiable, collaboration cannot rely on a model in which access, context, and boundaries are configured ahead of time. 

As situations escalate, scope and sensitivity shift rapidly, and teams often need to change how they communicate and who is involved. 

Rocket.Chat has been built to handle this reality. As missions evolve, the platform adapts by strengthening the connective tissue between people, access, communication and context.

Rocket.Chat 8.0 delivers:

• ABAC that adapt channel access to current identity, scope, and sensitivity, so authorization stays current as conditions change
  
• Federation that extends governed collaboration across agencies and allied networks, while preserving control over infrastructure, identity, and policy
  
• Voice calling that supports real-time escalation when text is no longer sufficient, enabling faster alignment and decision-making without breaking context‍
• Intelligent search that helps teams surface and connect fragmented discussions, signals, and decisions across rooms as operations unfold

“In high-stakes operations, execution depends on connectivity that adapts as conditions change. Rocket.Chat 8.0 aligns identity, access, communication, and context, so missions can move forward without losing control or coherence.”

~ Gabriel Engel, CEO @ Rocket.Chat

Let’s start at the foundation: access.

ABAC for identity-first, Zero Trust access enforcement

In high-stakes environments, access decisions cannot lag behind operational reality. When scope, sensitivity, or authority changes, collaboration systems must respond immediately or they become a risk.

Zero Trust reflects this reality. Access is never permanent and must be continuously re-evaluated. In these environments, static roles and prior room membership break down as soon as conditions change.

Rocket.Chat 8.0 makes access control a core operational capability through ABAC. Instead of relying on fixed permissions, access is enforced dynamically based on authoritative identity attributes and the active policy of each collaboration space.

• Access is evaluated continuously using real-time identity attributes such as role, clearance, department, and operational assignment
• Identity attributes are sourced directly from the organization’s authoritative identity system (LDAP)
• Channel access reflects current policy and mission scope, not historical membership
• Access updates automatically as identity attributes or room sensitivity change
• Users who no longer meet access requirements are removed immediately‍
• All access decisions are fully auditable, with a clear record of who had access, when, and under what conditions

“In classified environments, access can’t be static. It has to reflect clearance, assignment, and mission scope in real time. With ABAC in Rocket.Chat 8.0, access is enforced continuously based on authoritative identity attributes, so the system adapts the moment conditions change. That’s how Zero Trust becomes operational inside collaboration.”
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~ Milton Rucks, Senior Product Manager @ Rocket.Chat

Voice calling for real-time escalation, coordination and decision-making

When situations escalate, text stops being enough. Teams need a faster way to connect the right people, assess what’s happening, and make time-sensitive decisions, without losing context or control.

With Rocket.Chat 8.0, voice calling moves from beta into general availability, making it production-ready for operational use. Voice is integrated directly into the collaboration system, so teams can connect instantly by escalating to voice call directly, and preserve continuity as responsibility shifts. 

Rocket.Chat 8.0 delivers this through a set of voice capabilities:

• Instant peer-to-peer voice calls using WebRTC, directly inside the workspace
• No reliance on external telephony infrastructure for internal communication
• Presence-aware call transfers to hand off live calls as responsibility shifts
• Conversation-level call records, capturing completed, missed, failed, and transferred calls‍
• Global call history with a consolidated view of all voice activity giving you greater visibility and context

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When voice communication needs to extend beyond the workspace, Rocket.Chat also supports SIP integration, enabling connectivity with external phone networks, desk phones in secure facilities, and softphones used by field personnel.

For deployments with complex telephony or security requirements, we offer professional services to support SIP configuration and integration.

Intelligent search for connecting fragmented data into mission intelligence

In high-stakes operations, the challenge is rarely a lack of information. It’s the inability to connect what already exists fast enough to enhance situational awareness.

Decisions, early signals, and critical context are distributed across rooms, threads, and time windows. When teams can’t see how those pieces relate, visibility into prior assessments and active decisions erodes and uncertainty compounds.

Rocket.Chat 8.0 introduces Intelligent Search to address this directly. It connects conversations across rooms, threads and time windows, turning scattered mission knowledge into usable operational context and intel. 

Intelligent Search provides: 

• Intent-based, semantic search capability, built natively on Rocket.Chat’s Apps Engine
• Natural language queries, allowing users to search the way they think
• Consolidated, cross-room views of related discussions and signals
• Access-aware results by default, reflecting each user’s clearance and permissions

The result is search that reflects actual operational history, helping teams quickly understand what’s known, what’s been decided, and where attention is needed without traversing channels or reconstructing context manually.

“We repeatedly see the same challenge across a variety of workspaces. The information that people need is available, but scattered across many rooms and buried in long chains of conversation. Intelligent Search allows users to find what they need by simply asking the search agent. Productivity improves dramatically as teams connect information and gain insight more quickly.”
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~ Chris Skelly, Chief Product & Business Officer @ Rocket.Chat

Federation for secure, governed cross-agency collaboration

Modern operations rarely stop at organizational borders. When collaboration extends across agencies, partners, or allied networks, connectivity has to expand without surrendering control.

Rocket.Chat Federation is designed to enable controlled, cross-organization collaboration while preserving full ownership of infrastructure, identities, and policies. 

The native federation architecture prioritizes operational simplicity, strong governance, and lower total cost of ownership, avoiding reliance on central providers, third-party federation infrastructure, or external homeservers. Optional interoperability with compatible Matrix-based platforms is supported.

With Rocket.Chat 8.0, Federation moves from experimental alpha into a more stable beta, enabling invitation-based collaboration across independent Rocket.Chat deployments. 

In its current beta phase, Federation focuses on core collaboration capabilities:

• Distributed channels spanning multiple Rocket.Chat workspaces, with synchronized membership and roles
• Invitation-based access, with reliable acceptance, decline, and membership updates across servers (desktop and mobile)
• Mobile support, enabling users to accept or decline federation invitations and participate in federated conversations directly from the mobile app, with feature parity to desktop for mission-critical use cases
• Cross-server messaging, including sending, editing, and deleting messages
• Essential collaboration interactions, such as mentions, reactions, quotes, and threaded replies
• Basic room management, including synchronized channel names and topics
• Secure file sharing across federated servers within supported size limits

“For the organizations we work with, federation only matters if it holds up under real regulatory and sovereignty constraints. We built native federation because interoperability cannot come at the cost of control. For us, it’s about enabling secure collaboration across boundaries without compromising governance. Rocket.Chat 8.0 is a concrete step toward making that model practical and production-ready.”
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~ Rodrigo Nascimento, CTO @ Rocket.Chat

Feature preview capabilities, now part of the default UX 

Rocket.Chat v8.0 also consolidates several long-running Feature Preview capabilities into the default platform experience. These features are now stable, supported, and enabled by default.

The following capabilities move out of preview and become standard behavior:

• Expandable message composer, which grows as content expands without hiding surrounding context
• Global header with improved navigation, providing clear scopes and faster movement across rooms and workspaces
• Quick reactions, surfacing commonly used emojis directly on hover
• Resizable contextual bar, allowing users to control how much detail they see alongside conversations

By improving these features, we are reducing friction in day-to-day workflows and removing small points of failure that compound during high-tempo operations.

Maintenance updates

This version also includes a set of deprecations and bug fixes focused on simplifying the platform and improving long-term stability. 

Functionality that has been superseded by more secure or reliable alternatives has been removed or marked for removal. Full details, including impacted areas and guidance, are available in the technical documentation.

Bug fixes

This release includes a number of fixes to improve overall stability, performance, and user experience. For a complete list of resolved issues in Rocket.Chat v8.0, check out the official release notes.

How to update your workspace to the latest Rocket.Chat version?

SaaS workspaces

The release happens automatically on our cloud, so no further action is required from your side. However, remember that updating instances might take a few weeks, so don't hesitate to contact our support team if you need to update your version sooner. 

Self-managed workspaces

Depending on the installation mode, you might need to update your server manually. Check out the documentation for instructions.