Matrix.org!

All-in-one voice and text chat for gamers that’s free, secure, and works on both your desktop and phone. Stop paying for TeamSpeak servers and hassling with Skype.

WhatsApp Messenger is a cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows you to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS. WhatsApp Messenger is available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia and yes, those phones can all message each other! Because WhatsApp Messenger uses the same internet data plan that you use for email and web browsing, there is no cost to message and stay in touch with your friends.

Riot (formerly Vector) is an opensource interoperable app running on Web, iOS and Android. It is built around chat rooms, both public and private and provides messaging, filesharing, voice and video conferencing (beta on Android and web), integrations to tools like GitHub, Jira, Jenkins and much more soon. Vector is built on the Matrix.org open standard which provides bridges to other systems such as Slack, IRC and a lot more soon. One can use the hosted service or run their own. »

Mattermost is an open source, self-hosted Slack alternative.

Rocket.Chat is a Web Chat Server, developed in JavaScript, using the Meteor fullstack framework.

HipChat is an instant messaging service designed for companies and teams. It has persistent chat rooms, one-to-one chat, searchable chat history, file sharing via drag & drop and clipboard, inline image previews, an API, chat over SMS, and more.

Self-hosted chat for small teams.

Gitter is a chat and collaboration tool for developers and users. It's a place for developers to talk.

Zulip is a group chat app.