Mattermost is an open-source, self-hostable online chat service with file sharing, search, and integrations. Designed as an alternative to Slack, it was founded by a Canadian-led team and is widely used by enterprises and governments for secure communications.

Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication and publishing. Ian Clarke, whose work has strong Canadian roots, created the project. Canadian privacy advocates and technical contributors have been essential to the project's ongoing development and adoption.

CanAssist at the University of Victoria develops open-source assistive technology tools and custom software for people with disabilities. Their free toolbox includes communication aids, alternative input interfaces, and educational software freely available to Canadians.

Pidgin is a free and open-source multi-protocol instant messaging client. Canadian open-source developers have long been contributors to Pidgin and its underlying libpurple library, which supports dozens of chat protocols.