Twenty years ago, on June 6, 2006, we published Brosix and started offering it to teams around the world. Two decades later, we’re still here — and still building toward the same idea we started with.
Here’s how it began.
A simple problem worth solving
Back in 2006, we were already working with clients all over the world, and we used the same consumer chat apps everyone else did to stay in touch. They were convenient and they got the job done. But the moment you tried to run real business communication through them, the cracks started to show.
Consumer apps were never built for work. They left out the things companies quietly depend on:
- No real security or control. Data wasn’t protected as it traveled the internet, and there was no way to manage who could join or read along.
- No structure or oversight. No channels for teams and projects, and nothing for managers — no admin view, no rules, no clean way to add or remove people.
- Work and personal life tangled together, with ads and unrelated chatter pulling focus away from actual work.
The apps were easy. They just weren’t ready for business.
The other option was overkill
There were “serious” business chat systems back then, too. But using one meant installing complex software on your own servers, on-site — something that took real IT expertise, hardware, and constant maintenance. For a small or mid-sized team, that was simply out of reach.
Two decades later, the picture hasn’t really changed — it has just moved to the cloud. Today’s corporate messaging tools are bundled inside sprawling enterprise platforms run by some of the largest software companies in the world. They’re powerful, but for a team of 10 or 200 people who just need to talk to each other, they’re overkill: too complex, too heavy, and built for organizations many times their size.
The gap we saw in 2006 is still here. Small and mid-size teams don’t need a corporate platform. They need communication that just works.
What we set out to build
So we built Brosix around a few simple principles — and they haven’t changed since:
- Easy for employees. When people show up to work, they should feel the same ease they get chatting with friends and family. No manuals, no training, no friction.
- Easy for managers. Setting up and running a private team messaging should take minutes, not ages.
- Built for business. Security, structure, and control — handled by the platform, so teams don’t have to think about them.
That was the whole idea: the comfort of a consumer app, with everything a business actually needs underneath.
Twenty years of change
A lot has happened since 2006.
The market changed. The technology changed. The people — our customers, their teams, the way they work — all changed. When we started, only a handful of companies had anyone working remotely. Today it’s everywhere, and “distributed team” is just another way of saying “team.”
Brosix changed too. The product today goes far beyond what we shipped on day one. But through every change, we’ve stayed loyal to the original idea: give companies and organizations of every size, in every industry, anywhere in the world, a business messaging tool that’s genuinely easy to use.
What keeps us going
Nothing motivates us more than hearing that the work has been worth it. Reviews like this one – left on Capterra in April 2026 by Brent, a Director of Vendor Management in the insurance industry — mean a great deal:
“We have been using Brosix as our primary internal instant messaging platform since around 2012, and it has been an outstanding part of our daily operations ever since. Brosix excels at what an instant messenger should do: fast, dependable, distraction-free communication.”
Fourteen years with the same tool, still recommended without hesitation. That’s exactly what we hoped to build.
A thank-you, and a small celebration
To everyone who has trusted Brosix over these 20 years — thank you. You’re the reason we keep going.
To mark the occasion, we’re adding 3 months free to any annual plan started by June 15, 2026 – 15 months for the price of 12. Consider it a small thank-you for two decades of trust.
Here’s to the next 20.