> Chatto ships in a compact, self-contained binary
> it uses NATS, a compact message broker that also ships with a built-in stream persistence engine [...] NATS is just as easy to provision as Chatto, and most of our examples will show you how.
> you can also configure an external S3-compatible object storage for Chatto to store your files in, and we strongly recommend doing so...
> The actual calls are powered by LiveKit (Apache-2.0), which you need to deploy alongside Chatto. As with NATS, the deployment examples show the required wiring.
> ...
And kudos for backing it up with real guidance. Great project.
electriclove 5 minutes ago [-]
Can it be installed on Cloudflare or Vercel or something else that is easy/cheap/free?
uproarchat 4 minutes ago [-]
I run something similar with livekit, all on hetzner. its exceedingly affordable for a bunch of people at once to use it.
frenchie4111 50 minutes ago [-]
This is awesome! Some feedback - I can't tell anywhere from the website if there is mobile support (which is a must-have if I want to consider moving my company or friends over to this)
mertbio 1 hours ago [-]
I’ve known Hendrik for years, and he is one of the most talented developers I’ve ever met. I’m confident this project will become successful very quickly. Beyond the project itself, what fascinates me most is how he single-handedly developed it by leveraging agentic coding.
budsniffer952 35 minutes ago [-]
But I read here every day that agents can't code. And that "real developers" spend more time fixing AI bugs than producing code, and it slows them down.
You mean to tell me smart people can leverage these tools to do things at a scale they couldn't before? Blasphemy!
Cyberdog 7 minutes ago [-]
Are you sure you read that here? I came back yesterday after a hiatus and I’ve been dismayed how many posts are just “yeah, I just run Claude all day” without a hint of embarrassment or shame.
dormento 22 minutes ago [-]
Couldn't help but smile because "chato" in portuguese means "boring", and this seems very easy to set up and use.
Here's to more boring software! :)
johntash 36 minutes ago [-]
Very cool. I don't usually get excited for new chat apps, but I like the idea of having one frontend for multiple servers instead of pushing hard on p2p or federation.
I do also still like irc, but haven't used it much in recent years because most of the people I talk to are using discord now.
simonw 49 minutes ago [-]
What's the rationale for the dual licensing? It looks like the Go backend is AGPL but the TypeScript frontend is Apache 2.0.
Why not keep it all AGPL?
goodroot 24 minutes ago [-]
Backend under AGPL prevents someone hosting it as a service. AGPL specifies that hosting _is_ distribution. Therefore, anyone hosting it must do so with public code. This provides a soft form of exclusivity to run their own Cloud.
A frontend, permitting customizability, white-labeling, and so on, makes more sense to be more permissive.
Grafana is a solid example to illustrate why.
Moved from Apache to AGPLv3 in 2021 specifically so cloud providers couldn't host modified versions without contributing back, while keeping plugins Apache-licensed.
ricardobeat 10 minutes ago [-]
AGPL stops others from running a competing cloud service using the Go backend. It does nothing for the frontend except scare off enterprise users.
acomagu 1 hours ago [-]
Would English speakers pronounce this as "Chat-to"? To a Japanese person, this clearly sounds like "Cha-tto," which simply means "chat."
bigfishrunning 55 minutes ago [-]
as an english speaker, i would pronounce it "chat-oh", but i'm open to correction
johntash 54 minutes ago [-]
I don't know what the "official" pronunciation is, but I would say "Chat-o" is probably right.
Gualdrapo 54 minutes ago [-]
At least here in colloquial "rolo" spanish people use to call "chato" (which would sound the same as "chatto") someone with a pug, snub nose
skybrian 31 minutes ago [-]
I’m wondering about privacy tradeoffs. Looks like they’re similar to Discord where the chats won’t show up in web searches and you can’t read anything without joining. But if anyone can join, it’s not like Signal either and end-to-end encryption wouldn’t make sense.
Looks really nice, thank you for open-sourcing. I keep a directory of opensource alternatives. Would you say this is a Discord or Slack alternative?
moeffju 2 hours ago [-]
I've been testing/using chatto since early on and I'd say it's both and neither. It feels much nicer to use than Slack, but as of now it's missing some of the more "Enterprise" features. I would probably say it's a Slack-like Discord? But from the architecture it would be capable of playing as a full Slack replacement.
I also maintain a Chatto bot framework and a Tauri client, need to update those now :)
monroewalker 1 hours ago [-]
What makes it nicer to use than Slack?
DANmode 2 hours ago [-]
> You’re probably familiar with the one that rhymes with “knack”, or the one that rhymes with “beams”, or the one that rhymes with “this gourd”.
> Chatto is just like those.
from TFA. Seems yes.
2 hours ago [-]
Imustaskforhelp 27 minutes ago [-]
Congrats for open sourcing it, looks interesting!
How does this compare to fluxer.gg though?
The part that I really liked about chatto is that it seems to be made very easily to self host which is something that I really appreciate actually.
tempfile 14 minutes ago [-]
Does this federate with anything, like Matrix or XMPP? If it is locked into a single software, I fear nobody will ever switch to it (I have too many chat apps already!)
hrdwdmrbl 16 minutes ago [-]
I've been running Mattermost for a couple of years now and I'm content with it. It does feel a little bit clunky sometimes, but it's been stable and performant so I can't really complain. It can also feel a bit much sometimes. A bit too complex. A bit too feature-rich. But if I just ignore most of it, then it's good. I will say that Chatto looks nicer, appears to be simpler to setup and also has simpler licensing. Can it auto-update itself? That's something that's bad with Mattermost.
npodbielski 1 hours ago [-]
Ah mobile app is not ready yet. I am looking for some alternative to matrix because running it with bots is a bit convoluted, i.e. you have to have limit of edits of message for model streaming or you will kill entire room. Or I never seen robots in matrix sending encrypted messages. Why bother than? Anyway if mobile will be a thing this seems like perfect thing to have for your family and friends.
moeffju 1 hours ago [-]
I created a Tauri based app but IMO it's not ready for prime time on mobile. On desktop, it's my daily driver for Chatto. If anybody wants to contribute, the foundation (desktop & mobile) is at https://github.com/teal-bauer/chatto-tauri
npodbielski 51 minutes ago [-]
Interesting but could you put few screenshots there? Of both desktop and mobile? It is really hard to invest time into installing something that you cant see anywhere prior, and it will be really easy to do for someone that is using it daily. Sorry for complaining. Seems like nice project.
Amazing. And with SSO out of the box without weird "Oh, SSO is Enterprise only" BS.
latexr 1 hours ago [-]
> And you can just self-host it. For free, too! (A weird thing to write, but the OSS chat app space has become very weird in many ways!)
Wait, what? There are open-source chat apps that you have to pay to host yourself? How does that work? Or did I misunderstand?
bityard 52 minutes ago [-]
Many otherwise open-source chat apps are "open-core," they tie certain features to a subscription. Can be things like chat history, voice calls, video calls, but a very popular one is SSO and AD/LDAP integration.
francislavoie 53 minutes ago [-]
Yeah a lot of them like Mattermost become surprisingly limited unless you pay. It's very annoying.
claytongulick 33 minutes ago [-]
Mattermost's licensing is a little confusing, but from what I understand, you're only really super-restricted if you use the prebuilt binaries (which have a different license than the source code).
IIRC if you build it yourself it's pretty much all AGPL, with few limitations.
icase 30 minutes ago [-]
soooooo campfire then
dewey 27 minutes ago [-]
There's space for more than one self-hosted chat app in the world. Also very ignorant comment towards a project someone probably spend a lot of time on.
dofm 22 minutes ago [-]
> Chatto aims to be the group chat application that you actually enjoy using.
So not like Discord or Slack?
> This is what it looks like:
Discord and Slack?
I mean, OK, it has EU hosting and that is good. But I see nothing obvious here that solves the noise and irritation of Discord and Slack.
john_strinlai 19 minutes ago [-]
most complains i see about the others are performance-related, not looks-related. and chatto is trying to be performant.
dofm 15 minutes ago [-]
It is not looks or performance (I have no idea) I am talking about. It is the shape of the functionality — the intent of it.
All these systems end up with far too much furniture on screen, and this appears no exception.
I will test it, of course. But the promotional material argues against itself.
Rendered at 17:15:52 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Kudos for this. Per the docs: https://docs.chatto.run/,
> Chatto ships in a compact, self-contained binary
> it uses NATS, a compact message broker that also ships with a built-in stream persistence engine [...] NATS is just as easy to provision as Chatto, and most of our examples will show you how.
> you can also configure an external S3-compatible object storage for Chatto to store your files in, and we strongly recommend doing so...
> The actual calls are powered by LiveKit (Apache-2.0), which you need to deploy alongside Chatto. As with NATS, the deployment examples show the required wiring.
> ...
And kudos for backing it up with real guidance. Great project.
You mean to tell me smart people can leverage these tools to do things at a scale they couldn't before? Blasphemy!
Here's to more boring software! :)
I do also still like irc, but haven't used it much in recent years because most of the people I talk to are using discord now.
Why not keep it all AGPL?
A frontend, permitting customizability, white-labeling, and so on, makes more sense to be more permissive.
Grafana is a solid example to illustrate why.
Moved from Apache to AGPLv3 in 2021 specifically so cloud providers couldn't host modified versions without contributing back, while keeping plugins Apache-licensed.
(They do have end-to-end encryption for video.)
I also maintain a Chatto bot framework and a Tauri client, need to update those now :)
> Chatto is just like those.
from TFA. Seems yes.
How does this compare to fluxer.gg though?
The part that I really liked about chatto is that it seems to be made very easily to self host which is something that I really appreciate actually.
Wait, what? There are open-source chat apps that you have to pay to host yourself? How does that work? Or did I misunderstand?
IIRC if you build it yourself it's pretty much all AGPL, with few limitations.
So not like Discord or Slack?
> This is what it looks like:
Discord and Slack?
I mean, OK, it has EU hosting and that is good. But I see nothing obvious here that solves the noise and irritation of Discord and Slack.
All these systems end up with far too much furniture on screen, and this appears no exception.
I will test it, of course. But the promotional material argues against itself.