> 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
> 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.
johntash 4 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.
mertbio 45 minutes 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 4 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!
simonw 18 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?
frenchie4111 18 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)
acomagu 34 minutes ago [-]
Would English speakers pronounce this as "Chat-to"? To a Japanese person, this clearly sounds like "Cha-tto," which simply means "chat."
bigfishrunning 24 minutes ago [-]
as an english speaker, i would pronounce it "chat-oh", but i'm open to correction
Gualdrapo 23 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
johntash 23 minutes ago [-]
I don't know what the "official" pronunciation is, but I would say "Chat-o" is probably right.
theturtletalks 1 hours ago [-]
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 1 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 35 minutes ago [-]
What makes it nicer to use than Slack?
DANmode 1 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”.
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 34 minutes 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 20 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.
vsviridov 60 minutes ago [-]
Amazing. And with SSO out of the box without weird "Oh, SSO is Enterprise only" BS.
latexr 32 minutes 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 20 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 21 minutes ago [-]
Yeah a lot of them like Mattermost become surprisingly limited unless you pay. It's very annoying.
claytongulick 2 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.
Rendered at 16:44:34 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
> 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.
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.
You mean to tell me smart people can leverage these tools to do things at a scale they couldn't before? Blasphemy!
Why not keep it all AGPL?
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.
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.