Hacker News

313 points by speckx 4 hours ago | 65 comments

jacobgold 5 minutes ago

The fundamental problem with replacing Slack is network effects. Your coworkers and customers already use Slack. It works well enough.

You can choose to switch your company away, maybe, but what do you do when vendors want to connect over Slack?

We really need an open protocol to build on.

wxw 3 hours ago

> It’s designed to be extremely easy to self-host on your own infrastructure.

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.

OhSoHumble 56 minutes ago

This is super cool. More options is always good. Something that is confusing about the docs though... is there a desktop application? The screenshot implies there is but I couldn't find the docs to download THAT.

electriclove 2 hours ago

Can it be installed on Cloudflare or Vercel or something else that is easy/cheap/free?

uproarchat 2 hours ago

I run something similar with livekit, all on hetzner. its exceedingly affordable for a bunch of people at once to use it.

mertbio 3 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 2 hours 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!

nullbio 2 minutes ago

It took him a year to build. So yeah, obviously if someone spends a year working on something with an LLM they can produce a good product.

The slop we're seeing from people using AI is because they pump it out in a month or two and then call it a day.

Forgeties79 14 minutes ago

These kind of comments just spike the conversation and leave no room for nuanced opinions or discussion.

A lot of garbage is also being produced and a lot of people have to clean it up, right? Hopefully that’s not too controversial of statement?

rootatixww3 49 minutes ago

don't forget "where are all these beautiful apps that supposedly everybody vibe codes now?"

nozzlegear 12 minutes ago

Who says this? "Beautiful" vibecoded apps are a dime a dozen. Getting support or continued feature development for those beautiful apps after the developer's AIDHD moves on to their next half-baked idea is usually the differentiator between a good vibecoded app and a bad one.

Cyberdog 2 hours 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.

Quitschquat 12 minutes ago

I run Claude all day, and produced some good shit, but I'll admit to being thoroughly embarrassed that I haven't looked at it all, won't make it public, won't put my name on it, won't pick a license. I'm depressed about the whole thing and might take it up with a therapist.

My eyes are still rolling from GP's comment:

> he single-handedly developed it by leveraging agentic coding

yard2010 59 minutes ago

I agree with this sentiment so much but before I could figure I turned into it. I'm feeling torn - it's helping me write and ship good code as I couldn't before, but it feels like I don't understand the real price of using it non-stop.

bakugo 41 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.

This is all correct, though. I haven't tried this, but I can guarantee it's a buggy, incoherent mess, same as every other vibe coded app I've ever tried, no exceptions.

Quitschquat 10 minutes ago

Yeah, the crap I vibe coded is buggy as hell too. It takes a lot of tokens and time to polish my agentic turds.

cindyllm 5 minutes ago

[dead]

aitchnyu 7 minutes ago

Saw so many open source chats happen behind (or "in") Discord. Will this allow community members to drop in and chat and Google the contents?

frenchie4111 2 hours 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)

mediaman 2 hours ago

Looks like it's planned.

https://github.com/orgs/chattocorp/projects/1?pane=issue&ite...

dormento 2 hours 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! :)

rootatixww3 48 minutes ago

chudo missed opportunity

simonw 2 hours 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 2 hours 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 2 hours 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.

johntash 2 hours 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.

ezst 46 minutes ago

One front-end for multiple servers is how you end up reimplementing XMPP (bar federation) before you know it: servers are not guaranteed to run identical/compatible versions -> you bake versioning at capability level in the protocol -> you make clients and servers degrade predictably when that happens -> you write a standard to document it formally -> you invite around the table those authors of alternative client and server implementers and boom, you've got the X in XMPP, and the XEP standardisation process and the XSF to support it.

namegulf 20 minutes ago

This is cool. Will try out soon.

Love that the way you said the rhymes part 'rhymes with “knack”, or the one that rhymes with “beams”, or the one that rhymes with “this gourd”'.

theK 42 minutes ago

So encrypted at rest but no E2EE, did I read that right?

Catloafdev 35 minutes ago

Looks great - is there any info on what server resources are actually required per feature or user count?

uwemaurer 2 hours ago

Looks great! How does it compare to Zulip? we self host zulip and are quite happy with it

mikkelam 25 minutes ago

Super happy to see someone take on slack. We just want a performant chat with simple features.

Slack integrations are overrated. Just give me webhooks.

drBonkers 21 minutes ago

Needs drop in voice rooms a la Discord or Slack's Huddle

theturtletalks 3 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 3 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 3 hours ago

What makes it nicer to use than Slack?

DANmode 3 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.

acomagu 3 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 3 hours ago

as an english speaker, i would pronounce it "chat-oh", but i'm open to correction

johntash 2 hours ago

I don't know what the "official" pronunciation is, but I would say "Chat-o" is probably right.

Gualdrapo 2 hours 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 2 hours 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.

(They do have end-to-end encryption for video.)

pzmarzly 2 hours ago

I hope they introduce some sort of public read-only view that an admin can enable. Discord has https://www.answeroverflow.com/ and https://www.linen.dev/

Imustaskforhelp 2 hours 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.

roshannarma 50 minutes ago

I have been patiently waiting for fluxer, but honestly I just want to self host and have it available and fluxer has been sitting on that for a while

hampus 41 minutes ago

I'm the developer behind Fluxer – self-hosting is ready to use already [1][2][3], people are using it actively currently, and I'm currently working to make account switching across instances in the desktop app a reality. This, with a big voice update around the corner, will let us move much faster moving forward!

[1]: https://fluxer.app/blog/mobile-clients-and-fluxer-v2

[2]: https://docs.fluxer.app/operator/get-started/

[3]: https://github.com/fluxerapp/fluxer

npodbielski 3 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 3 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 2 hours 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.

uxjw 59 minutes ago

Yeah its unfortunate there's an AI app on the apple store with the same name

toomuchtodo 3 hours ago

Very cool! You should request being added to https://european-alternatives.eu/

tempfile 2 hours 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!)

vsviridov 3 hours ago

Amazing. And with SSO out of the box without weird "Oh, SSO is Enterprise only" BS.

hrdwdmrbl 2 hours 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.

sreekanth850 2 hours ago

looks super cool.

latexr 3 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 2 hours 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 2 hours ago

Yeah a lot of them like Mattermost become surprisingly limited unless you pay. It's very annoying.

claytongulick 2 hours 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.

hackernows_test 60 minutes ago

I’m

dofm 2 hours 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 2 hours ago

most complains i see about the others are performance-related, not looks-related. and chatto is trying to be performant.

dofm 2 hours 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.

icase 2 hours ago

soooooo campfire then

dewey 2 hours 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.

jkman 51 minutes ago

Off the bat, it seems that campfire doesn't support voice/video calls. So no, not at all