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Ask HN: Can you suggest self-hosted chat/audio system with Android/iOS client

4 points by long_warmup ↗ HN
Apologies if this question was already asked, I could not find good answer here but maybe I was not using the right keywords.

I would love to host a system for my family (including my grandma who is not very technical) and friends that would let us communicate over messages and audio calls (if video calls would be possible then I would be in 7th heaven)

Can you share what you are using (if you have done something like that)?

13 comments

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maxbaines
Jitsu, is an option https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet/
long_warmup
Thanks for sharing! Looks nice, there is even android app.

Looking through their android app it seems to be similar to google meets, I will definitely keep this in my bookmarks!

mister_hn
Rocket Chat or NextCloud
long_warmup
RocketChat looks very nice, and they claim to also have audio/video calls.

https://rocket.chat

And there is also Android app! Nice, thanks for sharing!

LockAndLol
Self hosted Matrix server? They also use jitsi for voice and chat, so I don't know if you have to set that up separately. Maybe they have an ansible role or docker-compose that does both.
long_warmup
I'm thinking about setting it up in podman, matrix is something I will check, though I must say after seeing NextCloud I might try that first, it looks very similar to Whatsapp (at least on screenshots I could see). This is something my older family members are familiar using so it would be easier for them to switch.
j1elo
Others have mentioned very good choices for messaging. For self-hosted audio and video calls, another option is OpenVidu Call: https://openvidu.io/openvidu-call

(that page also includes a demo deployment)

long_warmup
openvidu is nice, in many ways it looks very similar to google meet. And the "get a room" functionality reminds me of a system I used to use long time ago called appear.in (seems they are out of business..)
j1elo
I work on the OpenVidu development platform thus the Call application example was an easy recommendation... we have a public server with demo deployments, of which Call is just one.

Appear.in went through some changes (not sure of exactly what) and became "whereby" (sincerely the previous name was so much better).

Another all time favorite of mine (not self-hosted though) is talky.io

And of course there is Jitsi Meet, a very well-known get-a-room application that can also be self-hosted. And they maintain a public deployment too.