Chatto, a group messaging platform built for teams and online communities, became open source and available for self-hosting, according to an announcement from its developer. The release gives organizations an alternative to hosted workplace chat services while keeping deployment and data under their own control.
The software is designed so that a basic installation can run as a single executable that also serves the web interface. Ready-made builds are offered for x86-64 and Arm64 Linux systems, macOS and Windows. The developer also points users to a Homebrew-based route for quickly trying the application.
Each Chatto installation serves one community. Rather than federating information among servers, the client can connect directly to several separate installations for users who belong to multiple groups. Operators who need more than one community can run additional processes. The project says it does not include third-party analytics or tracking. Personal details and chat records are encrypted while stored, using keys assigned to individual users; those keys are destroyed when an account is deleted.
Voice calls, video calls and screen sharing are included. Chatto says calls use end-to-end encryption, although the number of participants that can be supported will depend on the infrastructure selected by the operator. The self-hosted software is free to use.
A commercial option is also planned. Chatto Cloud is expected to enter public beta as a paid managed-hosting service, initially on infrastructure that is both located and owned in Europe. The announced service includes automatic scaling, nightly data backups and upgrades intended to avoid downtime. The developer says hosted and self-managed servers will remain compatible, allowing customers to move data in either direction rather than being locked into the managed service. Additional regions are planned for early 2027.
The project reached version 0.4 at the time of the announcement. Its creator described that release as suitable for production, while warning that some capabilities remain unfinished and that breaking changes are possible before version 1.0. The next milestone, version 0.5, is intended to add reporting and moderation tools and improve the experience of using multiple servers. A 1.0 release is projected within six to 12 months, and self-hosters are advised to keep pace with updates as development continues.
