Chatto is now open source • Hacker News Board

Re: Chatto is now open source

#31

Post by pzmarzly » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #26

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.)

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/

Re: Chatto is now open source

#32

Post by dormento » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

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! :)

Re: Chatto is now open source

#33

Post by dofm » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

> 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.

Re: Chatto is now open source

#34

Post by john_strinlai » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:56 PM UTC

dofm wrote: post #33

> 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.

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

Re: Chatto is now open source

#35

Post by hrdwdmrbl » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:00 PM UTC

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.

Re: Chatto is now open source

#36

Post by dofm » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:01 PM UTC

john_strinlai wrote: post #34

dofm wrote: post #33

> 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.

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

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.

Re: Chatto is now open source

#37

Post by tempfile » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:01 PM UTC

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!)

Re: Chatto is now open source

#38

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:02 PM UTC

npodbielski wrote: post #8

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.

[deleted]

Re: Chatto is now open source

#39

Post by ricardobeat » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #22

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?

AGPL stops others from running a competing cloud service using the Go backend. It does nothing for the frontend except scare off enterprise users.

Re: Chatto is now open source

#40

Post by Cyberdog » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

budsniffer952 wrote: post #24

mertbio wrote: post #9

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.

[flagged]

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.