Chatto is now open source • Hacker News Board

Re: Chatto is now open source

#81

Post by czottmann » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 6:33 PM UTC

OhSoHumble wrote: post #49

wxw wrote: post #10

> 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-…

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.

It's a first-class PWA currently but no native desktop apps yet.

Re: Chatto is now open source

#82

Post by te_chris » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 6:33 PM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #77

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]

Spoilsport

Re: Chatto is now open source

#83

Post by crote » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 6:34 PM UTC

So, an open-source Discord clone?

I mean, people have been asking for alternatives lately, so it's not like there isn't a market for it. There are even entire communities[0] for discovering them.

But considering there are already several dozen alternatives: what makes this one special? What sets it apart from Gamevox, Cinny, Element, Schildi, Echon, Neremity, Fluxer, Faction, Stoat, Guilded, Root, Loqa, Venta, Osmium, and so on and so on? Heck, a handful of vibecoded new ones spring up every week!

If you're going to release Yet Another Clone, you have to make it immediately obvious 1) how it compares feature-wise, and 2) what unique thing makes yours special enough to overcome the extremely powerful network effects of the incumbents. Reading this page Chatto looks neat I guess, but there's nothing convincing me to invest several hours into discovering whether this is truly a Discord killer, or Yet Another Clone. Same with the official website and docs: some techy mumbo-jumbo, but that's about it.

No matter how impressive it is technically and no matter how free and open it may be, without significantly better marketing material it'll have a chance at becoming relevant.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/DiscordAlternatives/

Re: Chatto is now open source

#84

Post by azinman2 » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC

> And it’s really good hosting! Chatto Cloud is launching with fully European and European-owned infrastructure, with more regions slated for launch in early 2027

With chat control that may not be so great…

Re: Chatto is now open source

#85

Post by brodock » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 6:37 PM UTC

dormento wrote: post #32

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! :)

Can also mean annoying. As a general recommnedation, before naming a project or company something, always search whether it means something bad in the top 10 most spoken languages.

For portuguese/spanish, there is always a high chance of being a slang that is NSFW

Re: Chatto is now open source

#86

Post by czottmann » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 6:37 PM UTC

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.

I second that. I've personally known him for almost 30 years by now, and he's still one of the smartest, most experienced, and most curious devs I've ever met. All around good guy, would work with him again any day of the week.

Re: Chatto is now open source

#87

Post by bluechair » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 6:38 PM UTC

acomagu wrote: post #13

Would English speakers pronounce this as "Chat-to"? To a Japanese person, this clearly sounds like "Cha-tto," which simply means "chat."

Linguist here. It would likely be pronounced with a flap/tap, i.e., it would rhyme with shadow

Re: Chatto is now open source

#88

Post by fatty_patty89 » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 6:38 PM UTC

well_ackshually wrote: post #71

Quitschquat wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>he single-handedly developed it by leveraging agentic coding so, unmaintained in a year because the sole developer got bored/didn't make money from it/burned out ? Great, I'll run my entire company on it!

are you ok? what do you need constant updates for on a self hosted chat server/client? it already looks like it has most of the features

Re: Chatto is now open source

#89

Post by projektfu » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 6:39 PM UTC

brodock wrote: post #85

dormento wrote: post #32

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! :)

Can also mean annoying. As a general recommnedation, before naming a project or company something, always search whether it means something bad in the top 10 most spoken languages. For portuguese/spanish, there is always a high chance of being a slang that is NSFW

Also annoyed/angry/cross.

Re: Chatto is now open source

#90

Post by theK » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

NikxDa wrote: post #72

theK wrote: post #55

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

Seems like it, but since you can self host it, you still get a lot more control over the data than using one of the aforementioned hosted offerings

Yeah, there are definitely valid contexts for hosting chat like this. E2EE has the benefit of not needing to trust the host, which I personally like but I can see this being fine or even wanted for lots of cases.