Introducing Kikuchat: The Self-hosted Team Chat Solution

#1

Post by vlucas » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 1:43 PM UTC

Introducing Kikuchat: The Self-hosted Team Chat Solution
kikuchat.com

Re: Introducing Kikuchat: The Self-hosted Team Chat Solution

#2

Post by samarudge » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 2:03 PM UTC

Interesting, are there any user limits on the purchased version?

Also, do you have any data on hardware requirements? The software requirements are only PHP and MySQL so I'm guessing it's not doing anything like in-memory caching and it'll need to hit MySQL quite a bit to generate the chat. How does it perform under 100 users? Or 1000? or more?

Re: Introducing Kikuchat: The Self-hosted Team Chat Solution

#3

Post by vlucas » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 2:16 PM UTC

samarudge wrote: post #2

Interesting, are there any user limits on the purchased version? Also, do you have any data on hardware requirements? The software requirements are only PHP and MySQL so I'm guessing it's not doing anything like in-memory caching and it'll need to hit MySQL quite a bit to generate the chat. How does it perform under 100 users? Or 1000? or more?

There are no software limits on users. It all depends on what your hardware and connection can handle.

The Groupon dev team helped us beta-test it a bit, and it handles 100 users well with decent hardware on Apache (they were using an EC2 instance, though I am not sure what size). You could probably go up to around 300 or so without issues on Nginx and PHP-FPM, but I'm not sure you would be able to get to 1000 without adding memcache or load balancing.

We are looking into making a pure node.js version with websockets if there is enough interest, though the price point for something like that would likely be higher. We are happy to provide support and additional feature development (like memcache integration) as needed. Just send us an email if you require anything custom, and we can work out the details.

Re: Introducing Kikuchat: The Self-hosted Team Chat Solution

#4

Post by dmix » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 2:42 PM UTC

Had me until I read "PHP".

Re: Introducing Kikuchat: The Self-hosted Team Chat Solution

#5

Post by vlucas » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 2:48 PM UTC

dmix wrote: post #4

Had me until I read "PHP".

Unfortunately, PHP is still the easiest thing for most people to setup and use, so that's what we went with for a self-hosted option. We are strongly considering a node.js version that would allow a lot more users. Is that something you might be interested in?

Re: Introducing Kikuchat: The Self-hosted Team Chat Solution

#6

Post by j_baker » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 2:57 PM UTC

Why would one want to spend $200 on this instead of using IRC or Jabber?

Re: Introducing Kikuchat: The Self-hosted Team Chat Solution

#7

Post by mtogo » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 2:57 PM UTC

It makes me sad that people are reinventing the IRC and XMPP wheel, and doing it poorly. Want your own version of this, with a bit less effort, but free?

1. Install an XMPP server

  $ sudo apt-get install prosody

2. Install a web frontent

  There are dozens. Here's one for example: http://amiadogroup.github.com/candy/

3. Congratulations, you just saved yourself $199.

Re: Introducing Kikuchat: The Self-hosted Team Chat Solution

#8

Post by vlucas » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 3:05 PM UTC

j_baker wrote: post #6

Why would one want to spend $200 on this instead of using IRC or Jabber?

Same reason people use Campfire and Hipchat?

Re: Introducing Kikuchat: The Self-hosted Team Chat Solution

#9

Post by mtogo » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 3:07 PM UTC

vlucas wrote: post #8

j_baker wrote: post #6

Why would one want to spend $200 on this instead of using IRC or Jabber?

Same reason people use Campfire and Hipchat?

Er.. and what is that? Campfire and Hipchat both take 5 minutes to set up and are cheap enough that they save you money by not having to set up your own system.

Yours requires setup and costs a ton. How is it like Campfire/Hipchat?

Re: Introducing Kikuchat: The Self-hosted Team Chat Solution

#10

Post by vlucas » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 3:10 PM UTC

mtogo wrote: post #9

vlucas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same reason people use Campfire and Hipchat?

Er.. and what is that? Campfire and Hipchat both take 5 minutes to set up and are cheap enough that they save you money by not having to set up your own system. Yours requires setup and costs a ton. How is it like Campfire/Hipchat?

I guess time will tell if it was a good move or not. You don't have to be so cynical. ActiveCollab did this for Basecamp and it panned out pretty well for them.