What is MikroChat?

MikroChat is a minimalist, self-hosted chat application for teams who want complete control over their communication. It provides the essential chat features you need without the bloat, vendor lock-in, or expensive bills of commercial alternatives, nor the overhead and complexity of many other open-source/free options.

The Core Concept

MikroChat gives you a complete chat solution with a static frontend and a small backend API. No external services required, no complex infrastructure to manage. Deploy the paired release archives and start chatting.

What’s Included

• Channel-based messaging: Organize conversations into channels, just like Slack
• Public and private channels: Keep sensitive discussions limited to members
• Threaded replies: Start threads on any channel message to keep discussions organized
• Direct messages: Private conversations between users
• Image support: Share images with automatic client-side compression and thumbnail generation
• File attachments: Attach PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, archives, and text files
• Search: Search visible channel messages, DMs, people, and attached filenames
• Mentions and notifications: Use @user, @here, and @channel mentions with browser notifications and unread badges
• Pinned and quoted messages: Pin important channel messages, quote replies, and copy message links
• Presence: See online, away, and offline status in direct messages
• Emoji reactions: React to messages with 12 pre-selected emojis
• Real-time updates: Server-Sent Events keep everyone in sync
• Optional encryption at rest: AES-256-GCM encryption for stored server data when configured
• User management: Invite users, manage admins, control access
• Admin operations: Export server data and review audit log entries for administrative changes
• Dark mode: Easy on the eyes
• Installable web app: Add MikroChat to your device like a native app

Key Characteristics

Batteries Included

MikroChat ships with everything: a web application frontend and a complete backend API. No separate databases, no message queues, no external services are needed.

Lightweight

The backend has just a handful of dependencies: MikroAuth, MikroConf, PikoDB, and MikroServe. The frontend uses vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Self-Hosted

Run MikroChat on your own hardware — a VPS, a Raspberry Pi, or your laptop. Your messages stay where you put them.

Flexible Authentication

Choose between local email-only sign-in for private testing, magic link or password authentication for production, and OAuth 2.0 sign-in with Google, Microsoft, GitHub, GitLab, or custom providers.

Design Philosophy

MikroChat is intentionally minimal. Some things were left out on purpose:

• Short message history: Configurable retention (default 30 days) prevents using chat as documentation storage.
• Limited messages per channel: Encourages focused discussions.

The goal is a chat application for discussions, not a knowledge base. Use the right tool for the job.

Configurable

Message history and number of messages per channel are both configurable. See the server options for more.

Who Is MikroChat For?

• Teams who want a private chat server without the overhead of other options
• Privacy-conscious groups who need to keep conversations off third-party platforms
• Technical teams who want to self-host and configure their chat solution
• Organizations tired of per-seat pricing and feature bloat

Getting Started

The fastest way to get MikroChat running:

curl -sSL -o mikrochat_app.zip https://releases.mikrosuite.com/mikrochat_app_latest.zip
curl -sSL -o mikrochat_api.zip https://releases.mikrosuite.com/mikrochat_api_latest.zip
unzip mikrochat_app.zip -d mikrochat_app
unzip mikrochat_api.zip -d mikrochat_api

See the Installation guide for the full walkthrough.