Personal Chat, Personal AI, Personal Cloud, all hosted on your PC!

VoceChat is a lightweight, self-hosted chat server built in Rust (about 20 MB) — an open-source alternative to Slack and Discord that runs on your own infrastructure. It offers DM and group chat, replies, @mentions, file sharing, burn-after-reading, an open API and SDK, bots with webhooks, and an embeddable website widget. The server is open source and designed for private cloud, NAS, homelab, and local-first deployment.

The fastest way is Docker — one command starts the official image:

docker run -d --restart=always
-p 3000:3000
--name vocechat-server
privoce/vocechat-server:latest

Binary and source installs are also supported. See the install guides for TLS, reverse proxy, and upgrade steps.

Anywhere you control. The simplest start is on your own computer — laptop or desktop — and VoceChat includes a built-in Cloudflare Tunnel that gives you a public link to your server, so you can chat from anywhere on the internet without opening router ports or buying a VPS. You can also host on a cloud VPS, a Synology or UGREEN NAS, or keep it on a private intranet for internal teams only. Pick local + tunnel for personal use, VPS or NAS for always-on communities, or intranet when you want zero public exposure. See the install guides for each option.

The VoceChat server itself is about 20 MB and runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, and ARM devices including Raspberry Pi. A VPS with 512 MB RAM or more is plenty for small teams. The official Docker image is roughly 24 MB. Clients are available for iOS, Android, desktop, and web.

Yes — the self-hosted community edition is free for servers with up to 20 members. Larger communities need a license. Pro unlocks unlimited members, more bots and webhooks, the website chat widget, and email notifications. There is no backdoor and no usage telemetry; license checks use local RSA verification.

Server admins create a Bot under Settings → Bot & Webhook, then generate an API Key. Use the key in the x-api-key header to send text, Markdown, or file messages to users and channels via the Bot API. Set a webhook URL on the same bot to receive inbound events — new messages, replies, edits, deletions, and new-user signups (for welcome messages). Webhooks can optionally use AES encryption. This is how teams build live-chat widgets, form-to-chat dashboards, newsletters, and automation backends. See the Bot & Webhook guide and API docs.

Yes. VoceChat is built to be a chat frontend for agents. For a custom AI bot, point a bot webhook at your backend (OpenAI, local LLM, or any service) and reply through the Bot API — see the GPT bot example. For OpenClaw, use the official VoceChat plugin: OpenClaw listens on port 8010, receives VoceChat webhook POSTs, routes them to your agent runtime, and sends replies back via the Bot API — supporting private chat, groups, text, replies, and file uploads. Popular setups include personal AI assistants, local LLM APIs + VoceChat, and OpenClaw-powered bots on your own machine. Read the OpenClaw integration guide.

Yes, in two ways. VoceSpace lets you self-host branded video and audio conferencing under your own domain with enterprise-grade control — ideal for client-facing chat + video solutions. For the self-hosted server, you can also enable Agora WebRTC in Settings: Agora offers a generous free tier (about 167 hours/month shared across all callers on your server). Start a call from the icon in any chat window.

Community and GitHub use cases include: website live-chat and contact widgets, webhook dashboards for static-site form submissions, internal company messaging, public event boards on landing pages, NAS bookmark and file sharing, private social feeds, customer-support bots, bridges toward Discord or Slack, and in-app messaging via the open API and SDK. Embed the chat widget on any site with a few lines of JavaScript.

VoceChat has no backdoor and collects no chat data on Privoce servers — everything stays on your instance. Traffic can use encrypted transmission; messages support burn-after-reading. Webhook payloads can be AES-encrypted. Being self-hosted means you own storage, access control, and retention policies.

Start with doc.voce.chat (install, bots, API, OpenClaw, widget). Browse our curated community guides, search or file issues on GitHub (vocechat-server, vocechat-web), email han@privoce.com, or visit the support page for hosting and customization help.