Hive

Hive is a real-time chat platform that you run yourself. It is a self-hosted alternative to Messenger, Discord or Teams: all data stays on your server and the whole solution runs in Docker.

What it does

• Direct messages and group conversations with group admins.
• Contacts and friend requests, presence indicators (online, offline, away).
• File and image sharing right in the conversation; attachments can be saved with one click.
• Read receipts and typing indicators.
• Profile with a custom avatar.
• Automatic client updates: the app offers a new version, verifies the checksum and reinstalls itself.

The Windows client installs from a single MSI package without administrator rights. Voice calls and screen sharing are planned.

Technology

The server is written in C# on .NET 10 following clean architecture. SignalR handles real-time messaging, data lives in PostgreSQL, presence in Redis and files in S3-compatible storage (MinIO). The desktop client is built on Avalonia.