Spacebar is a free, open-source, self-hostable communication platform that is compatible with the Discord protocol. It reimplements the Discord client-server API in TypeScript, so existing Discord clients, bots and applications can connect to your own self-hosted instance with minimal changes. The goal is feature parity with Discord plus additional configurability, privacy and self-hosting options.

Key Features

• Discord-compatible — Reuses the Discord API, so custom clients and bots work with only minimal changes.
• Self-hostable — Run the entire server stack (API, gateway, CDN and WebRTC) on your own infrastructure.
• Open source — Fully AGPL-3.0 licensed public code across the Spacebar organisation.
• Configurable — Tune every aspect and limit of the platform to fit your needs.
• Decentralised — No single point of failure and no abuse of centralised power.
• Extensible — A secure, cross-platform plugin system and a cross-platform theming system.
• Voice and video — Built-in voice and video via WebRTC alongside text chat.

Why Use Spacebar?

Spacebar gives you the familiar Discord experience on infrastructure you fully control. It is ideal for teams and communities that want Discord-style chat, voice and bots without sending data to a centralised service, and for anyone who wants to transition gradually thanks to Discord-compatible clients and bots.

Use Cases

• Organisations that want a private, self-hosted Discord-compatible chat service.
• Developers building and testing Discord-style bots and clients against a local backend.
• Communities migrating away from centralised Discord while keeping familiar tooling.

Platform

Server: Linux · Docker. Clients: Web, desktop and mobile.

Licence

Open source (AGPL-3.0).

Website

spacebar.chat