Open Source Alternatives to Stream Chat

A chat API and in-app messaging service that allows developers to integrate real-time communication into web and mobile applications. The platform provides feature-rich SDKs for various frameworks including React, Flutter, iOS, and Android, supported by a global edge network to reduce latency. Its capabilities include threaded replies, message reactions, URL enrichment, user presence indicators, and flexible permission roles. The service is designed for social messaging, team collaboration, and live chat use cases, offering tools for moderation, spam protection, and multi-tenancy. It is deployed as a managed infrastructure service with a focus on scalability and high availability. The platform supports up to 5 million concurrent connections and provides a 99.999% SLA uptime for enterprise reliability.

Whether you want to cut software costs or escape vendor lock-in, these open source alternatives to Stream Chat give you an option you fully own. You can self-host them, so your data stays on infrastructure you control. This page lists 1 open source alternative to Stream Chat. The most popular is Ethora. It uses the Apache-2.0 license and ships an official Docker image.