Open-source, federated chat. Your server, your data, your rules.
Download · Contributing · Federation
Fennec is a self-hostable chat platform with voice, built for communities that don't want to hand their data over to a corporation. Think Discord (channels, servers, voice calls) but where anyone can run their own instance, and those instances can talk to each other.
You own your server. You own your data. You can still talk to people on other servers.
Centralized platforms are convenient until they aren't. Prices change, moderation policies shift, accounts get banned, companies get acquired. When everything lives on someone else's infrastructure, you're always one policy decision away from losing your community.
Federation means no single point of control. A community can run its own Fennec instance and still be reachable from other instances, the same way email works. If you don't like what one instance does, you can move or run your own, and you don't lose your connections.
Trust. A federated network is only meaningful if you can verify what the software actually does. Open source means the federation protocol, the authentication model, and the data handling are all auditable, not just described in a privacy policy.
It also means Fennec gets better from contributions rather than just from one team's roadmap.
- Servers & channels: organize conversations the way your community works
- Voice calls: peer-to-peer audio via WebRTC, no relay server required
- Federation: join servers on other instances, get notifications across instances
- Cross-platform: native desktop app for Windows, macOS, and Linux
- Self-hostable: Docker image, straightforward setup, no license fee
Grab the latest desktop client from the releases page and connect to an existing server, or host your own.
Fennec is early. Bug reports, feature ideas, and pull requests are all welcome. See docs/Developing.md for how to get the project running locally.