ancsemi/Haven

A private Discord alternative that runs on your own machine. No cloud, no company account, no telemetry, no paid tier. Free forever.

One person runs the server. Everyone else joins with a code. Messages, files and voice never touch anybody else's infrastructure.

Docker

docker run -d -p 3000:3000 -v haven_data:/data ghcr.io/ancsemi/haven:latest

Windows, no Docker: download the zip, unzip it, double-click Start Haven.bat. It installs Node.js for you if you do not have it.

Linux / macOS, no Docker: chmod +x start.sh && ./start.sh

Then open https://localhost:3000, register with the username admin, make a channel, share the code. The certificate warning on first load is expected, click Advanced then Proceed.

One-click cloud deploy on Zeabur · on RepoCloud · Full setup guide

Apps and browser talk to the same server and see the same thing, so nobody has to install anything to be included.

Want to look around first? The community server is open, no code needed, just sign up. Volunteer-hosted, thanks MutantRabbit.

Coming from Discord

• Import your whole server history from inside Haven. Every channel, thread, forum post, reaction, pin and attachment. Paste a token, pick a server, go.
• Ferry, a two-way Discord bridge. Messages pass both ways between a Haven channel and a Discord channel, under each person's real name. Friends who are not ready to leave Discord can still talk to the ones who did.

Talking

• Voice chat, peer to peer by default so audio doesn't pass through the server (an optional voice relay is there for big servers). Per-user volume, mute, deafen, noise suppression, talking indicators.
• Screen sharing, several people at once in a tiled grid. Watch parties work.
• Listen together with synced playback from Spotify, YouTube and SoundCloud, or a music player right in the voice channel.
• Threads, replies, reactions, pins, editing, mentions, polls, search, link previews, code blocks, spoilers.
• Direct messages, end-to-end encrypted. Private keys never leave the browser, so not even the person hosting can read them.
• Rich presence for what people are playing and listening to, via Steam, Last.fm or Spotify. Off until you turn it on, never written to the database.

Making it yours

• 26 built-in themes, a colour picker, an RGB cycle, and stackable visual effects like CRT, Matrix rain and snowfall.
• A plugin and theme system, so you can drop in your own without forking anything.
• Custom stickers, custom emoji, personas (send as an alternate character), soundboard, avatar shapes and borders.
• Server branding, sidebar layout options, font size and density controls.
• 11 languages out of the box: English, Français, Deutsch, Español, Polski, Русский, 中文, Português, فارسی, 日本語 and 한국어.

Running it

• One-click updates from inside the app. Haven takes a pre-update backup and restarts itself.
• Built-in backups, scheduled or on demand, with restore.
• Single sign-on via OpenID Connect, so Authentik, Keycloak, Authelia and Auth0 all work as your login.
• Bots and webhooks with a REST API. Send messages, play soundboard sounds, register slash commands, join voice, receive signed callbacks.
• Roles with per-channel permissions. Kick, timed mute, ban, IP bans, slow mode, automod link filtering, an audit log, and a moderation API.
• Guest accounts, invite links, per-channel join codes with automatic rotation.
• Push notifications, including UnifiedPush if you would rather leave Google out.
• Built-in Cloudflare and LocalTunnel support, so friends can reach you without port forwarding.
• Bcrypt passwords, JWT auth, HTTPS, MFA, rate-limited logins, and a disk reserve so a full drive never wedges the server.

Everything in detail lives in GUIDE.md: setup, Docker, remote access (port forwarding, Tailscale, Cloudflare Tunnel, reverse proxies), themes, voice and TURN, Discord import, Ferry, encryption, backups, configuration, translations, the bot API, and troubleshooting.

Release notes are in CHANGELOG.md.

Issues and PRs are welcome, including translations and themes. If you are reporting a bug, the version number from https://your-server:3000/api/version helps.

Haven is built with AI. I'm not a professional programmer. I came up with Haven, I decide what goes in, and I test it and run it with my own community. Most of the code, the server logic included, was written by AI coding tools (mainly Claude Code) working from my direction, and most code review is AI-assisted too. Commits don't carry a per-commit AI label, so assume any part of the code may have been written by AI. Contributors sometimes use AI as well, and pull requests are welcome either way.

What keeps it in check:

• An automated test suite (over 650 tests) runs before every push.
• Every pull request is read in full and checked for security problems before it's merged.
• Logins, permissions, encryption and uploads have had dedicated security reviews, and the fixes ship in public releases.
• Bugs are reported and fixed in the open, here on GitHub.

AGPL-3.0. Free to use, modify and share. If you deploy a modified version as a network service, you have to publish its source. See LICENSE.

⬡ Haven