crosstalk --info
IRC charm.
Modern features.
Crosstalk is a self-hosted chat platform for communities, a replacement for IRC, Discord and TeamSpeak. Text, voice, video and bots in a plain terminal look, on your own servers and without tracking.
Open the chatLearn moreFeatures
Text channels
Public and private channels, direct messages, Markdown and colored text, reactions, replies, search.
Voice rooms
Drop-in rooms like TeamSpeak, over WebRTC in the browser, with muting and permissions.
Camera and screen
Video and screen sharing in voice rooms, and calls in direct messages.
Images and media
Uploads and avatars, images through your own proxy, no connections to third-party servers.
Bots and an open protocol
JSON over WebSocket, documented with JSON schemas. Bots through a Python library.
Moderation
Roles, per-channel permissions, kick, ban, mute, reports and an audit log.
Why Crosstalk
- Self-hosted: Every community runs its own server. The data stays with you.
- Privacy-friendly: No phone number, no tracking, no IP addresses in logs, nothing from third-party servers.
- Light: One server process, one Docker Compose file, a web app (PWA) for desktop and phone. No build step in the client.
- Open: The protocol is publicly specified. The source code (AGPL-3.0) follows at release.
Status
Crosstalk is under active development. The instance on irc.wtf is a test run; depending on the instance settings, access is by invitation or as a guest. End-to-end encryption for direct messages is built but not yet externally reviewed, so it is not switched on.