Chat with your friends on a server you run. Own your data. No email, no password, no subscriptions. Secure, fast and easy.
v2.0.0-alpha.43 · Apps for Windows, Mac & Linux · Web app for PC and phones · Servers for Windows, Linux & Mac
Here's what's in the alpha: voice with AI noise removal, live captions, stages and watch parties, activities to play in voice, text, forums, events and docs, screen share at full resolution and 60 fps, encrypted DMs, group chats, calls and private channels, roles, bots and profiles you design yourself, on a server you control.
Pick a name and you're in. Your identity is a key created on your own device, stored encrypted, with an optional app lock. No email, no password, no signup form. A recovery key restores it on another device, and you can replace the key if it ever leaks.
Click a link, pick a name, you're talking. Server owners create invite links and share them however they like: a group chat, a text, an email.
Add the people you hang out with as friends and message them directly. Set a status and a custom status, or go invisible, and let friends see the game you're playing (opt-in, desktop app). No global usernames to fight over.
DMs are always end-to-end encrypted, with forward secrecy, using libsodium, a proven library. Pictures, files and voice messages too. No hand-made crypto. Compare safety numbers with a friend to make sure you're really talking to them.
Chats with up to ten friends, with files and voice messages, and voice or video calls for the whole group. All end-to-end encrypted: the server only passes them along, and every change to who's in the group is signed by the person who made it.
Voice and video calls with a friend, right from your DMs. Every frame is encrypted on your device, so the server only passes along noise. Group calls work the same way.
Server channels are encrypted on the way, and readable by whoever runs the server: you, or your friend. That's the honest deal, and we say it plainly. Want more? Make a small private channel (up to 50 people) end-to-end encrypted, text and voice, and not even the server can read it. In an encrypted voice channel, voice, video and screen shares are encrypted on your devices too, and the key changes when someone loses access, without dropping the call.
Voice runs through an SFU (LiveKit), so big voice channels stay smooth instead of falling apart past a handful of people. Every voice channel has its own text chat. Mute, deafen, per-person volume, push-to-talk that works while a game has focus (desktop app), and clips: save the last seconds of a call, recorded on your own device, with everyone able to see who has clips on.
Stages for talks and listening parties: everyone listens, and moderators bring people up to speak. Watch parties keep everyone in voice on the same frame of a video file, an upload or a YouTube video, with a party chat on the side.
Turn on your camera or share your screen in a voice channel, at your screen's own resolution and 60 fps by default, with system audio (on Windows, without echoing the call itself), and no paywall. Blur your background or replace it, right on your device. The SFU means a share goes up once, not once per viewer.
AI noise removal (DeepFilterNet3) takes out keyboards, fans and dogs. Voice detection opens your mic without clipping your first word, voices are evened out so nobody shouts or whispers, and you can clean up a friend's noisy mic on your end. Packets get lost, the audio doesn't. Admins can allow hi-fi stereo in a channel for music.
Turn on captions in a call and see what people say, in English or Swedish. Speech is turned into text on your own device: no audio or text goes anywhere, and the captions are gone seconds later. The speech model comes from your own server, which fetches it once.
Markdown with headings, lists and highlighted code, spoilers, replies, edits with history, reactions, @mentions for people and roles, voice messages, forwarding, drafts and message links, uploads up to 512 MB by default with a gallery view, link previews, unread markers and notifications. The everyday stuff, done properly.
Forum channels for questions, ideas and plans: posts with a title and tags, their own replies, search and "new" markers. Schedule game nights in a voice channel or anywhere else; friends tap Interested, get a reminder before it starts and add it to their calendar in one click.
Save any message for later, or have Iskra remind you about it. Write a message now and send it in the morning. Every mention and reply waits in your inbox, and Catch up sums up what you missed, worked out on your own device.
A place for the things you keep explaining: house rules, guides, FAQs, campaign notes. Pages in a tree, with history, search and a "Start here" page, and you choose who can edit.
Channel categories you drag into place, server folders on the rail, per-channel notification levels and mutes (a small server tells you about every message, a big one only about @mentions, until you choose), nicknames per server, hide a server from your list or leave it, jump to the next unread with a shortcut, and a layout that follows you to every device. Works with the keyboard and screen readers, with readable contrast in every theme.
Spin a thread off any message so side chats don't take over. Pin the good stuff. Search everything you can read, filter by person, files, links or date, and jump straight to the message.
Settle game night with a poll. Add your server's own emoji and stickers, find a GIF in the picker, and fire short sounds into voice from the soundboard, with your own volume and a mute for everyone else's.
Turn on Dice, Polls and Reminders with one click: they run inside your server, nothing to install. Write your own bots with a small Node SDK: /commands that suggest themselves as you type, answers only the asker sees, buttons, menus and forms. A bot reads only what's meant for it unless an admin says otherwise. Paste an Iskra webhook URL into anything that posts to Discord, or send your server's events to your own scripts with signed outgoing webhooks.
Hit "Create a server" in the desktop app, pick a starting point (gaming group, friends hangout, board games or empty) and it runs right on your computer, voice included. Tick "Keep my server running" and it starts with your computer. Flip "Let friends anywhere join" and Iskra opens the ports on your router, gets a free address and HTTPS, and friends anywhere can join.
Settings, messages, members and uploads all live in one folder, with daily backups. Download an encrypted backup, restore it on another computer and everyone follows your server to its new address. Backup buddies: daily backups can also go to a friend's Iskra server, encrypted first so your friend can't read them, and you restore from the desktop app with your recovery code. Nothing passes through Iskra. Bringing a community over? Import your Discord channels' history.
Start Draw & guess, a quiz or Four in a row right in the call, and everyone in the channel joins with one tap. Server owners can add their own activities, which run walled off from the internet in the desktop app.
Open your server's address in a browser and people see a page for your group: name, picture, a short description and a Join button, served by your own server. It's off until you turn it on, and you choose what it shows.
Quiet hours silence sounds and notifications. When they end, one "While it was quiet" summary notification covers what you missed across all your servers.
Custom roles with colours, icons and permissions, per-channel overrides, private and read-only channels. Block people, time out, kick and ban, slowmode, server mute, AutoMod, reports to a moderators' queue, and an audit log. Every check happens on the server, so nothing slips through a side door.
Desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux that update themselves, phone apps for Android and iPhone (test versions for now), and a web app at app.iskra.foo for PC and phone browsers. Add the web app to your home screen and it opens like an app, with push notifications for mentions, DMs and calls. The phone apps keep voice going with the screen locked and notify you while they're open.
Nothing we know how to build sits behind a paywall: not screen share quality, not upload size, not the soundboard, not your profile. No ads. No tracking. Your server and your data stay yours. Iskra runs on donations, and only if you want to.
Coming: App Store and Google Play listings, DMs with people you share no server with, and more.
We only promise what we can actually guarantee. Here's who can read what in Iskra:
There's no central relay. DMs, calls and encrypted private channels go through servers you and your friends already use, and those servers only ever handle encrypted messages and media. They can still see who talks to whom and when, and we'd rather tell you than pretend otherwise.
First launch: pick a name. Your key is created quietly in the background. No forms, no verification emails.
Got a second PC, or want Iskra on your phone? Scan a QR code from a device you're signed in on, check that both show the same number, and you're in. Lost a device? Remove it from your devices list and every server shuts it out.
Save your recovery key somewhere safe. It's your way back in if a device is lost or wiped. No support ticket, no password reset email.
Add friends from the servers you share and DM them end-to-end encrypted. Compare safety numbers to check who you're talking to.
Lock Iskra and open it with your fingerprint, face or a security key. Each server keeps a signed log of everyone's keys, and your app checks it, so a server that shows different people different keys gets caught.
Discord charges $10/month for an animated avatar and a banner color. That's the product. That's Nitro.
In Iskra everyone gets an avatar, a bio, pronouns and an accent colour, and on top of that a profile page you write yourself. A custom layout, animations, a pixel-art gallery, your rank in every game, a manifesto. Whatever you actually want to be known for. No feature tiers, no "profile effects" to unlock, no badge shop, no currency.
Write it in the editor built into the app, with a live preview: one HTML file with your own CSS and JavaScript, up to 512 KB. Publish once and it's on every server you're on. Anyone who clicks your name can open it, shown in a strict sandbox.
Crop an avatar, add a bio, your pronouns and an accent colour. Change it once and it updates on every server you're on.
CSS animations, canvas, a little game, generative art. Scripts run in the desktop app; browsers and the phone apps show other people's pages without them, so CSS motion works everywhere.
Pages run in a strict sandbox with no network at all: no tracking calls, no outside images or videos, no way to reach the app or anyone's keys. A page only loads when someone clicks "Open profile page".
Your page lives on the servers you're on, not on a company's. Update it whenever you like. No review queue, no badge shop. Server admins can switch pages off if they'd rather not have them.
HTML and CSS, nothing to unlock. These two example pages are running right here the way a browser shows someone else's page in Iskra: no scripts, nothing loaded from anywhere else, and every bit of motion is CSS.
Made a page you're proud of? Show us.
Pick one of thirteen built-in themes, light or dark, or write your own: every color, corner radius and avatar shape is yours to set, and themes are plain files you can share. The font is a setting of its own, with Inter, Rounded, Serif, Monospace and your system font. Click a theme to preview it.
Discord is a VC-funded product optimizing for engagement and monetization. Iskra is a tool you run yourself. The difference is who's in charge. Here's what you get with Iskra.
No config files, no signup, no fiddling.
Install the desktop app, click "Create a server" and pick a starting point. It runs on your computer, voice included.
Switch on "Let friends anywhere join" (Server settings → Internet access), then drop the invite link in your group chat.
Friends open the link, pick a name, and they're in. Voice, text, screen share. No email, no password.
Run a server from the desktop app, run the standalone server on Windows, Linux, macOS or a Raspberry Pi, or rent a small one. Voice is built in, with nothing extra to set up.
Your server, your choice. Iskra charges nothing. If you rent a server through the app, it sends you to DigitalOcean with our referral link: Iskra gets a little DigitalOcean credit that helps pay for our own server. You pay DigitalOcean directly; we never see your server or your card.
Click "Create a server" in the desktop app, give it a name and pick a starter template: channels, voice channels, roles and rules are ready. It runs on your computer, and friends on your network join with your invite link right away. Tick "Keep my server running" and it starts with your computer, quietly in the tray.
Flip "Let friends anywhere join" in Server settings → Internet access, in the desktop app or on the standalone server. Iskra asks your router to open the ports (UPnP or NAT-PMP), gives your server a free address that follows your IP (like 203-0-113-7.sslip.io) and gets a Let's Encrypt certificate for it. A live checklist shows each step. Iskra also tells you what it found out about your connection, from your own router, with no outside service asked. Router won't play along? You get step-by-step port forwarding with your exact addresses and ports, plus a prompt to paste into an AI assistant if you'd like help.
Run the standalone server (Windows, Linux or macOS), point a domain at it (a free dynamic DNS name works too) and set that domain in server.json. Iskra gets a free Let's Encrypt certificate and renews it on its own. Works for everyone, including the web app on phones. One command sets it to start with the computer, and on Linux it can keep itself up to date.
A few euros a month at a VPS provider your group picks, and your server stays up even when your PC is off. The app gives you a setup text to paste when you create the server: it installs Iskra (checked against its published checksum), keeps it running and updated, and sets up HTTPS. Paste the server's address into the app and you're the owner. No terminal needed.
Many providers share one internet address between customers, and then nobody outside can reach a server in your home, port forwarding or not. Iskra spots it and lays out your options, quickest first: rent a small server, check whether you already have a public IPv4 address, ask your provider for one, use Tailscale (a free app that links your group's devices), or let a friend with an open connection host. Friends behind CGNAT can always join; only the host needs an open connection.
Version 2.0.0-alpha.43. Free, no account needed. Pick what fits you.
The full desktop app: push-to-talk while you game, desktop notifications, one-click "Create a server", and updates itself.
The same desktop app as a single file. No install, just run it.
The full desktop app for macOS, for Apple silicon (M1 and later) or Intel Macs. Signed and notarized by Apple: open it like any other app.
The full desktop app for Linux (x64): an AppImage that runs anywhere, or a package for Debian/Ubuntu or Fedora.
Iskra full screen on your phone, with voice and video that keep going with the screen locked. Notifications arrive while the app is open. Open the file on your phone and allow the install. A Google Play listing is coming.
Iskra full screen on your iPhone, with voice that keeps going with the screen locked. Notifications arrive while the app is open. It is a test version for now, installed through Apple's TestFlight app. An App Store listing is coming.
Nothing to install. Works in PC and phone browsers, with servers that use HTTPS. On iPhone, add it to your Home Screen (Share → Add to Home Screen) for an app with notifications.
The standalone server, for a PC that stays on. Unzip and run.
The standalone server for a home box or a VPS, with automatic HTTPS once you set a domain.
The standalone server for a Raspberry Pi 4/5 (64-bit OS) or other 64-bit ARM boards. A microSD card works; see the home server guide.
The standalone server for a Mac that stays on.
Release notes and checksums: everything is on the v2.0.0-alpha.43 release page. Verify downloads: SHA256SUMS on the release page.
Good to know: the Windows app is code-signed (Open Source Developer Viktor Lundgren). While it's new, Windows may still ask once before running it. The Mac app is signed and notarized by Apple. Browsers only connect to servers that use HTTPS, so turn on "Let friends anywhere join" (it sets up HTTPS for you) or have friends on your home network use the desktop app.
The Iskra alpha is out. Free, no ads, no bullshit.