Campfire is a web-based chat application for teams. Run your own private chat server with all the features you need. Features: - Multiple chat rooms with access controls - Direct messages between users - File attachments with image and video previews - Search across all messages - Web Push notifications - @mentions to notify specific users - API with support for bot integrations - Modern, responsive web interface - Self-hosted and privacy-focused On first launch, you'll be guided through creating an admin account. This admin can then invite other users and manage rooms and permissions.
Campfire is commonly used as a self-hosted alternative to Slack, Microsoft Teams. Replacing a SaaS tool with a self-hosted equivalent lets you avoid recurring subscription fees, keep full control of your data, and continue working even when the original vendor changes pricing, ships limits, or shuts down.
License: MIT. Built with: Ruby, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Shell, Dockerfile, Procfile. Website: https://once.com/campfire. Source: https://github.com/basecamp/once-campfire.
Most self-hosted apps including Campfire install through Docker or Docker Compose. The typical workflow is: install Docker on your host, pull the official image (or clone the repository), supply a configuration file with database credentials and storage paths, then start the container. Many homelabbers run Campfire alongside other self-hosted services behind a reverse proxy like Caddy, Traefik, or nginx-proxy-manager for HTTPS and routing. Check the official repository for the most current instructions.
Self-hosting gives you three things SaaS can’t: data ownership (the files live on disks you control), cost predictability (a one-time setup vs. recurring per-seat fees that grow with your household or team), and longevity (open-source means the app keeps working even if the maintainers move on, since you can pin a working version). The trade-off is that you take on the operational work of running a server, applying updates, and handling backups.
Most self-hosted apps run comfortably on modest hardware — a Raspberry Pi 4, a mini PC, a NAS with Docker support, or a small VPS is usually enough for personal or family use. CPU and RAM requirements scale with how many simultaneous users or how much data you push through Campfire. Storage requirements depend on the kind of data you keep; check the README for guidance on data retention.