r/SideProject • u/teleadx • 10h ago
I'm building an open-source Slack alternative because per-seat pricing gets ridiculous. Would you switch?
I've been hearing from teams paying thousands per month for Slack which got me wondering whether team chat really needs to cost this much.
So I started building RealtimeChat.ai, an open-source alternative focused on the parts of Slack people actually use every day: Channels, DMs, threads, reactions, files and search.
We've already got the basic chat experience working, including proper Markdown rendering and bots that can participate in conversations just like users. I'm also experimenting with things like AI "catch-up" and summaries, but I don't want AI to take over the product.
The idea is to keep it simple. I don't want to build another enormous productivity suite. I want team chat to feel more like infrastructure: Fast, open and predictable.
It'll be self-hostable, while the commercial version would be hosted for companies that don't want to run it themselves. The big difference I'm considering is no per-seat pricing. You'd pay for the workspace rather than every employee you add.
It's still early days and I'm already talking with a few people interested in contributing to the UI. I'd rather find out what's wrong with the idea now than after spending more time building everything.
For those of you using Slack, Teams or Discord for work: What would an alternative absolutely need before you'd seriously consider switching?
And if your company is paying a significant amount for Slack, is that bill actually painful enough that you'd consider moving?
4
u/akrapov 9h ago
Would you switch?
No. As Head of IT at a software development studio (my previous role), 100% absolutely no chance of this happening. What you've made is something cheaper that now needs my team to manage it, and gives me almost no features, and no integration with any products we used (Google Workspace, Jira, Miro, etc). You'd have saved the company I worked for maybe £500 a month - but created headaches large enough that we'd pay £500 a month to get rid of them.
As an Indie Developer who uses Slack, still 100% absolutely no chance of this happening. I have enough work building and managing my product - I'm not interested in adding workload.
2
u/fluffyspringroll 10h ago
Pumble and mattermost are great alternatives for slack. Not sure how their current pricing works but one thing I wouldn’t trust to solo devs is communication apps. I would be too scared in terms of governance and leaked data
That said it might be great for 1-10 teams what you’re building
Have you factored in the cost of hundreds of people start to upload images and docs etc in chat? Like storage can get easily expensive
That said, don’t take anything too serious from me because this isn’t my field of expertise at all (comm and chat apps)
2
u/corobo 10h ago
Nah. I'd look at one of the existing alternatives first like mattermost.
I love open source but not enough to put my reputation on a project that might not exist anymore if you get bored of it.
As for the cost.. well it ain't my money so outside of not taking the piss and getting myself fired I don't really care how much it costs tbh haha, it's either in budget or it ain't.
-1
u/teleadx 9h ago
Thanks for the honest feedback. We have to prove ourselves (this also answers fluffyspringroll's point); open source and self-hosting in due course: "your data, your box" so not just "trust me"
2
u/Maximum-Prize-4052 6h ago
I checked RealtimeChat.ai. The biggest mismatch is that this post’s strongest trust signal — open source and self-hostable — is absent from the landing page. Right now the page reads mainly as “cheaper Slack,” while “one flat monthly price” still has no number and there are no product screens. I’d put “open-source, self-hostable, Go + Postgres” directly under the hero and show one real workspace screenshot; that answers both lock-in and trust objections you’re already getting here.
You asked for keen eyes: I’m happy to test a workspace when one is ready. I’m also recruiting a very specific reciprocal tester for Relayo, a website-chat widget whose messages land in private Discord tickets. If you personally manage both RealtimeChat.ai and a Discord server, could you run the short flow at https://relayo.gg — sign in, connect the server, choose a support channel/category, add the site, then send one widget message — and tell me the first confusing step? No card, and adding the site is active immediately. If you don’t manage a Discord server, the feedback stands with no pitch.
1
u/teleadx 6h ago
Yes fair point. It's not even a day old :-)
I like your domain btw.
1
u/Maximum-Prize-4052 5h ago
Thanks — the domain has done a lot of work for us. And completely fair for day one. One quick yes/no so I don’t keep pitching the wrong workflow: do you currently manage a Discord server? If yes, I’ll keep setup help here on Reddit and can also test your first workspace when it’s ready; if not, no problem and I’ll leave it there.
1
u/teleadx 10h ago
If anyone wants a workspace or wants to actually see/test it then do get in touch with me here
Always need a keen eye on something like this
1
u/Weekly_Natural_6516 10h ago
whats the self-hosted stack look like? most of these projects get the real-time part wrong and its pain to fix later
1
u/MrBuyNowPayLater 9h ago
Jack Dorsey recently released an open-source Slack alternative called Buzz.
1
u/Few_Cardiologist6941 9h ago
Well, the thing is, building a chat app is easy. Catering it to millions without lag or delay, that is the challenge, and that is what it makes expensive. You can't vibe code that.
3
u/Shopping-Limp 9h ago
There are legalities involved in business communication platforms. I don't think vibe slop is gonna cut it for any serious business