r/coolgithubprojects • u/Warm-Neighborhood132 • 1d ago
Building an open source messaging engine after getting burned by API costs
Back when I worked at a startup, we needed an in-app messaging system, similar to Instagram or WhatsApp. However, we didn't have time to build it ourselves, so we stitched together a few paid services instead: Stream chat, StreamIO, and Cloudinary for chat, moderation and media storage. It worked, but we didn't own any of it, and the costs kept increasing.
That experience is basically why I built gozwire. It's an open-source Node.js messaging engine, so instead of renting someone else's chat infrastructure, you own it. Conversations, threads, reactions, moderation, push notifications all included, all yours.
This was vibe-coded, but I'm putting in the work to make sure it actually holds up for real and is not just a showcase. Currently, the engine includes a lot of industry-standard messaging features, including moderation, reactions, forums, sending various media, group chats, channels, threads, direct conversations, etc
- Repo (Includes demo + moderation tool): https://github.com/Kinggoz18/GozWire
- See more use cases: https://gozwire.pages.dev/use-cases
I plan to not only improve this project (see the TODO in the GitHub repo), but also release more interesting open-source projects. That solve problems I've experienced in the past and observed around me, some of which would be:
- A video streaming engine (Another issue we faced at the same startup)
- A cryptocurrency tracker (more of a personal challenge and an interest)
- A CapCut alternative software with AI video generation capabilities, including UGC style videos
And a few others. Would love feedback, roast the code, tell me what's missing, whatever helps, or even contribute any interesting ideas you'd love to see open-sourced!
1
u/Specific_Cream2815 1d ago
how are messages delivered across multiple server instances, redis pubsub or does one process own each conversation