Opportunities › Self-hosted team chat for small groups › Proposed app
Hearth Room
Simple self-hosted chat for friend groups and small teams
- Score
- 42
- confidence 45
- Evidence
- 4
- items on the page
- Rivals
- 5
- named in sources
- First version
- 45 d
- estimate
- Type
- Desktop and mobile
- PWA: on computers and phones alike
ScreensConcept
Desktop and mobile: Team admins configure and monitor the server on a computer, while members message and share files throughout the day on any device. Sample screens on a computer and a phone, in the proposed brand. Their numbers are sample data.
New room
Ready to invite3 steps
About this appAI proposal
Hearth Room is a team chat you run yourself, or have us run for you. It gives a small group channels, threads, file sharing and invites in a layout that feels familiar to anyone who has used Discord, while messages stay on a server you control.
It is built for friend groups, clubs and teams of a few to a few dozen people. Setup is one guided flow: pick a domain, create the room, send an invite link. No federation to learn, no cluster to size, no admin console to study.
People looking for Discord alternatives describe IRC and Matrix as high-friction and Mattermost and Rocket.Chat as too expensive. Hearth Room aims at that gap: low cost, low effort, installable as a web app on any phone or laptop.
- Tagline
- Your group's own place to talk.
- Voice
- WarmPlainCalm
- Why this name
- A hearth is where a small group gathers, and a room is a place you own. Two plain words that say home, not platform.
In the first version
Members say which features they would use. It tells PWAS what people want; it changes no score.
Guided setup
Create a room, pick a domain and get an invite link in one flow. Self-host on your own server or choose managed hosting.
No member yet
Channels and threads
Organise talk into channels, reply in threads, pin messages and search history without learning a new model.
No member yet
One-link invites
Share a link with an expiry and a use limit. Newcomers join with an email or a passkey.
No member yet
Installable on any device
Works as a web app on phone and desktop, with push notifications and offline reading of recent messages.
No member yet
Brand identityAI proposal
Check the name against trademark registers before using it.
Palette
#C2410CEmber · primary#FFF8EECream · surface#2B2118Charcoal · text#4D7C4FMoss · accent#E8D9C2Sand · data and borders
Typography
Aa
Hearth Room
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789
Your group's own place to talk.
PricingAI proposal
The material gives no competitor prices: Mattermost lists paid plans with prices on request. These tiers are a starting point to test, not a market claim.
Self-host
Free
- Run on your own server
- Up to 25 members
- Channels, threads, files
- Export of all history
Managed
$6 a month
- We host and update it
- Up to 25 members
- Nightly backups
- Custom domain
Team
$20 a month
- Managed hosting
- Up to 100 members
- Priority email support
- Single sign-on
Would you pay Managed · $6 a month?
Your answer tells PWAS which prices people accept. It changes no score.
No answers yet.
What it could be worthEstimate
What a software business making this much sells for today, from real deals. Pick a monthly revenue.
If it makes
Worth about
$194,000
Sale range $132,000 to $263,000
$120,000 a year in revenue
From 87 software businesses listed and sold on Empire Flippers in the last year, revenue vetted by the broker: they sell for about 19× their monthly revenue, most between 13× and 26×.
Measured on profit, the middle deal is 32× monthly net profit: about 2.7 years of profit.
An estimate, not an offer or financial advice. A real price depends on profit, growth, churn, how much of the work is the owner's, and the buyer.
How it would growAI proposal
How the product would reach new customers through its own use, and how the first ones would be found. A plan to test, not a result.
- Built-in loop
- Users invite others. Every room grows by invite links. Members who join see the app's name and can install it, then start a room of their own for another group.
- Do they become customers?
- Invitees are people in friend groups who may run other groups, so they can become paying owners. To test: how many invitees create their own room, and how many of those pay.
- First customers
- Technical hobbyists who run a friend group or small gaming club of 5 to 25 people and already self-host other tools at home.
- Where to reach them
- Self-hosting communities: Share a setup walkthrough and open feedback threads in self-hosting forums and subreddits.
- Hacker News launch post: Post a Show HN with the one-command install, aimed at people asking for Discord alternatives.
- Hobby group outreach: Offer free managed rooms to a few club organisers in exchange for feedback.
- First milestone
- Twenty groups running a room for 30 days, and five of them paying for managed hosting.
Why people already pay for this
- Public claimMattermost and Rocket.Chat are perceived as too expensive by people evaluating Discord alternatives.
- Public claimIRC and Matrix are perceived as introducing friction that deters adoption.
- Public claimThere is demand from small groups actively looking for Discord alternatives.
- VerifiedMattermost sells paid plans with prices on request, on its own pricing page, plus prices on request for larger customers
Tech stack
Every proposal builds on the same PWA base, installable from the browser on any phone or computer. Dashed boxes are what this app adds.
- AppNext.js and TypeScript
- PWAManifest and service worker
- UITailwind CSS
- Data and authSupabase Postgres
- PaymentsStripe
- EmailResend
- HostingVercel
- This app · Realtime messagingWebSocket service or Supabase RealtimeChat needs live delivery of messages and presence for small groups.
- This app · Push notificationsWeb Push (VAPID)Installed web apps need notifications to feel like a chat app.
RisksAI inference
- CommercialPeople may stay on Discord because it is free and their friends are already there. Willingness to pay for managed hosting is untested.
- TechnicalSupporting both a self-hosted package and a managed service doubles the operations and update work for a small team.
- PlatformWeb push on iOS PWAs is less reliable than native apps, which may hurt notification quality for chat.
- RegulatoryHosting user messages for others brings moderation, takedown and data protection duties.
- CommercialMatrix and others are free and open, so a free self-host tier may not lead to paying customers.
Everything marked AI proposal or AI inference was written by a model from the evidence on the opportunity page. The proposed name must be checked against trademark registers before it is used.