Colibri chat system (Discord-like thing based on ATProto)

8 days ago by abc to c/fediverse

Colibri is an open source chat platform built on the AT protocol for communities big and small.

Still a bit alpha, but looks promising. Several features seem to be waiting for atproto implementation.

Ugurcan 34 points 8 days ago

HEY HEY HEY, don’t get me wrong now but I’m seeing dozens of Discord-like apps over the past year and can’t understand one thing about them, which is WE ALREADY HAVE THE CHAT PART SINCE FUCKING 1988, it’s called IRC, it’s lightweight, not bloated, works everywhere, extendible and still maintained.

Discord (and Slack) are proprietary IRC forks themselves and adds almost NOTHING to that equation.

It’s the voice/video call part that Discord solved an none of these forks attempting to tackle that part.

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warmaster 21 points 8 days ago

Stoat and Fluxer already have voice/video solved just like Discord.

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Ugurcan 4 points 8 days ago

That’s pretty nice of them, really. How many concurrent users can they handle?

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krisbalintona 2 points 5 days ago

I wouldn't call it a "solved" problem... I don't use Fluxer but from what I read in online discussions it's something that's currently a pain point since they're currently trying to overhaul the system

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hexagonwin 18 points 8 days ago

i also use irc but it doesn't work for normies. there's no integrated persistant chat log, image/file upload, voice chats, replies(linking to specific message), message editing, emoji reactions, etc...

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UiUiUiUiUi 3 points 7 days ago

You must have never tried irc in conjunction with Convos or The Lounge

Edit: Fluxer is a usable alternative https://fluxer.app/

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hexagonwin 1 point 7 days ago

i haven't seen Convos before, thanks for sharing.

i've seen The Lounge before while looking for a discord alternative sometime ago, but i skipped it because there doesn't seem to be replies, editing, reactions, file/image sharing. i have to admit i only tried their Demo link, perhaps libera just doesn't support those IRCv3 features?

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UiUiUiUiUi 1 point 7 days ago

haha yeah editing still isn’t a thing in irc but image upload, replies and voice/video (convos uses jitsi) are, totally understandable if those are roadblocks.

Libera is probably your best best for IRCv3 so yeah there is a reason the industry moved to xmpp (LoL Facebook Nintendo Zoom).

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rako 2 points 7 days ago

You have been using software stuck in the last century I'm afraid. IRCv3 solves all of this with the clear exception of voice/video chats. Use ergo server, the lounge or gamja as a web frontend. Motd on android feels like a current messenger (but it's partly made with ai unfortunately). irc really is a credible possibility today

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Blisterexe 5 points 7 days ago

The problem is that voice&video and spaces/servers are necessary for how most people use these sorts of chat apps nowadays

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rako 2 points 7 days ago

Yes absolutely. Which means that irc is a good platform to build on.

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hexagonwin 1 point 7 days ago

i see, that's awesome. will try setting it up later.

do you know if push notifications work in the mobile app?

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rako 1 point 7 days ago

I'm not a believer of push notifications, so I leave motd open in the background, with maybe a few hundreds messages a day and it consumes 1% of my battery. I know it's not an answer, sorry 😅

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bretton.dev 8 points 8 days ago

I think the goal here is to get the general population off Discord and moved into a more open platform.

IRC is great but I can't see the average user using it unfortunately. Every platform has its own goal, but the ultimate community goal is whatever pushes us to an open social space is a net positive imo!

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tuxiqae 5 points 8 days ago

They add a TON of stuff, for example payments, age control, marketing and a lot of other nonsense

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Auth 2 points 8 days ago

irc sucks

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Axolotl_cpp 2 points 7 days ago

I am interessed in the granular permission system and integrations

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SW42 22 points 8 days ago

I wonder how much of it is vibe coded and when will it lose updates after being released…

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eleijeep 14 points 8 days ago

It has a single committer and there are two commits with Claude as co-author, so I would suggest it's probably about as you'd expect.

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abc 5 points 8 days ago

https://l.suppo.fi/post/14723493/16842431

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flamingos 19 points 8 days ago

AT Proto is a terrible base for a chat app. There's a reason Bluesky's DMs aren't stored in your PDS. Hell, even your bookmarks (which are stored in your PDS) are off protocol.

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bretton.dev 5 points 8 days ago

Colibri to my knowledge is basically doing public chats until private spaces are in a better spot then doing private spaces for private groups.

Roomy.space is another one of these who built their own private spaces on atproto and would be worth checking out.

Also Atproto isn't inherently a bad place for this since it can be a hybrid system of on or off protocol, or using their upcoming permissioned data spaces for private data.

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atro_city 13 points 8 days ago

Is matrix too difficult to develop or contribute to? Why do new chat apps keep popping up that do the same?

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abc 5 points 8 days ago

I haven't tried it, but seems to be difficult enough that practically everyone uses the SDK. And also, before the SDK existed, practically nobody was successful in doing it.

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JadedBlueEyes 8 points 8 days ago

The hardest bit is encryption, you can get a basic app or bot running trivially from scratch if you don't care about that. People successfully wrote matrix apps for years before the Rust SDK existed, and there are plenty of other bits of the matrix ecosystem that don't use it (mautrix/Beeper is mostly written in go!). The Rust SDK is nice to use and give a bunch of bonus features on top, so that's why it's popular.

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atro_city 4 points 8 days ago

I'm not a developer, so I don't know the actual effort involves, but it seems to me like making a new one is like reinventing the wheel. Matrix probably has solved many problems that this new things still has to run into.

What's an SDK? I looked it up but can't really understand the techno lingo on wikipedia. It's a "kit" (whatever that means) that allows developing a platform specific app? Matrix isn't another OS like Linux, so I'm confused.

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abc 5 points 8 days ago

https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-rust-sdk

SDK is a library layer that hides the complexity of a thing inside an easier facade. It's exactly the right thing to do when the thing is a complicated one, but it also hints towards ... you know, the thing being complicated.

We haven't quite figured out whether a chat network needs to be as complicated as Matrix is under the hood. Could be that it does: federation, E2EE and the overall design of Matrix (it being a log propagator instead of a more traditional message passing system) increase the technical challenge by a lot, but then again, none of the three are essential (although undeniably useful in certain cases) for a chat network.

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Atlas48 5 points 7 days ago

OK, but why not matrix?

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Atlas48 5 points 7 days ago

or furthermore, as an example, why not XMPP/Jabber?

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neclimdul 1 point 7 days ago

maybe a good reason but definitely the first questions I had.

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BauerBender 3 points 7 days ago

Matrix is where people who don't want to talk to anyone go.

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Atlas48 2 points 7 days ago

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UiUiUiUiUi 5 points 8 days ago

ATProtocol where you host the data but have no control of it.

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rako 2 points 8 days ago

You do have control over it though, I don't get what you're saying

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silverpill 5 points 8 days ago

There is already a chat system based on ActivityPub: https://shoot.pub/

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doesnm 3 points 8 days ago

@@silverpill@mitra.social also Har.mony but don't compatible with Shoot (want to fix this, tho not very successful) and seems Sup waked up

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corsicanguppy 4 points 8 days ago

Colibri is a tool to run LLMs on small gear.

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Auster 4 points 8 days ago

Not a fan of chat rooms but nice not being an informational blackhole for once.

I wonder how's compatibility with Wafrn and people who follow @bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy though...

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lambalicious 4 points 7 days ago

Fifth consecutive month I have to remind people that XMPP exists.

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pomegranatefern 3 points 6 days ago

Commenting to follow this post because my bookmarked posts on Lemmy are out of control.

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