ancsemi
80439e0e44
The README had grown into a second copy of GUIDE.md, and the duplicated half had gone stale while the guide stayed correct. It is now a front page: what Haven is, how to start it, what you get, and a link to the guide for the rest. Everything cut has been moved into GUIDE.md rather than dropped, including the Tailscale walkthrough, slash commands, keyboard shortcuts, admin and moderation, backups, GIF setup, translations, the full configuration table, and running more than one server. Corrections along the way: - The Android app is Haven, not Amni-Haven. It was renamed to stop the confusion. - Haven Desktop is no longer labelled beta, and the site's download card said 1.4.15 while the buttons above it already linked 1.4.28. - The licence badge claimed MIT-NC. Haven is AGPL-3.0, which the comparison table and the licence section both already said. - The port forwarding section claimed Haven has no rate limiting. It has had it for a long time, 20 attempts per 15 minutes per address, so the warning was arguing people out of a protection they already have. - The GIPHY signup walkthrough led nowhere, since GIPHY stopped issuing keys to new servers. Tenor is the default and the steps now say so. - File uploads are 25 MB by default and admin-configurable, not a flat 25 MB and not the 1.5 GB the site claimed. - No macOS build of the desktop app exists, so the FAQ no longer offers one. The pages also missed a lot that has shipped: Ferry, single sign-on, the in-app updater, backups, threads, bots and webhooks, push notifications, stickers, personas, polls, guests, invite links, plugins, automod, the audit log, and the fact that Haven Desktop can host a server by itself. Discord import and the Ferry bridge are now presented together, since the people who want one usually want the other.
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⬡ HAVEN
A private Discord alternative that runs on your own machine. No cloud, no company account, no telemetry, no paid tier. Free forever.
One person runs the server. Everyone else joins with a code. Messages, files and voice never touch anybody else's infrastructure.
Get started in about a minute
Docker
docker run -d -p 3000:3000 -v haven_data:/data ghcr.io/ancsemi/haven:latest
Windows, no Docker: download the zip, unzip it, double-click Start Haven.bat.
It installs Node.js for you if you do not have it.
Linux / macOS, no Docker: chmod +x start.sh && ./start.sh
Then open https://localhost:3000, register with the username admin, make a
channel, share the code. The certificate warning on first load is expected, click
Advanced then Proceed.
One-click cloud deploy on Zeabur · on RepoCloud · Full setup guide
Three ways in
| 🖥️ Haven Desktop | Windows and Linux. Per-app audio sharing (send one app’s sound, nothing else), device switching mid-call, native notifications, tray. It can also run the server itself. |
| 📱 Haven for Android | On Google Play. Native, not a web wrapper. Full chat, voice and push notifications. Built by Amnibro. |
| 🌐 Any browser | Nothing to install. Send a link, they are in. Works on phones. |
Apps and browser talk to the same server and see the same thing, so nobody has to install anything to be included.
Want to look around first? The community server is open, no code needed, just sign up. Volunteer-hosted, thanks MutantRabbit.
Why bother
| Discord | Haven | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Their cloud | Your machine |
| Account | Email and phone | No email, no verification |
| Your messages | Stored by Discord Inc. | Never leave your server |
| Cost | Nitro, boosts | Free, no paid tier |
| Telemetry | Analytics and tracking | None |
| Source | Closed | Open, AGPL-3.0 |
What you get
Coming from Discord
- Import your whole server history from inside Haven. Every channel, thread, forum post, reaction, pin and attachment. Paste a token, pick a server, go.
- Ferry, a two-way Discord bridge. Messages pass both ways between a Haven channel and a Discord channel, under each person's real name. Friends who are not ready to leave Discord can still talk to the ones who did.
Talking
- Voice chat, peer to peer so audio never routes through the server. Per-user volume, mute, deafen, noise suppression, talking indicators.
- Screen sharing, several people at once in a tiled grid. Watch parties work.
- Listen together with synced playback from Spotify, YouTube and SoundCloud, or a music player right in the voice channel.
- Threads, replies, reactions, pins, editing, mentions, polls, search, link previews, code blocks, spoilers.
- Direct messages, end-to-end encrypted. Private keys never leave the browser, so not even the person hosting can read them.
- Rich presence for what people are playing and listening to, via Steam, Last.fm or Spotify. Off until you turn it on, never written to the database.
Making it yours
- 26 built-in themes, a colour picker, an RGB cycle, and stackable visual effects like CRT, Matrix rain and snowfall.
- A plugin and theme system, so you can drop in your own without forking anything.
- Custom stickers, custom emoji, personas (send as an alternate character), soundboard, avatar shapes and borders.
- Server branding, sidebar layout options, font size and density controls.
- 8 languages out of the box, community translated.
Running it
- One-click updates from inside the app. Haven takes a pre-update backup and restarts itself.
- Built-in backups, scheduled or on demand, with restore.
- Single sign-on via OpenID Connect, so Authentik, Keycloak, Authelia and Auth0 all work as your login.
- Bots and webhooks with a REST API. Send messages, play soundboard sounds, register slash commands, join voice, receive signed callbacks.
- Roles with per-channel permissions. Kick, timed mute, ban, IP bans, slow mode, automod link filtering, an audit log, and a moderation API.
- Guest accounts, invite links, per-channel join codes with automatic rotation.
- Push notifications, including UnifiedPush if you would rather leave Google out.
- Built-in Cloudflare and LocalTunnel support, so friends can reach you without port forwarding.
- Bcrypt passwords, JWT auth, HTTPS, MFA, rate-limited logins, and a disk reserve so a full drive never wedges the server.
Documentation
Everything in detail lives in GUIDE.md: setup, Docker, remote access (port forwarding, Tailscale, Cloudflare Tunnel, reverse proxies), themes, voice and TURN, Discord import, Ferry, encryption, backups, configuration, translations, the bot API, and troubleshooting.
Release notes are in CHANGELOG.md.
Contributing
Issues and PRs are welcome, including translations and themes. If you are reporting
a bug, the version number from https://your-server:3000/api/version helps.
License
AGPL-3.0. Free to use, modify and share. If you deploy a modified version as a network service, you have to publish its source. See LICENSE.
⬡ Haven. Because your conversations are yours.