Run Fluxer on your own server
Most chat apps run on a server owned by a company. With self-hosting, that server is yours. Fluxer staff cannot access your data or restrict your instance.
What is self-hosting?
A typical chat app is owned and operated by a single centralized company. That company decides how you are allowed to communicate on its service and what it can do with the data you share. It also reserves the right to change or restrict features at any time. Its incentives are rarely aligned with yours.
Run your own copy
Now imagine your favorite chat app were fully open source, and you could run your own copy, where you set the rules and have complete control over your data. Fluxer works that way. Its code is licensed under AGPLv3, so you are free to run, study, change, and share it. In return, if you change it and offer it to others over a network, you share your source code under the same license. There is no license key and no reduced edition. We are funded by the people who use Fluxer, through Plutonium, donations, and soon the Operator Pass.
Why it is worth doing
On centralized services, it is increasingly hard to trust that you will keep access to your friends, family, and communities, and just as hard to know what your data is being used for behind the scenes. When you self-host Fluxer, you are responsible for your own data and decide what happens to it, and no one else can take it away from you.
Clearing things up
Fluxer's goal is to make self-hosting accessible to everyone. A lot of what is said online about self-hosting Fluxer is wrong. Your self-hosted instance does not phone home and does not depend on a central sign-in system. Fluxer staff cannot ban you from your own instance or from any other instance we do not run.
The world is your oyster
There is no Plutonium on a self-hosted instance. You can have every Plutonium perk for yourself for free, or decide how the perks are shared among your users. Uploaded files do not have to expire either. You can keep them forever.
Push notifications for your own instance
Apple and Google only deliver notifications to the official Fluxer app through credentials that Fluxer holds. Our push relay lets your instance notify phones through us. Notifications are encrypted before they reach us, so we cannot read them, and we record only delivery details such as the time and the app.
What it takes
Self-hosting is not free of effort, though. You will need to keep your software updated, handle server administration, and keep your instance running. You also look after moderation and safety for the people who use it. As the operator, you are the data controller for your instance, with your own legal duties, as section 1 of our privacy policy notes. Fortunately, there are plenty of guides online, and we are steadily improving our documentation.
The Operator Pass
The Operator Pass is an optional one-time purchase that funds the work on self-hosting and unlocks nothing in the software.
Welcome to the Fluxerverse
Install the app or open Fluxer in your browser and start talking.