Self-hosted peer-to-peer messaging
Communicate without relying on centralized internet platforms.
Chat rooms
Direct messages with one person, and group chats with multiple people. Notifications via websocket or web push.
File transfers
Send & receive files of any size via chat rooms.
Self-hosted server
Self-hosting provides ownership, autonomy, and privacy amongst a digital landscape that often disregards such things.
Peer-to-peer communication
Messages are sent directly to the intended receiver, not to an intermediary centralized platform on the internet.
Single binary executable
Statically linked binary containing the server and web app. Uses a local embedded database to persist data.
Networking
Operates over TCP/IP networks. Whether that be the internet, a LAN, or an intranet. Supports IPv4 and IPv6.
wiretile-alpha29-x64.tar.gz
Linux, x86_64
wiretile-alpha29-arm64.tar.gz
Linux, ARM64
Notice: WireTile is in relatively early stages of development. Some features may be missing and some APIs may change.
Most internet messaging solutions use centralized servers and/or middlemen to deliver messages on behalf of users. We'll refer to these as "intermediaries". This lowers the barrier to entry for users by moving some responsibility onto whoever is running the intermediaries (usually a corporation). However this is a fairly large tradeoff. Users gain convenience but lose control, as their ability to communicate relies on passing through the intermediaries. 
Alice          Corp Inc.            Bob
WireTile makes a different tradeoff. It delivers messages directly without intermediaries, which puts users in control of their communication. This is accomplished by moving some responsibility back onto individual users, where each user runs their own self-hosted server. Therefore setup may require more time and effort depending on your familiarity with computers. 
Alice                Bob
A demo video showing messages being exchanged between two users in a LAN. Alice's server, desktop, and mobile device is shown on the left. Bob's server and desktop is shown on the right. See Docs for setup instructions.
Use cases
WireTile is suitable for:
  • Messaging individuals and small groups.
    Peers exchange contact codes to begin messaging each other, which is analogous to exchanging phone numbers.
  • Transferring files.
    Peer-to-peer communication allows efficiently transferring files of arbitrary size. Whereas centralized platforms must often impose low limits such as 10 MB.
WireTile is not:
  • A distributed hash table or mesh network router.
    Peers only communicate with their list of known peers. This list starts empty and new peers are manually added by the user via exchanging contact codes. There is no peer discovery or relaying messages for other/unknown peers.
  • A community hub.
    Large communities benefit from a hierarchy of roles/power, which is a poor fit for WireTile's peer-to-peer model. Instead consider Matrix for this use case.
  • Social media.
Operating Systems
WireTile consists of two major parts: a web app and a server (both are in the binary).
The web app requires a modern web browser, and is tested on Firefox and Chromium-based. Multiple modern web browsers are available on all major operating systems.
The server requires Linux x64/arm64.
Encryption
All communication over the network is encrypted and verified using various cryptographic standards.
Server peer-to-peer communication utilizes: ED25519 to verify authenticity of peers, AES256-GCM to encrypt data payloads, HMAC-SHA256 to verify integrity & authenticity of payloads, and ML-KEM1024 to establish shared secrets between peers.
Web app communication to/from the server is encrypted via HTTPS-TLS1.3.
How do i login/signup or create an account?
There are no login/signup buttons, instead each user runs their own self-hosted server and uses a web app served by their server. Each server belongs to one user, so you could think of that as the "account".
DNS & domain names
WireTile is designed to operate without the Domain Name System (DNS). Owning a domain name is not required.