Next.js front end, Supabase back end, optional LiveKit calls
OpenHive is team chat laid out like Slack: workspaces, public and private channels, direct messages, threads. The front end is a Next.js 16 app written in TypeScript. Everything else lives in a Supabase project, which holds the PostgreSQL database, user accounts, realtime updates and file storage. Audio and video calls run on LiveKit, if you add it. The MIT-licensed repository calls itself an "open-source Slack alternative you can self-host in minutes".
Mattermost and Rocket.Chat cover the same need with a server of their own, mobile and desktop apps, and part of their code kept for an enterprise edition. OpenHive has no server of its own, no native app and no paid edition.
The comparison of self-hosted team chat tools sets what each one keeps in its free edition against what it takes to run.
Setup wizard creates tables and security policies for you
- Slack's everyday feature set: one-to-one and group DMs, threads, reactions, @mentions with autocomplete, bookmarks, attachments up to 50 MB and unread counts.
- Calls inside the app: audio, video and screen sharing in a channel or a DM. LiveKit credentials are entered per workspace and can point at LiveKit Cloud or your own LiveKit server.
- Integrations: incoming and outgoing webhooks with delivery logs, bots subscribed to channels, and workspace-specific slash commands handed off to a webhook.
- Setup wizard: on first launch, the wizard creates the tables, the Row Level Security policies and the realtime publication in your Supabase project, then prints the environment variables to copy into your hosting platform.
Pre-release code tied to Supabase Cloud for guided setup
Supabase is required, and the guided setup assumes Supabase Cloud. The wizard only accepts a project URL of the form xxxxx.supabase.co and a personal access token starting with sbp_, which it uses once to run the migrations through supabase.com's Management API. The README does not cover a self-hosted Supabase; the migration SQL sits in src/lib/supabase/migrations.ts. What you can host anywhere is the Next.js app: the README recommends Vercel and says it runs wherever Node.js 18 or later runs. The repository ships no Dockerfile and no Compose file.
Email needs setting up. Invitations and password resets go out by default through Supabase's built-in mail service, which the README puts at 3 to 4 emails an hour on the free plan, so it recommends your own SMTP provider. Invitations and file uploads also need SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY.
No native apps, no SSO. OpenHive is a responsive web app. The README's list of future feature ideas, every box unchecked, includes PWA install, SAML/SSO, audit logs, data export, end-to-end encryption, i18n and guest access.
Two places where the code and the README disagree. Search is described as full-text, but it filters messages with an ILIKE on their content and returns the ten most recent matches; the migrations create no index. Scheduled messages are sent by their author's browser, which checks every 30 seconds for messages that are due. With the tab closed, a scheduled message waits until the workspace is opened again.
Version 0.1.0, no releases. As of October 7, 2026, the repository has no releases or tags, and package.json reads 0.1.0. The whole codebase arrived in a single commit dated March 11, 2026. Since then, the history holds three commits from an outside contributor (dependency upgrades and security fixes), merged on August 21, 2026. There is no test script in package.json, and .github/ holds issue and pull request templates but no CI workflow.