Campfire

Campfire is a web-based chat application that covers what a team expects from group messaging and stops there. Running your own instance keeps the conversation, the files and the history on hardware you control.

The Docker image carries everything a working deployment needs on one machine, the web app, background jobs, caching, file serving and SSL. You can pull the prebuilt image published by Basecamp or build your own from the repository.

The feature list stays close to the essentials.

• Rooms: create as many as you need and control who has access to each.
• Direct messages: talk to one person outside the shared rooms.
• Attachments: share files and see previews inline.
• Search: find past messages across the history.
• Notifications: reach people through Web Push and @mentions.
• API: drive Campfire from scripts and bot integrations.

The simplest route to self-hosting is ONCE, which walks through setup and then keeps the instance updated by itself, from a dashboard or with a single deploy command naming your host. Plain Docker works too. The first start runs a wizard that creates the admin account, and the email address you give appears on the sign-in page so people know who to contact. Modifying the code is encouraged, with a development guide included.