Snikket is a fully open-source personal messaging server that allows groups of people such as family, friends, clubs and organisations to have their own private communication space.
You can run a Snikket service yourself on your own server, VPS or even a low-power device such as a Raspberry Pi.
We can also run your Snikket service for you. It’s a great option if you’re just looking for a more privacy-friendly alternative to mainstream messengers such as Facebook, WhatsApp or Telegram, without the learning curve required to run your own server. You can always migrate your data at any time.
Snikket Hosting is currently in beta. If you’re interested trying the service, send us an email to hosting@snikket.org!
JMP customers: If you are (or are planning to be) a JMP.chat subscriber and you want to take advantage of their offer of a free hosted Snikket instance, you can now contact JMP support to request an instance for your account.
During the beta period there is no charge for the service, however donations are welcome.
Once we launch publicly we will be charging a reasonable monthly fee per Snikket instance that you choose to host with us (your Snikket instance can support a group of users). The pricing is not yet final, but we will provide a range of instance sizes to choose from (e.g. small, medium, large), each with a fixed price and user limits. The cost of each plan will average to less than 2 EUR/month per user.
If you join during the free beta period you will have at least 2 months notice before we enable billing on your account.
Note for JMP users: We have partnered with JMP.chat to grant people using a Snikket instance with their JMP phone number hosting at no extra charge! Your Snikket instance will be covered by your usual JMP monthly subscription.
No. Although there are many “free” online communication options available, in reality it always costs money to run a service. Free services are either not sustainable or they generate money in hidden ways, such as exploiting your personal data. We do not do those things, and choose to simply charge an honest price for the service we offer.
You will always have the option to migrate to a self-hosted instance if you prefer.
The current service is hosted in Germany. We may make other regions available in the future if there is demand.
We also run media relay servers in certain other geographic regions (e.g. North America) to improve audio and video call latency for people in those locations.
If you have a domain name you would like to use, you have that option. However if you don’t have a domain name, you can use a free subdomain managed by us at no extra cost.
Definitely! Using a custom domain name is free for all hosted instances. It is even encouraged, because it makes migration (e.g. between hosting and self-hosting) much easier.
Note that there is a limitation currently: the domain you use with your instance cannot also be used to serve a website or other service. This is a technical limitation - for custom domains we need you to add DNS ‘A’ and ‘AAAA’ records that point to our service, so we can obtain valid certificates for your instance and serve the instance web interface. You can use a subdomain to work around this limitation. For more technical information, see snikket-server issue #60.
Please check out the general Snikket FAQ, or contact us with your question and we’ll be happy to help!