pqp

Voice, chat and screen sharing for your people. Make a server, share the link. That's it.

pqp.gg · Download for desktop · Architecture · Deploy your own

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Open-source, Discord-like, and small enough to actually read. Use the hosted service at pqp.gg or self-host an independent copy — your own URL, your own database, your own rules.

Model: servers (invite links) → public/private channels → text + voice. Roles owner / admin / member. Handles are name#1234.

What it does

Voice channels	Peer-to-peer mesh (5–8 per channel), or a LiveKit SFU for bigger rooms. Push-to-talk, per-peer volume, device pickers.
Screen sharing	One presenter per channel, from desktop or iPhone Safari.
Chat	Markdown, replies, reactions, pins, edits, typing, unread and mention badges. Link previews, GIF picker.
Search	Full-text across the server, stemmed for Portuguese and English, accent-insensitive.
DMs and groups	Direct messages and group DMs up to 10, found by handle.
Attachments	Images inline, video/audio as tap-to-play (nothing downloads until pressed). Direct-to-storage uploads; the API never touches the bytes.
Presence and status	Online / idle / do-not-disturb / invisible, with shape-differentiated dots.
Moderation	Timeouts, kick, ban (with voice ejection), delete, pin, in-app reporting with an evidence trail, per-server audit log.
Safety	18+ age gate, image scanning hooks, LGPD self-serve export and deletion.
Two languages	pt-BR and English through the whole funnel, legal pages included — with drift between them failing CI.
Installable	PWA on mobile, signed + notarized desktop app with auto-update.

Quick start (development)

Prereqs: Node 20+, pnpm 10, Docker (for Postgres).

pnpm install
cp .env.example .env
cp .env.example client/.env

docker compose up -d postgres
pnpm dev
# client http://localhost:5173 · api http://localhost:3001 · ws /ws

No Clerk account? Set DEV_AUTH_BYPASS=true in .env and VITE_DEV_AUTH_BYPASS=true in client/.env, restart, and you're signed in as a local dev user. The bypass refuses to run when NODE_ENV=production.

With Clerk: pnpm clerk:login && pnpm clerk:init && pnpm clerk:env — see docs/CLERK_SETUP.md.

Configuration

Everything lives in .env.example, documented inline. The ones that matter:

Variable	What it does
DATABASE_URL	Postgres. initDb() applies the schema on boot, idempotently.
CLERK_SECRET_KEY / VITE_CLERK_PUBLISHABLE_KEY	Auth.
CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS	Required on any public deploy — empty falls open to * for local dev.
TRUST_PROXY	Set behind Railway/Fly/Cloudflare, or every client shares one rate-limit bucket.
TURN_URL / TURN_USERNAME / TURN_CREDENTIAL	Voice across NATs. Served via /api/ice-servers.
LIVEKIT_URL / LIVEKIT_API_KEY / LIVEKIT_API_SECRET	Turns on the SFU; the server advertises it, no client rebuild.
S3_*	R2/MinIO attachments. Off entirely when unset.
CONTENT_SCAN_PROVIDER / OPENAI_API_KEY	Image safety scanning at claim time.
CLUSTER_BUS=postgres	Fans chat out over LISTEN/NOTIFY for multi-instance. Off = exactly today's single-process behaviour.

Voice backends

Mode	Capacity	Notes
Mesh (default)	~5–8 per channel	P2P; media never touches the server. TURN only across strict NATs.
LiveKit SFU	Dozens+	Implemented and verified end to end. A room's transport is decided by the server and pinned — no silent mesh/SFU splits.
Cloudflare Realtime	—	Still a stub; falls back to mesh.

Self-host

cp .env.example .env   # set DATABASE_URL, Clerk keys, TURN
docker compose up -d   # api + ws + built client on :3001

Or deploy the API to Fly.io / Railway and the static client to Cloudflare Pages (docs/DEPLOY.md). A self-host is an independent copy — own URL, data, and Clerk instance, not linked to pqp.gg.

Desktop and mobile

• Desktop: latest release — macOS signed and notarized with auto-update; Windows/Linux build unsigned (SmartScreen will warn). See docs/DESKTOP.md.
• Mobile: install the PWA from the browser (docs/PWA.md). A native iOS app lives in ios/ and is not yet shipped.

API

REST under /api/* (Bearer auth, rate-limited per identity) and a WebSocket at /ws ({type:"auth",token} first, then chat, presence and voice signalling). The full route list lives in server/src/api/index.ts; the wire contracts are the Zod schemas in packages/shared/.

Scripts

Command	Description
pnpm dev	Client + server
pnpm test	Every package's suite (DB-backed tests need Postgres)
pnpm typecheck / pnpm lint	The obvious
pnpm load:chat	Chat throughput harness against a built server
pnpm soak:voice	Voice connection soak
pnpm electron:dev / electron:dist	Desktop shell against Vite / packaged build

Known limitations

• Mesh voice tops out at ~5–8 per channel. Configure LIVEKIT_* to lift it; Cloudflare Realtime remains a stub.
• Single instance unless you opt in. Chat can go multi-instance with CLUSTER_BUS=postgres, but mesh voice pins the deployment to one instance — multi-instance voice requires the SFU. Rate limits stay per-instance either way.
• No camera video in voice channels yet — screen share only.
• No push notifications yet — an open tab raises desktop notifications, a closed phone hears nothing.
• No friend system, threads, or AutoMod — see docs/DISCORD_GAPS.md for the honest census.

Trust & safety

18+ only, self-declared at first use. In-app reporting routes DM reports to instance moderators, never server admins. The illegal-content risk assessment, content-safety runbook and moderation posture live in docs/RISK_ASSESSMENT.md and docs/CONTENT_SAFETY.md. Terms and privacy are bilingual at pqp.gg/terms and pqp.gg/privacy.

License

No license file yet — which means, despite everything above, this is not legally open source until one lands. Without a license, default copyright applies and self-hosting is not actually permitted. Choosing one (MIT for maximum adoption, AGPL to keep hosted forks honest) is an open decision.