

Have you explored what it takes to self-host a notification server? I explored Zulip, and it looks similar, but I haven’t explored the notification server yet.


Have you explored what it takes to self-host a notification server? I explored Zulip, and it looks similar, but I haven’t explored the notification server yet.


I did, while it mostly okay, I don’t like the mobile notifications limit. Even for a family, ten people is quite small, as inviting a couple of friends would reach the limit.
With all the chat options, I’m looking for a self-hosted fully controlled version. So for me, that’s a bit weird that a self-hosted version is crippled in any way. If Zulip allows me to self-host the mobile notification thingy, then I think it’s a good alternative. I haven’t explored that yet.


Do you know of a better alternative? No irony here, I’m looking for something similar for family and company (50 to 100 people) setting. Was thinking of deploying Mattermost. For family, we settled on Matrix and it mostly works. We are at their default server, and I’m considering self-hosting it in the future. Yet, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to have Matrix deployed for a company. It lacks too many features, including search. Mattermost looked like the best option for me. I did try it locally a couple of months back, and mostly liked it.
However, I never liked them as a company. They have been giving me those ‘we’d give you the community this wonderful opportunity to develop the software for us, for free’ vibes. Now, it feels like my impression correct.


I use it on a Raspberry Pi 2B and Orange Pi Zero, both work wonderfully for the task, and it looks like Pi-Hole can work fine even on a router. Both of my SBCs are passively cooled, that’s why I decided to comment on the photo: you don’t need a computer this powerful to run it. As far as I remember, my very first Raspberry Pi (v. 1B or something like that) handled this task very well too. I temporarily retired that SBC in favour of Orange Pi Zero, so I cannot say for sure, but I think that computer had no issues with being fast enough for Pi-Hole. Really, give it a try if you didn’t, it’s ‘install once and forget’ type of software. Perhaps it should be updated periodically, but I don’t manage that. The only nuance with it, you need to have two computers, for the redundancy. Otherwise you’d be having downtimes when you need to turn off the SBC, or even reboot it.
That may work for a family, but won’t work for a smart company that uses chat occasionally. We’re having like three managers who’d use the chat all the time, while the rest of the company may send 10 messages a month. Company subscription price would be an absurd one for that situation. We’re able to self-host any chat solution, yet I’m not sure which one. It looks like none fits the criteria, with the exception of Matrix perhaps. But I haven’t hosted it myself yet, and it looks like they’re looking for ways to motivate self-hosters just not do that.