Complete data ownership
Full control over infrastructure, configuration, and user data. Every message lives inside your network, your firewalls, and your security policies.
Self-Hosted Chat Server: On-Premise, Private & Secure
Own your entire messaging stack. Deploy a secure, private chat server on the infrastructure you choose, with full data ownership, an enterprise SLA, and HIPAA/SOC 2/GDPR readiness. Managed by Ethora TechOps, or run it yourself.
100% data ownership
Enterprise SLA
No vendor lock-in
Your infrastructureAWS · Azure · GCP · on-premises
100% data ownershipInside your security perimeter
Compliance, built in at every layer.
HIPAASOC 2GDPRISO 27001PCI DSS
Trusted by healthcare, finance, and enterprise teams
Hours
Managed deployment vs days/weeks self-managing open source
100%
Data ownership, inside your own security perimeter
Infra-agnostic
Ubuntu Linux, amd64/arm64, any IaaS or on-prem
HIPAA · SOC 2 · GDPR
Compliance-ready architecture, BAA/DPA available
Full ownership without the operational burden
A self-hosted chat server is a messaging platform you deploy and operate on infrastructure you control. Unlike SaaS chat, your messages and user data stay on your servers. Unlike raw open source, Ethora’s managed deployment runs in hours with an enterprise SLA from day one.
Any infrastructure, no lock-in
Ethora is infrastructure-agnostic: AWS, Azure, GCP, a local provider, or your own data centre. Migrate between providers any time. amd64 and arm64 supported.
Managed deployment + SLA
Ethora TechOps handles install, scaling, and updates in the geography you choose, with an enterprise SLA. Or run our automated install/upgrade scripts yourself.
Reliable and Secure Chat Infrastructure On Your Terms
Take complete ownership of your messaging stack with Ethora’s self-hosted chat server. Our web-based chat server is perfect for industries and businesses that need to comply with regulations and can’t rely on third-party services. It provides you with full control over infrastructure, configuration, and user data.
- Encryption in transit and at rest
- User-facing apps and internal messaging
- Admin dashboard, moderation, analytics
Fully Compatible with AWS and On-Prem Deployment
Designed with flexibility in mind, Ethora is fully compatible with AWS application server environments and traditional on-premises setups. Use the AWS mobile SDK to enable native mobile functionality, or deploy as a high-availability AWS chat app with autoscaling and backup options.
Our chat backend can function as an AWS chat service, seamlessly integrating into your broader cloud strategy while maintaining compliance with strict security and data residency requirements.
What Is a Self-Hosted Chat Server?
A self-hosted chat server is a messaging platform that you deploy and operate on infrastructure you control — whether that is a cloud account (AWS, Azure, GCP), a third-party data centre, or on-premises hardware. Unlike SaaS chat services where your messages and user data live on the provider’s servers, a self-hosted solution gives you complete ownership of the data, the configuration, and the security perimeter.
Organizations choose self-hosted chat for several reasons: regulatory compliance (HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2), data sovereignty requirements, the need to integrate messaging deeply into existing systems, or simply the assurance that comes with knowing exactly where every message is stored and who has access. For industries like healthcare, finance, and insurance — where a data breach or compliance violation can mean millions in penalties — a self-hosted chat server is not just a preference but a requirement.
Ethora’s self-hosted chat server provides a full-stack solution: XMPP chat server, Node.js API layer, admin dashboard, push notifications, file storage, and optional AI services — all deployed as a single managed package on the infrastructure of your choice. Unlike open-source alternatives that require weeks of configuration and ongoing maintenance by your team, Ethora’s managed deployment gets your self-hosted chat server running in hours with an enterprise SLA from day one.
Key Features of Ethora’s Web-Based Chat Server
Everything you need in a production messaging server. Select any feature to see the details.
Our web-based chat server ensures instant message delivery making it perfect for support systems or AWS live chat integration.
Messages are encrypted in transit and at rest, protecting sensitive data and ensuring compliance.
Full control over chat systems with dashboards, chat configuration, content moderation, and more.
Set role-based permissions and user restrictions to ensure effortless chat management and prevent unauthorized access.
Track engagement, message volume, and user activity in real time for actionable insights on performance and customer satisfaction.
Seamlessly connect with CRMs, ERPs, authentication systems, and other tools your business needs.
Enable users to share media or documents directly within a chat to create more engaging experiences.
Your solution should match your branding and needs. Align the user experience with your brand identity.
Flexible Architecture for Any Industry
No matter the industry you operate in, Ethora’s self-hosted chat server adapts to your workflow.
Healthcare
100% HIPAA compliant chats for internal communication and patient care.
Education
E-learning platforms with secure, real-time collaboration tools and virtual classrooms.
Corporate
Self-hosted messaging apps with role-based access for effective collaboration.
Finance
Secure, compliant messaging for financial services, customer support, internal teams, and transaction-related communications.
Consumer apps
Customizable community platforms with moderation tools and support widgets.
E-commerce
Real-time AWS live chat for personalized shopping, tracking orders, and support.
Self-Hosted Team Chat vs SaaS: When to Choose Self-Hosted
SaaS chat is convenient for small teams, but businesses handling sensitive data or serving regulated industries outgrow it quickly. Here is when a dedicated managed chat server wins:
Healthcare (HIPAA), finance (GLBA, PCI DSS), insurance (PIPEDA), and government agencies require data to remain within controlled environments. A self-hosted server lets your compliance team audit and certify the messaging infrastructure alongside the rest of your systems.
When your data must stay in a specific country or data centre, self-hosted deployment gives you full control over geography. Deploy in the EU for GDPR, in Canada for PIPEDA, or in the Middle East for local regulations.
SaaS platforms offer APIs, but a self-hosted server lets you connect at every layer: database, message bus, authentication, and backend services. Build workflows that SaaS chat platforms cannot support.
SaaS chat pricing typically scales with monthly active users or messages sent. For applications with large user bases, a self-hosted server provides a fixed infrastructure cost regardless of user count.
Self-hosted deployments allow full UI customization and white-labelling, so your chat experience matches your brand and product — not the chat vendor’s.
When end-to-end encryption must be verifiable and auditable, self-hosting ensures that encryption keys, message stores, and transport channels are all within your security perimeter. No third party can access your encrypted messages.
For teams that do not need compliance controls or deep integrations, Ethora also offers a cloud-hosted plan with the same features and zero infrastructure management. Many businesses start on cloud and migrate to self-hosted later as requirements evolve.
Hosting Infrastructure (IaaS Provider) Options
Deploy your Ethora chat server the way your project and compliance needs require — from a managed AWS sub-account to your own cloud or on-premise data centre.
Ethora’s AWS sub-account
Default
The default option offered by Ethora is deploying your self-hosted chat server in a sub-account at Ethora’s own Amazon Web Services. This ensures the ease of use for the Customer, while leveraging all the advantages of the dedicated server and enterprise-level SLA. The Customer can choose between any of the Availability Zones to ensure their messaging infrastructure is close to the end users geography.
Your infrastructure AWS · Azure · GCP · on-premises
Enterprise SLA Managed by Ethora
Your own AWS / other IaaS account
Your cloud
In case you, the Customer, prefer or required by your project or your vertical’s compliance or security constraints, to host the system in your own infrastructure, this option is fully supported. The specific configuration and access for Ethora SLA team here will depend on your Ethora infrastructure configuration and the options selected for your license and SLA contract with Ethora. A typical setup would be where Customer has a Dev and Prod servers fully managed by Ethora, another popular configuration is where Customer’s Prod server is isolated where Ethora’s TechOps team only has access to Customer’s Dev server, and Customer’s own team is managing the Prod server. This makes SLA servicing and tech support more difficult but ensures any of the end users data is not physically accessible by Ethora’s technical team which may be a requirement in some verticals or projects.
Your infrastructure AWS · Azure · GCP · on-premises
Full data isolation Your team keeps Prod
On premise (your own data centre)
On premise
It is important to note that Ethora platform is infrastructure agnostic. Our standard operational system is Ubuntu Linux and we support both amd64 and arm64 configurations, with amd64 being the default choice. This means our infrastructure does not rely on any specific services or integrations of the popular Infrastructure-as-a-Service providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform. This, in turn, means you are not vendor locked into one single IaaS provider, you have the freedom to choose between one of the providers and the freedom to migrate your Ethora server(s) between infrastructure providers in future. Consequently, this also means that Ethora can be hosted at other 3rd party data centres or on premise. This is especially relevant for some of our Customers where applicable (country-specific or vertical-specific) laws or compliance constraints require all data to be constrained to specific geography or specific data centre. Choosing Ethora server fully addresses these constraints.
Your infrastructure AWS · Azure · GCP · on-premises
No vendor lock-in Migrate any time
Geography of Your Chat Server
With messaging, human and AI communications, it is important that the messaging feels instant and the latency is minimal.
Most of Ethora customers here benefit from the flexibility of Ethora deployments by choosing to install their Ethora server(s) in the hosting infrastructure (AWS Availability Zone, an alternative with another IaaS, a local hosting provider, or Customer’s own on premise data centre).
Advanced options are available here, such as multi-zone deployments, however in practice for most Customers the optimal solution is to deploy in one geography that is closest to their userbase.
Ethora Chat Server and Backend Configuration at Your Infrastructure
Ethora dedicated server includes the following services. The advanced services are optional and are deployed only depending on project requirements and license configuration — the installer and upgrade system automatically takes the configuration into account.
Core functionality
- Admin Dashboard web application (React.js)
- API layer (Node.js)
- Background services (Node.js)
- XMPP chat server and custom modules (Erlang, MySQL/Postgres)
- Push Notifications service
- Files service (Minio)
- Infrastructure (Nginx, Redis, MongoDB, Centrifugo)
Advanced services
Optional — deployed only where project requirements and license configuration include them. Some are not deployed for configurations where they are not required.
- Uptime service — uptime heartbeat monitoring and regression test service
- Playground — Ethora SDK playground simplifying integration work for your developers (disabled in Production configurations)
- API Swagger docs — automatically generated interactive API docs (disabled in Production configurations)
- Bots service — standard Ethora Bots framework enabling advanced chat bots functionalities (Node.js, Python)
- AI service — RAG chat bots, self-hosted LLM, website and documents indexing service, MCP server (Node.js, Python)
- Blockchain infrastructure — Web3 gateway, blockchain transactions and tokens module, 3x L2 Ethereum nodes and/or bridge to external L1/L2 network (Node.js, Golang)
- Video calls infrastructure (WebRTC, TURN, STUN, recording)
Access to Source Codes, Deployment and Updates Options
From open-source code access to fully managed or fully self-managed deployments — choose the level of control and hands-on involvement that fits your team and compliance needs.
Source code access
Open source
Most of Ethora’s SDK, frontend engine and code samples are open-source. When a project needs more, a source-code access option opens up the rest.
What it covers
Server-side engine and infrastructure-as-code repositories, full transparency for compliance-driven projects, and flexibility well beyond the public open-source SDK.
Managed by Ethora
Default
Your dedicated server is hosted and managed by Ethora, in the geography and availability zone you choose — the most popular setup.
Deployment & updates
Deployment and updates are handled by Ethora TechOps, scheduled and confirmed by you in low-activity windows — typically once or twice a year, and more often on request.
Self-managed
Advanced
Full control of your Production deployment for strict compliance or regulatory needs.
How it works
Automated install and upgrade scripts let your infra team run deployments independently, with tested packages and documented release procedures.
Monitoring, SLA and Uptime
Each Ethora enterprise customer has an SLA agreement with Ethora. Additionally, each dedicated server is equipped with its own Uptime service, allowing Customers to monitor their Ethora infrastructure health and uptime in real time.
Your SLA agreement covers
- Uptime guarantee
- Technical support channels, business hours and reaction times
- High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) configuration, where applicable
- Backup and Retention policies etc
Built-in Uptime service
- Web UI with color coded dashboard
- API access
- Direct database access
- Alerts system
- Heartbeat checks of API and chat/messaging layer, plus optional advanced synthetic journey scenarios for regression testing
Best Self-Hosted Chat Servers Compared: Ethora vs Rocket.Chat vs Mattermost vs Matrix
Choosing the best self-hosted chat server for your business depends on your deployment requirements, compliance needs, and technical capabilities. Here is how the leading self-hosted messaging platforms compare:
Rocket.ChatSelf-hosted · Cloud
MattermostSelf-hosted · Cloud
Matrix / ElementFederated · self-hosted
Ethora
Deployment flexibility
Full (Cloud, self-hosted)
Full (Cloud, self-hosted)
Full (Cloud, self-hosted)
Full (Cloud, on-premises, self-hosted)
Data ownership
100% yours (self-hosted)
100% yours (self-hosted)
100% yours (self-hosted)
100% yours
Third-party dependencies
Some
Some
Some (federation)
No
Scaling model
Highly scalable
Highly scalable
Complex (federation overhead)
Highly scalable
GDPR/CCPA compliance
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HIPAA compliance
Enterprise only
Enterprise only
Possible (Enterprise)
Yes (dedicated server)
Admin control tools
Admin Panel
System Console
Element Admin
Included with dashboard
Time to deploy
Days/Weeks (self-managed)
Days/Weeks (self-managed)
Days/Weeks (complex stack)
Hours (managed by Ethora)
UI Customization
High (theming)
Moderate
Moderate (Element client)
Full (white-label)
Real-time messaging
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Mobile responsiveness
Yes
Yes
Yes (Element app)
Yes
Number of users
Unlimited
Has some limitations
Unlimited
Unlimited
AI capabilities
Limited (basic bots)
Limited (plugins)
No native support
Yes (RAG, LLM, MCP server)
Trust & Safety system
No
No
No
Yes
Managed hosting option
Rocket.Chat Cloud
Mattermost Cloud
Element Cloud
Yes (Ethora TechOps)
Fit for startups
Yes (community edition)
Yes (free tier)
Yes (free, open source)
Yes (free tier)
Iframe/embeddable widgets
No
No
No
Yes
Low code/No code
No, dev-oriented
No, dev-oriented
No, dev-oriented
Yes
Open source server
Yes (AGPL)
Yes (MIT/AGPL)
Yes (Apache 2.0)
Enterprise source access option
Best fit for
Internal team chat
Internal team chat
Federated networks
Customer-facing & compliance apps
The bottom line
Rocket.Chat and Mattermost are well-known open-source team chat platforms, popular for internal communication. They require your team to manage deployment, updates, and scaling. Matrix / Element uses a federated architecture that enables cross-server communication but adds significant operational complexity. Ethora differentiates with its managed deployment model (your infrastructure, Ethora’s TechOps team handling operations), built-in AI capabilities (RAG bots, LLM agents, MCP server), Trust & Safety system, and embeddable widget support - making it the strongest choice for businesses building customer-facing or compliance-sensitive applications rather than internal team chat.
Customers
Trusted by teams shipping regulated communication
Taras and the Ethora team are a reliable partner in messaging, tokenization and AI. Great communication and products.
Joe Sticca
Digital Product & Technology Leader, Trust Industries
I have worked with Ethora and team since 2018. They have been absolutely amazing and life-saving across multiple of my portfolio projects.
Adam Palmer
Co-founder, SIAD Ventures
We partnered with Dappros/Ethora on an EU project and they successfully delivered the technology component. Highly recommended.
Peter Fearon
CEO, Remade Group
Ethora has successfully helped us ideate and deliver multiple digital transformation projects in Qatar and the MENA region. A reliable and knowledgable partner.
Tariq Gulrez
Ministry of Communications & IT
Ethora technology and expertise were instrumental in delivering Atom Connect, our product for streamlined communication in the workers’ comp market.
Carol Valentic
CEO, Candollar
Ethora helped us deliver our AI agent solution, letting subscribers access context-specific insights from our vast library of expert content. Their LLM and chat-bot expertise is an excellent match for our AI strategy.
Bret Gregory
CEO, DrTalks
Ethora has been an exceptional strategic development partner for Preshent. Not just a vendor, but a core contributor to the future of our platform and company.
John Richardson
Founder & CEO, Preshent Corporation
Ethora helped us ideate and deliver multiple digital transformation projects across Qatar and the MENA region. A reliable, knowledgable partner.
Howaida Nadim
CEO, Foresight Communications
