The GetStream Alternative for Self-Hosted Chat & AI
A modular Chat & AI SDK that runs on your servers, plugs into any LLM, and ships in days — not quarters. One SDK, flat pricing, no four separate meters.
Compliance-ready out of the box
Ethora ships with audit logs and encryption at rest and in transit, so your security and privacy programs start from a solid baseline — not from a pile of add-ons.
Self-hosting keeps data inside your own perimeter, which makes GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and SOC 2 programs straightforward to satisfy. Healthcare, fintech, and insurance teams run Ethora in production today.
GDPR
EU data protection with regional data-residency options.
CCPA
California consumer privacy controls built into the platform.
HIPAA
Healthcare PHI handling, running in regulated production today.
SOC 2
Security & availability controls with full audit logs.
Why teams switch from GetStream
Teams move to Ethora when they hit one of these walls with GetStream — most often because they want to own the whole stack on their own infrastructure instead of renting four hosted products.
GetStream
Cloud-managed, four products, four meters
Ethora
Self-hosted SDK, flat pricing
One SDK, six production-ready modules
One modular SDK covers the whole chat + AI stack — pick the modules you need without stitching four hosted products together.
Chat & Docs Engine
Instant messaging, end-to-end encryption, offline sync, read receipts, and complete audit logs — built for reliability across web and mobile.
AI Bots SDK
Multi-turn, intelligent agents inside your chat. Supports OpenAI, Claude, or any custom LLM via webhook, with conversation memory and easy handoff to humans.
RAG Crawler
Point it at your website or docs. It crawls, indexes, and builds a knowledge base your AI agents can query accurately in real time.
Marketplace Chat SDK
Buyer-seller messaging on Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento. Seller presence, order-linked threads, and built-in dispute-resolution flows.
Chat Widget
Add a professional chat or AI support window to any website with a single script tag. No backend work required.
React UI Kits
Customizable, production-ready components for React and React Native. Tweak every color, font, and layout to match your brand.
Your servers. Your data. Your rules.
Ethora runs anywhere you do. The whole chat + AI stack runs inside your perimeter, so there’s no third-party cloud holding your conversations. That’s why teams in healthcare, fintech, government, and defense pick Ethora: they get production-grade chat and AI without shipping sensitive data to someone else’s infrastructure. You keep your encryption keys, your data residency, and your compliance boundary — customer data never leaves your VPC, not for chat, not for AI inference, not for moderation.
Bring your own LLM
Ethora’s AI is model-agnostic. It works with OpenAI, Claude, or your own custom LLM via webhook, so you choose the model that fits your budget, latency, and data-residency needs. Because the model is just a configuration target, you’re never tied to one vendor’s roadmap or pricing. Teams use it for:
Support deflection in-chat
An AI agent answers routine questions inside the conversation before they reach a human.
RAG over your docs
The bot answers from your own site, help center, and product documentation.
AI moderation
The model flags or filters messages in real time, using your policies.
No LLM lock-in. Switch models in a config file — inference stays inside your VPC. Keep your model choice, your costs, and your data all under your control.
By the numbers
Ship faster, spend less
~95%
faster dev time vs. building from scratch
~60%
cost reduction vs. in-house build
5 min
widget install on any website
How it ships
Integration is simple and takes four steps.
SDKs: React, React Native, iOS (Swift), Android (Kotlin), Node.js, Python.
FAQ
Is Ethora a real GetStream alternative?
Yes. Ethora covers the same core jobs developers reach for with GetStream — real-time chat, in-app messaging, AI bots, and rich UI components — but ships as one modular SDK you can self-host on your own infrastructure. If you need to keep data inside your VPC, run the whole chat and AI stack yourself, and pay a flat price instead of four separate meters, Ethora is a direct alternative.
Can I migrate from GetStream to Ethora?
Yes. Ethora exposes chat, channels, users, and message history through a documented API and SDKs, so you can map your existing GetStream data model across and re-point your clients. Most teams start by embedding the Ethora chat widget or UI kit alongside their current setup, then move traffic over. Our team can help scope a migration on a short call.
Does Ethora support self-hosting?
Yes — self-hosting is the default. You can run the entire Ethora chat and AI stack on your own AWS, GCP, Azure, on-prem, AWS Marketplace, or private cloud. Customer data, chat, AI inference, and moderation all stay inside your perimeter. There is also a managed cloud option if you would rather we operate it for you.
How is Ethora’s AI different from Stream’s Vision Agents and AI Moderation?
Stream’s AI is mainly LLM-driven moderation plus multimodal voice and vision agents. Ethora’s AI Bots SDK is purpose-built for in-app chat agents — multi-turn assistants that answer users inside the conversation, powered by OpenAI, Claude, or your own custom LLM via webhook. A RAG Crawler is included so your bot can answer from your own site and docs.
Is Ethora HIPAA / GDPR / SOC2 compliant?
Ethora ships with audit logs and encryption at rest and in transit, and self-hosting keeps data inside your own perimeter, which makes GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and SOC2 programs straightforward to satisfy. Healthcare, fintech, and insurance teams run Ethora in production today on this basis. Enterprise plans add dedicated infrastructure for HIPAA and SOC2 workloads.
How long does integration take?
Days, not quarters. The chat widget is a five-minute embed, and the React and React Native UI kits drop ready-made chat screens into an existing app. A typical flow is install the SDK, configure the backend, plug in your LLM, and go live. SDKs are available for React, React Native, iOS, Android, Node.js, and Python.
Ready to ship chat + AI on your own terms?
Talk through your migration from GetStream, or start building today — self-hosted, AI-native, and yours end to end. One SDK, one price — not four products on four meters.
