I built an ephemeral P2P chat with WebRTC, without servers

8 comments

• nikisweeting48 minutes ago
  THis is not without servers, you still use a signaling server for TURN.<p>If you want true serverless you need a side channel to copy the offer&#x2F;response, e.g. tell the user&#x27;s to copy paste them as base64 thorugh whatsapp manually or something (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;pirate&#x2F;webrtcchat" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;pirate&#x2F;webrtcchat</a>).
• iamnothere26 minutes ago
  Matrix was once working on something similar, I wonder what the latest status is.<p>In general, things like this are a great way around current pushes for age verification and mandatory surveillance. Give your friends a link to this, or even a web archive via USB stick, and chat directly without intermediaries. No need to run a server.<p>(Others pointed out you still need a TURN server. True but hopefully there’s a P2P solution for this.)
• elwebmaster54 minutes ago
  You should mention that it uses PeerJS. That&#x27;s not without servers. PeerJS runs their own signaling server which you are relying on to connect your peers.
• zRinexD2 hours ago
  I wanted to be able to talk to anyone in the world without relying on any company&#x27;s servers. No censorship, no rules, no limits except the ones I set in my own room. So I built this.<p>No signup, no registration. Just create a room with a password, share the code, and anyone can join directly. Everything is peer-to-peer, ephemeral, and disappears when you close the tab.<p>Would love to hear what you think. Code is open source. Link: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ephemchat.vercel.app&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ephemchat.vercel.app&#x2F;</a> Source code: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;zzrinexd&#x2F;EphemChat" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;zzrinexd&#x2F;EphemChat</a>
  • ranger_danger1 hour ago
    Many users in the world are behind CGNAT or symmetrical NAT, and if both sides are, they will not be able to use WebRTC unless there is a TURN relay server involved. Does your software have a way to account for this?
    • zRinexD57 minutes ago
      Great question! Currently it uses Google&#x27;s public STUN servers, which works for ~85% of connections. For the remaining cases, I&#x27;m planning to add a community-maintained list of TURN servers or a P2P fallback mechanism.
      • iamnothere21 minutes ago
        You could look into DHT as a way to distribute info about connected nodes, and maybe nodes with the right firewall setup could opt in to being TURN servers.
• atmanactive1 hour ago
  This is great, thanks! Would you accept a Github pull request to translate it to English and several other languages?
  • zRinexD56 minutes ago
    Absolutely! I&#x27;d love to make this accessible to everyone. English translation would be a great start. Let&#x27;s coordinate on GitHub issues.
• indigodaddy52 minutes ago
  - does the room vanish after the last user exits? Seems like it?<p>- can the room code be tacked on to the url&#x2F;slug?
• villgax10 minutes ago
  Lol do your DD properly before posting
• michaelsbradley1 hour ago
  What about use of TURN, entirely avoided?