2w ago

Self-Hosted Beeper Alternative

I'm currently using Beeper to conglomerate the plethora of chat services that my friends and family use: WhatsApp, FB Messenger, RCS/SMS, and Discord. I use Signal separately because I read that Beeper needs to decrypt incoming messages before reencrypting and routing, so I felt adding a bridge for Signal defeated the purpose of using Signal.

I've also read that Beeper is essentially just Matrix with a bunch of bridges, so I looked into self-hosting Matrix and standing up those bridges myself. I would feel comfortable integrating Signal into a self-hosted instance where I control and can encrypt the middleware.

What would you all recommend as a viable, self-hosted alternative to replace Beeper? I've been trying to set up Matrix but running into a lot of headache with no simple way to self-host it. Yes, I've tried the Ansible set up and I get countless issues. I've heard an XMPP server might be a better solution as it is more lightweight and battle-tested? How do XMPP gateways compare to Matrix bridges, and would they cover all my needs?

17 comments

I'm using the Beeper Matrix server, but self-host their bridges. That way the de- and reencryption is done on my server, and Beeper only sees encrypted Matrix messages. It's extremely easy to set up if you've used docker before, much less work than running a full Matrix server yourself.
- This might be exactly what I'm looking for, thank you! I'm fine with Beeper itself, I just want the decryption on a machine I control so this looks perfect if I can get it working. Thanks!
  
  if I can get it working
  It's really as simple as starting one container per chat service, with a config like this:
  yaml
  
  services: beeper-<service>: image: ghcr.io/beeper/bridge-manager restart: unless-stopped environment: - MATRIX_ACCESS_TOKEN=<your beeper matrix token> - BRIDGE_NAME=sh-<service> volumes: - ./beeper-<service>:/data
  then messaging the @sh-<service>bot:beeper.local bot user, and logging in to your chat account.

I'm hosting my own server and my own bridges. Some of the bridges are rock solid and I never need to do anything other than keeping them updated like the discord, the signal, the Telegram and Slack ones.
Others I installed but they are breaking now and then and I have to fiddle with them like FB messanger, WhatsApp.
The third category is the ones that theoretically should work but I can't get them to work like WeChat or Kakao Chat, because they are in a bad shape, outdated or like in WeChats case my account is flagged to not be able to do that for some reason.
And then there are the chats which have no way to be integrated like Instagram I think.
From what I understand beeper is just a matrix server with all those bridges installed and they configure update and run them making shire that everything works. And to be honest, that is a lot of work and it's a good value proposition.
But yes you're right they need to decrypt your chats on their server so that the bridge can deliver the messages. Actually I made a video explaining it a while ago about Element One which is doing it in the same way: https://tube.jeena.net/w/rYhp4ZT5Ykw1aBGqMr62KG
- the meta stuff (fb messenger, ig, whatsapp) always have issues. bridges get flagged as bots, service goes down, etc

I run a complete, self-hosted Matrix stack including bridges to WhatsApp, Slack, Telegram and Signal as well as Element Call (Livekit) and MAS (the new authentication system).
I don't think there's any shortcuts. You just need to install them and work through any issues, one-by-one. Start with just the homeserver (Synapse, don't bother with anything else yet) and add one component at a time and get it working before moving to the next.
I will say that having a decent knowledge of reverse proxies, networking, DNS and certificates will help you greatly. Having a solid understanding of Docker (if you're using Docker) would be of great benefit too.
It should be much easier today than it was five/six-odd years ago when I started; things are more polished now than they were then.
- Having just done this for whatsapp and discord, its a pain in the ass but nice once it is setup.

https://slidge.im/ with an XMPP server.
- This is the correct answer. So much better than mautrix and hostng a matrix server.

Not exactly what was asked but a thought as I’ve been considering the same. After merging with Texts.com, Beeper seems to be redesigning the bridge architecture. I read that the implementation will move towards running the bridges on the client device so that the decryption is happening in the RAM of the end user’s machine rather than the server. In that case, the mentioned security problem will be at least partially resolved. Self-hosting the bridges is already possible now. One will still have to trust Beeper, though. As I am using their software already, it looks like there’s no reason, yet, to mistrust them.
- Does text use matrix aswell?
  
  Checked again. Beeper will be running “local bridges”. Once these are implemented into a modular system, there is not really a need for a local chat protocol in my understanding. The matrix connection can simply become another bridge and a Beeper server for Beeper chats would basically be yet another matrix server.
  https://blog.beeper.com/2024/06/04/2024-beeper-roadmap/?ref=textscom
  
  The FAQ says that “all integrations were implemented in-house using the Texts Platform SDK”. Whether that sdk is a derivative of the Matrix protocol? No idea. Texts.com does not offer connections to matrix, which kind of suggests it’s not 🤷🏼‍♂️ We will have to see whether the announced unified app will be running a solution based on Matrix or not.

i don't have anything useful to add except that I'm saving this because i also want to know the same thing as you.
hoping to learn how and start hosting my own matrix server over summer. depending on how things work I'd like to migrate my family chat there, possibly even host space for my kid's friends if that's a thing they have interest in using

https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
- I'm aware, as stated in the post I mentioned I've been trying that one out but running into a lot of issues. I'm not trying to debug those here though, just trying to get opinions on other options.

17 comments