Instant messaging server. Backend in pure Go (license GPL 3.0), client-side binding in Java for Android and Javascript (license Apache 2.0), persistent storage RethinkDB, JSON over websocket (long polling is also available). Tinode is meant as a replacement for XMPP. Overall it's a lot like open source WhatsApp or Telegram.

Version 0.13. This is beta-quality software: feature-complete but probably with a few bugs. Follow instructions to install and run. Read API documentation.

A javascript demo is (usually) available at http://api.tinode.co/x/example-react-js/ (source). Login as one of alice, bob, carol, dave, frank. Password is <login>123, e.g. login for alice is alice123. You can discover other users by email or phone by prefixing them with email: or tel: respectively. Emails are <login>@example.com, e.g. [email protected], phones are 17025550001 through 17025550009. The demo server is reset (all data wiped) every night at 3:15 am Pacific time. Android demo is mostly stable and functional. See screenshots below.

XMPP is a mature specification with support for a very broad spectrum of use cases developed long before mobile became important. As a result most (all?) known XMPP servers are difficult to adapt for the most common use case of a few people messaging each other from mobile devices. Tinode is an attempt to build a modern replacement for XMPP/Jabber focused on a narrow use case of instant messaging between humans with emphasis on mobile communication.

• Android and web clients.
• One-on-one messaging.
• Group messaging with currently unlimited number of members where every member's access permissions are managed individually. The maximum number of members will be limited to a reasonably high value in the future (256? configurable?).
• Topic access control with permissions for various actions.
• Server-generated presence notifications for people, topics.
• Basic sharded clustering.
• Persistent message store, paginated message history.
• Javascript bindings with no dependencies.
• Android Java bindings (dependencies: jackson, nv-websocket-client)
• Websocket and long polling transport.
• JSON wire protocol.
• User search/discovery.
• Message status notifications: message delivery to server; received and read notifications; typing notifications.
• Support for client-side caching.
• Ability to block unwanted communication server-side.
• Authentication support customizable at compile time.
• Anonymous users (important for use cases related to tech support over chat).
• Mobile push notifications using FCM.

• iOS client bindings and client.
• Rich formatting of messages and media transfer.
• Security: TLS for all communications plus OTR for one-on-one messaging and undecided method for group mesaging.
• Group messaging with unlimited number of members with bearer token access control.
• Failover/hot standby/replication.
• Federation.
• Different levels of message persistence (from strict persistence to "store until delivered" to purely ephemeral messaging).
• Support for binary wire protocol.
• Support for other SQL and NoSQL backends.
• Plugins to enable chat bots.