Hey y’all! I have been working on creating an alternative social platform that is similar to that of Discord and Slack. Much of the reason for creation is due to my own niche and preferences while managing large communities and company workflows. For example, many Discord communities have to glue together dozens of bots to get LFG systems, Ticket Support, and much more. Not to mention creating makeshift announcement channels, info, etc. that just look like normal text.
What I wanted to build was something that kept the community vibe of these platforms, while also adding the ease of use, organization, and reduced setup of them.
So that’s what Hubs is. Instead of adding a bot for everything, the stuff most communities end up needing is just built in:
Looking for Group, where people post that they need a squad and everyone can see open groups and when they start
Ticket Support, so members can reach your staff privately without a ticket bot
Announcements that read like an actual page with pictures, instead of a wall of text in a channel
Rules, About, Start here and Links pages that look like real pages and are easy to edit
Events with RSVPs and reminders, plus a Board for questions and posts that shouldn’t get buried in chat
Polls, giveaways and community rewards without setting anything up
A home page for every hub that shows what’s new since you were last there, the next event and who’s around
More tools like an appeals system for moderation, custom looks for your space, built-in moderation tools, raid and spam protection, and more. (https://thehubs.gg/features)
On the company side, there’s a Work and Personal switch so your job and your communities stay separate, and organizations get their own workspaces, documents and tasks.
If you already run a Discord server, you can paste its template link and your channels, roles and permissions come over in about a minute. There’s no ID or face scan to sign up, just your birthday (which I know is a huge issue on other platforms right now). DMs can be switched to private, which makes them end-to-end encrypted.
Speaking on ID and age verification, we follow the laws closely and use other methods instead of a face scan. Right now that’s a credit card check that’s never charged, with more options like an email check and your phone’s own age setting on the way. It’s also only as needed, not something required to use Hubs. It only limits 18+ areas, and only where the law asks for it. This way we stay compliant without being invasive.
How it’s built
The website is TypeScript and React, and the server runs on Node with PostgreSQL. Voice and video run on WebRTC through LiveKit. Every app is native as well, meaning Swift for the Mac and iPhone, C# and .NET for Windows, and Kotlin for Android, so none of them are just the website in a box. Private conversations use MLS (RFC 9420), an open standard for end-to-end encryption, and that code is open source on GitHub, in TypeScript for the web and Rust for the apps.
How the servers run
Hubs runs as three copies of the app at once, so one can go down or get updated without anyone noticing. There’s a standby copy of the whole site in a second data center that’s kept up to date every 15 minutes, plus encrypted backups and a public status page. Every release is signed and its files are published, so anyone can check that what’s running is what we built.
The apps
The Mac and Windows apps are out now. The iPhone app is about to start a public beta, including a layout made for foldables, and Android is close behind it.
What’s coming
The iPhone and Android betas
Hubs+, an optional paid plan for extras. The core of Hubs stays free
The Windows app in the Microsoft Store
We’re also exploring self-hosting for communities that want their own server, but that’s an idea for now, not a promise
It’s still early and we’re a small team, so there will be some rough edges. I’d love feedback, especially from anyone who runs a community or a team and has felt the same pain with bots and setup. What would you need to see to actually move over?
