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OpenCtrl

Ctrl Room

by OpenCtrl · 5.0 (1)

Where the collective talks. Community chat with rooms, threads, voice and video, built to fix what people dislike about Discord and Slack.

  • OpenCtrl Original
  • Free
  • Use online
  • Run it yourself (technical)
  • Free and open
Instead of
Slack
What it costs
Free
How to start
Start

Opens in your browser · ctrlroom-iota.vercel.app

Get Ctrl Room

  • Download

    Works in your browser, nothing to install · ctrlroom-iota.vercel.app

Add to Workspace saves it in your OpenCtrl list. Download opens it on ctrlroom-iota.vercel.app, where you can add it to your device. OpenCtrl doesn't run, frame or vouch for third-party apps.

Ratings & reviews

5.0

1 rating

  1. 51
  2. 40
  3. 30
  4. 20
  5. 10
  • clayton sinclair

    fireeee App

Sign in to rate Ctrl Room.

Skip the setup

Start Ctrl Room's free hosted tier. Nothing to install · ctrlroom-iota.vercel.app

Or get every Original with OpenCtrl Cloud: $12/month.Coming soon

Planned Cloud limits

  • Messages

    Free: 10,000 messages a month

    With OpenCtrl Cloud: up to 1,000,000 messages a month

  • Call minutes

    Free: 300 call minutes a month

    With OpenCtrl Cloud: up to 10,000 call minutes a month

  • Ai replies

    Free: 100 AI answers of ai replies a month

    With OpenCtrl Cloud: up to 3,000 AI answers of ai replies a month

These limits aren't switched on yet: hosted use is unlimited for now. OpenCtrl Cloud includes every other Original too. Ctrl Room sets these limits itself. Running it yourself is free.

About Ctrl Room

Ctrl Room is a home for your community, with rooms, threads, voice and video. It started from what people dislike most about Discord and Slack, and fixes each one.

Your history stays

Every message and every search, forever, in every community. No 90-day cutoff and no paywall on search.

Quiet by default

You only get pinged when someone @mentions you or replies to a thread you started. Each room can be set to Everything, Mentions or Muted. Come back after a while and While you were gone sums up what you missed: new messages, who talked, busy threads, decisions and your pings.

Threads that finish

Threads open next to the room. When one is settled, close it with an outcome: the outcome shows in the room and goes on the room's board.

A helper in the chat

Mention @ctrl in any room to ask a question or research something. It searches the web, reads pages and lists its sources, and answers in a thread so the room stays readable.

Simple and free

Four roles (owner, admin, mod, member), one account for any number of communities, no feature paywalls and no ID checks. Use the hosted version for free, or run your own copy. It's free and open either way.

Features

  • Rooms and sections

    Text rooms, announcement rooms and voice rooms, grouped under headings you choose. Pin the rooms you use most to the top.

  • Threads with an outcome

    Reply in a thread next to the room. Close it with what was decided, and the outcome shows in the room.

  • A board in every room

    Decisions, links, docs and notes sit on the room's board, so they don't get buried under chat.

  • Voice, video and screen share

    Walk into a voice room or start a call from any room. Camera and screen sharing work right in the browser.

  • @ctrl, the AI helper

    Ask a question or research a topic. It searches the web, reads pages, lists its sources and answers in a thread.

  • Full history and search

    Every message, forever, in every community. Search all of it for free, with exact phrases and words left out.

  • Quiet by default

    Only @mentions and replies to you ping. A recap of what you missed waits when you come back.

  • Profile photos and community images

    Add your own photo. Communities get a square image and a cover photo for their page.

  • Requests to join

    A private community can let people ask to join with a short message. Admins approve or decline.

Pricing

  • Hosted (ctrlroom-iota.vercel.app)

    Free

  • Self-hosted

    Free

    Your own servers; never limited

Free plan limits:
No feature paywalls and no ID checks. Full history and search on every plan. Running it yourself is never limited. On OpenCtrl Cloud, the Free tier will have monthly amounts for messages, call minutes and AI answers; nothing is deleted for going over, and export always works.
Free offering:
Permanent
Notes:
Free to use and free to run yourself; you pay only for the servers you run it on.

Compared with Slack

AppPrice
Ctrl RoomFree
SlackPricing not verified

OpenCtrl is not affiliated with the products listed here. Names are used to describe what an app replaces.

For technical people

Run it yourself, source code and more

Run it yourself

For people comfortable setting up servers. Source code · github.com/claycovyn/ctrlroom

Source
https://github.com/claycovyn/ctrlroom

Ctrl Room is a Next.js 15 app on Supabase (Postgres, Auth and Realtime), with LiveKit for voice, video and screen share. Without the LiveKit keys, everything except calls works.

Run it locally (needs Docker for the local Supabase):

git clone https://github.com/claycovyn/ctrlroom
cd ctrlroom
npm install
npx supabase start
cp .env.example .env.local
npm run dev

Paste the local Supabase URL and anon key that npx supabase start prints into .env.local.

Deploy: create a Supabase project and run npx supabase db push, create a LiveKit project (or run livekit-server), then import the repository on Vercel (or any Node host) and set the values from .env.example. Full steps are in docs/SELF-HOSTING.md.

The AI helpers work with any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (Ollama, vLLM, OpenRouter and others); set the AI_* values to turn them on.

License

Free and open · AGPL-3.0-only Free and openAnyone can see how it works, and no company can take it away.

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