Free

BlaB! WS

Free realtime group chat system (chat client & websocket service) based on websockets. Both client app and Admin CP are with responsive design, HTML5 and CSS3 compliant, support all modern browsers including all mobile browsers and HiDPI displays ready. The client side is written in PHP, HTML/CSS and JavaScript and using MySQL as a backend. The websocket service is a single Linux executable without dependencies.

Requirements

A Linux based server (VPS) with Apache/Nginx, PHP5/PHP7/PHP8 and MySQL/MariaDB in working state.
Access to that server via SSH as a root user or as a user with sudo privileges.
Some basic knowledge about Linux and some basic terminal skills: running commands, editing files.
Supported distros: Debian 8 Jessie+ / Ubuntu 16.04+ / RHEL 7+ / CentOS 7+ / Fedora

Features

Supports any desktop/mobile browser including Microsoft Internet Explorer 11
PHP5/PHP7/PHP8 compatible: no PHP errors, warnings or notices
HTML5 and CSS3 compliant - no errors and warnings in Browser Console
Native code only - no frameworks or external libraries
Blazingly fast and responsive even on old low-end smartphones and tablets
HiRes/Retina displays ready with no raster images
100% resizable layout, you can run it fullscreen or in iframes as small as 360x360px
Registration system allowing 'guest' users
Innovative method to reset forgotten passwords without sending emails
Predefined mottos, users can put their own one-line motto instead
A set of avatars to pick from or upload an image/photo
Online status: Online, Away, Occupied, Unavailable, DND
Rooms - separate chat spaces. Every chatter is connected to all the rooms and receives any message posted in any room with a visual notification and a different sound notification for messages posted in background rooms
Private one-2-one chats inside the main chat window
Admin can kick and ban users and IP addresses
Material icons, EmojiOne emoticons, native emojis & stickers
Colorful predefined themes; option to create your own in seconds
Your own prebuilt PWA App that works on desktop and mobile
Ignore option - chatters can choose to hide messages from other chatters
Stealth users - invisible in chat; do not appear in logs
Sound notifications on (1) new messages, (2) enter/leave, (3) messages in background, (4) PM
Language & timezone settings per user
Splash page - a front page with a chat widget (who is online, statistics etc) and links to login/register pages
UTF-8 multilanguage support incl. usernames with non-Latin letters
Frontend translated in العربية, 🇨🇳 汉语, 🇨🇿 Čeština, 🇩🇰 Dansk, 🇩🇪 Deutsch, 🇬🇷 Ελληνικά, 🇬🇧 English, 🇪🇸 Español, 🇫🇷 Français, 🇮🇩 bahasa Indonesia, 🇮🇹 Italiano, 🇭🇺 Magyar, 🇳🇱 Nederlands, 🇵🇱 Polski, 🇧🇷 Português-BR, 🇷🇴 Română, 🇷🇺 Русский, 🇦🇱 Shqip, 🇸🇪 Svenska, 🇹🇷 Türkçe
Widgets - display information such as users online, latest visitors, top10 chatters on external pages
Mobile friendly Admin CP with WEBSOCKET STATUS, start/stop websocket service option, settings, logs, user management, themes

Chat keyboard shortcuts / touchscreen gestures

ESC-centric - the ESC key closes any element that is on top and opens the main panel in chat and in Admin CP.
On mobile, a swipe from the left edge opens the main panel in chat and the menu in Admin CP.
Users can scroll with arrow keys, mouse wheel and by dragging.
A double click swaps between select mode and drag to scroll mode
CTRL+SHIFT+1 CTRL+SHIFT+2 ... CTRL+SHIFT+9 switches to rooms 1-9
CTRL+SHIFT+L/R arrows cycles between rooms

Chat Admin Panel - style, rooms ,settings, stats

Preview / Documentation

Downloads

Download emoticon packs - Unzip and replace emocodes.php and emoticons.css in the main chat folder. To avoid loading a cached CSS file uncache from Admin CP » Settings

Download sticker packs - Unzip and upload in a separate folder(s) under chat//stickers.
All stickers are editable with Inkscape
Youtube video: How to create your own chat stickers with Inkscape

Need more? Admin panel packed with options,, voice & video messages, voice & video calls, user groups with permissions, VIP users, polls, quizzes, doodles, file upload and sharing, GIFs, Machines including an AI bot, integration with other scripts such as WordPress, Joomla, Invision Board, vBulletin, Flarum etc? BlaB! WS Pro

Page updated: 2024-10-25