dembrane

dembrane helps people make sense of big, messy conversations together. Participants record small-group discussions on their own phones, while hosts see what is emerging across the room. Transcripts, participant-verified insights, chat, and reports help turn those conversations into shared next steps while everyone is still there.

Built for workshops, citizen assemblies, strategy sessions, conferences, and other occasions where many people need to be heard. Read more on dembrane.com.

Try the platform · Documentation · Features · Trust center

dembrane was formerly called ECHO. The old name still appears in this repository's name, container images, and Kubernetes namespaces.

How it works

1. Prepare and share. Create a project, configure the participant portal, and share its QR code or link.
2. Start talking. Participants join in a browser with no account or download required. Record several groups at once, work across languages, or upload existing recordings.
3. Make sense together. Follow incoming conversations in the dashboard. Enable Explore for questions that deepen the discussion and Verify so participants can critique, refine, and approve what the language model surfaces.
4. Bring the results back. Ask questions across conversations, check the cited sources, and create reports that capture themes, differences, and recommendations. Review the results with the people involved.

See the feature overview and quick start for hosts.

Inside the app

These screenshots show the local development app. Available features and navigation can differ from the hosted release. Select an image to view it at full size.

What you can do

• Listen across groups and languages. Capture parallel conversations through the participant portal, transcribe them, and review their summaries and source transcripts.
• Keep participants involved. Explore and Verify let people question and improve the interpretation of their own conversation.
• Ask questions of the whole project. Compare perspectives, find recurring concerns, and follow citations back to the source. Agentic chat can search and read conversations in several steps.
• Create and share reports. Review a draft, share it by link, or download a PDF.
• Work together. Organise projects in workspaces, invite collaborators, and control access through roles and permissions.
• Build on your data. Export material and connect other systems through the API and webhooks.

The feature catalogue covers capabilities and availability in more detail.

Trust and security

The dembrane trust center describes the managed service's EU hosting and processing, ISO 27001 certification, encryption at rest, and data protection practices. Client data is not used for model training unless the client opts in. Hosts determine the legal basis for their sessions, and participant identity collection is configurable.

These commitments describe the managed service. For your own deployment, review the self-hosting guide and provider configuration.

Please report vulnerabilities through our security policy.

Getting started

• Use the hosted platform: open the dashboard and follow the host guide.
• Run an event with us: dembrane offers event services, facilitator training, and scholarships. See services and pricing for the current options.
• Run or develop it yourself: start with self-hosting, the local development setup, and the architecture guide.

The codebase includes the React dashboard and participant portal, and a Bun API, worker and media service. PostgreSQL and S3-compatible storage support the processing pipeline.

Development

Layout

• dembrane/platform: the Bun API, worker, media service, migrations and web server (apps/) and their packages (packages/). legacy/ holds what only exists because of the previous stack.
• dembrane/infra: Terraform for the preview, staging and prod environments.
• .github/scripts: the scripts CI builds, deploys and announces with.
• dembrane/frontend: the dashboard and participant portal (React, Vite).
• brand: logos and style assets.
• dembrane-go: the iOS app.
• skills: the brand guidelines agents follow when writing for dembrane.

Run the platform

cd dembrane/platform
bun run setup        # Postgres in docker, dependencies, migrations
bun run dev          # API on :8080
bun --env-file=.env.local apps/worker/src/main.ts   # worker
bun run check        # lint, types, tests

Run the frontend

cd dembrane/frontend
pnpm install
pnpm dev             # dashboard on :5173, /api proxied to :8080
pnpm participant:dev # portal on :5174

Documentation

• Published documentation
• For hosts and participants
• For developers and integrations
• Local development setup
• Contributing

Project status and license

dembrane is actively maintained by Dembrane B.V. and welcomes community contributions. We build the platform so more people can help shape the decisions that affect them. Meet the team and read about our approach on the about page.

This repository is source available under the Business Source License 1.1. The license permits non-production use and includes a production-use grant for organisations whose Total Finances do not exceed EUR 1,000,000 over the most recent 12-month period. Each release has a Change Date three years after release and a Change License of GPLv3. See LICENSE for the full definitions and conditions, or contact [email protected] for alternative licensing arrangements.

We welcome forks and contributions under those terms. If you would like to collaborate or discuss a maintainer role, get in touch.

Stewardship

dembrane is currently independent and working towards becoming steward-owned. Community members interested in helping guide the project's future can contact [email protected].

Contact

• Platform support: [email protected]
• Events, hosting, and partnerships: [email protected]
• Urgent pull requests: [email protected]
• Legal inquiries and stewardship: [email protected]
• Mission, press, and licensing: [email protected]

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to dembrane!