Papote

Everyone has an account (a username and a password, the same on every device); people join a group when a member adds them, or with an invitation code or QR code. Messages, photos, voice notes and drawings stay on your server: no account at a third party, no Google services, no tracking.

Features

• Chat: text, photos, videos and documents, voice notes with waveform, drawings, emoji (the same Noto emoji everywhere), reactions (built-in + any emoji), swipe a message to reply, read ticks (sent, read by some, read by everyone), live typing indicators, pinned messages, search (text and transcribed voice notes), a gallery with "one year ago today". Tap a profile picture to see it big.
• Share to Papote from any app (text, links, pictures), and straight to a conversation from Android's share sheet.
• French or English, chosen in Settings (🇫🇷 / 🇬🇧).
• Themes for the whole app: pick a theme (Pastel, the original, or Starry night, Notebook, Neo-pop, Plain, Arcade, Forest: fonts and shapes change too) and its colours separately, each in light and dark. Each group picks its own background: 12 patterns (hearts, stars, waves, leaves, confetti…) or a photo.
• The fun bits: Bubu the mascot reacting to the group (sleepy, happy, excited, party, surprised), 24-hour stories, polls, location sharing without any map service, birthday banner and confetti, a monthly recap with medals, group stickers and favourites, GIFs through GIPHY (always relayed by your server).
• Drawing: brush, marker, eraser, bucket, stamps; timelapse replay; "draw over" a photo; a shared live canvas everybody paints on at once.
• Mini-games: Tic-tac-toe, Connect 4, Rock-paper-scissors, Hangman, "Who said that?" (from your old messages) and live Pictionary.
• Voice: playback speed, voice filters (mouse, robot, echo, giant), walkie-talkie mode, optional transcription by a Whisper container on your machine.
• Photos: decorate before sending (text, stickers, drawing, crop, filters), or make them disappear after 24 hours.
• Groups: colours, 20 icons or a picture, background patterns, the group's own quick reactions, roles (owner / admin / member), approval of newcomers, mute, export as .zip, two-person conversations.
• Standard accounts: a display name, a username and a password, the same on every device. Sign-up is open to anyone or invitation-only (admin setting); add a contact to a group in one tap, or anyone by their username (they accept an invitation). Account merge, optional 2FA, app lock (PIN or fingerprint) on Android.
• Notifications without Google: the Android app keeps its own connection and shows conversation notifications like the other messengers (the group's picture, the last messages, a pop-up at the top of the screen, and bubbles on Android 11+ to answer without opening the app); browsers and the iPhone PWA get Web Push, encrypted for the browser.
• French or English, chosen in the app's settings.
• Admin web (/admin): dashboard, server health, storage, backup & restore, journal with filters, invitation codes, members, groups with a 30-day trash, 2FA, IP allowlist, sign-up open or invitation-only with sign-up links and QR codes that fill the code in, a temporary password for a member who forgot theirs or lost their phone (all their devices signed out, account 2FA removed), new version check (the Android app offers the new APK by itself). The admin never sees group content.

Quick start (Docker Compose)

You need a machine with Docker and Docker Compose. The image ghcr.io/mrddream/papote is published for linux/amd64 and linux/arm64 (Raspberry Pi 4/5).

Create a folder (for example papote/) with this docker-compose.yml. It reads every setting from .env and includes the optional Whisper container for voice note transcription:

services:
  papote:
    image: ghcr.io/mrddream/papote:latest
    container_name: papote
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      # Host side from .env: BIND_ADDRESS (127.0.0.1 = only a reverse proxy on this machine) and PORT.
      - "${BIND_ADDRESS:-127.0.0.1}:${PORT:-3000}:3000"
    env_file: .env                       # every setting comes from .env (see below)
    environment:
      PORT: 3000                         # inside the container, whatever PORT says in .env
      BACKUP_DIR: /backups
      PAPOTE_PROFILES: ${COMPOSE_PROFILES:-}   # lets Papote know Whisper runs next to it
    volumes:
      - ./data:/data
      - ${BACKUP_HOST_DIR:-./backups}:/backups   # ideally another disk or a NAS

  # Voice note transcription on your machine (optional, ~1-2 GB of RAM):
  # COMPOSE_PROFILES=whisper in .env. Its image is only pulled in that case.
  whisper:
    image: onerahmet/openai-whisper-asr-webservice:v1.9.1
    container_name: papote-whisper
    profiles: ["whisper"]
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      ASR_MODEL: ${WHISPER_MODEL:-small}
      ASR_ENGINE: faster_whisper
    volumes:
      - ./whisper-cache:/root/.cache

and a .env next to it:

# Admin password (/admin), 12+ characters
ADMIN_PASSWORD=a-long-password-of-your-own
# Host port and address: 127.0.0.1 when the reverse proxy is on this machine, 0.0.0.0 otherwise
PORT=3000
BIND_ADDRESS=127.0.0.1
# Behind a reverse proxy serving HTTPS
TRUST_PROXY=loopback, uniquelocal
SECURE_COOKIES=true
TZ=Europe/Paris
# Optional: GIFs (free key on developers.giphy.com) and voice transcription (empty = off)
GIPHY_API_KEY=
COMPOSE_PROFILES=whisper
# Largest video or document, in MB; new-version check against GitHub
MAX_UPLOAD_MB=20
UPDATE_CHECK=true

If port 3000 is already taken on the machine, change PORT (for example PORT=3080) and point your reverse proxy at it: Papote keeps listening on 3000 inside the container. Every variable is described below.

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗