SimpleX Chat vs Glowing Bear
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted chat & communication options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare SimpleX Chat with
choose an app… Plane Chatwoot Focalboard Super Productivity Wekan Etherpad OpenProject Habitica Self-Hosted Tinode Planka Leantime Centrifugo Screego Typebot git-bug Kanboard Berty Mumble Kaneo ejabberd The Lounge Papercups Taskwarrior Zammad WorkAdventure Soketi Remark42 Isso FreeSWITCH qTox MiroTalk Synapse Ferdium FreeScout Telegram Bot API Server Rustpad Asterisk WeeChat Ergo irssi FluffyChat Quicksy Bridge Kamailio Cusdis Tox Stoat AnyCable Chitchatter Live Helper Chat Spacebar Nextcloud Talk Indico RetroShare SIPCAPTURE Homer Peer-calls MongooseIM mautrix-telegram Routr GlobaLeaks openSIPS mautrix Databag Galène InspIRCd Candy Toxic Hyphanet Syphon FusionPBX soju KiwiIRC Bonfire Pretalx Delta Chat Element X Notifo SimpleX Briar Quassel IRC OTS matrix-commander Mumble Web Comentario mautrix-signal BitlBee ngIRCd Miaou Session Nextcloud Talk Signaling Server UnrealIRCd MiroTalk C2C matrix-appservice-irc Linphone Chatmail Chatmail Relay SchildiChat Hookshot Snikket Atheme IRC Services Maunium Sticker Picker Spectrum 2 Shhh Gamja Jami Server Bridge Mollysocket Anope PushBits Tigase XMPP Server Comm Heisenbridge Slixmpp Ferdium Server Solanum Wesh Network Draupnir baibot matrix-media-repo Charybdis IRCd Zusam Cactus Comments ircd-hybrid Scuttlebutt Room Robust IRC Flexisip Metronome IM SAMA Biboumi Monocles Chat Hebbot ircu2 Prose Libervia Jami YunoHost Mail Relay 3CX ARN-Messager Freepbx GNUnet Groupboard MailBag Mailman3 Mailing List Manager Mlmmj Web Peachpub PrivMX WebMail SIP3 TrueConf Wazo Yeti-Switch
Compare Glowing Bear with
choose an app… Chatwoot Etherpad Centrifugo Screego Typebot Berty Mumble The Lounge Papercups ZNC Convos IRC soju Gamja
Feature SimpleX Chat Glowing Bear Category Chat & Communication Chat & Communication License AGPL-3.0 GPL-3.0 Language Haskell JavaScript Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 256 MB 64 MB Deployment docker, binary, source docker, bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 19,211 ★ 975 First released 2021 2014 Replaces Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram IRCCloud, Slack
Frequently asked questions Is SimpleX Chat or Glowing Bear better? Neither is universally better. SimpleX Chat has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are SimpleX Chat and Glowing Bear free and open-source? Yes. SimpleX Chat is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Glowing Bear under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run SimpleX Chat and Glowing Bear with Docker? SimpleX Chat: yes. Glowing Bear: yes.