OSS Tanbou
View on GitHubProject website

Campfire — simple group chat you can run on one server

OSS scale score 213.4OSS health 89Update pace 23 commits/30d
About these scores

OSS scale score is an unbounded metric that log-compresses and weights Stars, Watchers, Forks, and Contributors. Discovery score is the current OSS scale score minus the score at discovery. Update pace is commits in the last 30 days, growth momentum is the OSS scale score difference within the recent observation window, and OSS health is a 0–100 rating based on available recency, Community Health, and release data.

Stars
4,633
Primary language
Ruby
License
MIT
Repository last updated
Sep 14, 2026

Overview

Campfire is Basecamp's web-based group chat application with rooms, direct messages, attachments, search, Web Push notifications, mentions, and an API for bot integrations.

Features and best fit

Based on official documentation; not hands-on tested · Content checked:

Cover the everyday essentials of group chat

Rooms with access controls, DMs, attachment previews, search, notifications, and mentions are included.

Sources: [2]

Connect bots and external workflows through an API

The application exposes an API intended to support bot integrations.

Sources: [2]

For teams that want a focused self-hosted chat product

It fits groups that prefer a narrow chat application under their own server control instead of a broad collaboration suite.

Sources: [2]

Understand the single-machine deployment model

The official Docker image bundles application, jobs, cache, file serving, and SSL; higher availability needs separate evaluation.

Sources: [2][3]

Official sources

  1. [1]basecamp/once-campfire repository(2026-09-20)
  2. [2]Campfire README(2026-09-20)
  3. [3]Campfire self-hosting guide(2026-09-20)
  4. [4]Campfire security model(2026-09-20)
  5. [5]Campfire MIT license(2026-09-20)
Supplemental curator note

Campfire is deliberately narrower than a full collaboration suite. Its Docker image bundles the web app, background jobs, caching, file serving, and SSL for a straightforward single-machine deployment.

Try it in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Get the source

    git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/basecamp/once-campfire.git
  2. 2

    Enter the repository

    cd once-campfire
  3. 3

    Check the official steps

    Continue with the commands in the README Installation, Quick Start, or Getting Started section.

    find . -maxdepth 1 -iname 'README*' -exec sed -n '1,220p' {} \; -quit
Check the official README

Growth

Growth trends · Last 30 days

4,633 Stars

Trend data is still being collected.

Development activity

Last 90 days · weekly

Commits (last 30 days)
23
Open PRs
32

Development activity is still being collected.

Built with

Categories and tags

Categories

Tags

GitHub data

GitHub dataView detailed GitHub data
View on GitHub
Stars
4,633
Forks
794
Watchers
28
Open issues
7
Contributors
27
Primary language
Ruby
License
MIT
Repository last updated
Sep 14, 2026
Write a related article

Share a guide or use case for this OSS in Markdown. Articles are published after administrator approval.

Report incorrect information

Tell us if any listing information is incorrect or outdated.