Servers · channels · voice · screen sharing
There is no server to shut down
Servers, channels, voice and screen sharing, arranged the way you already expect. The difference is underneath: Hidra keeps no servers of its own. Every copy is a head — it holds the whole conversation, passes it on, and answers for itself. Close one and the others are still talking.
Nearly ready. Free to use when it lands, with no account and no sign-up. Windows first.
What it looks like
Coming over from another platform?
Most of what you know carries across. The shape is deliberate — servers, channels, a member list, voice you drop into — because that shape works and relearning it is not the interesting part.
What is the same
- Servers with text and voice channels
- A member list, and who is online
- Invites you paste to a friend
- Direct messages and a friends list
- Screen sharing, emoji, pictures and files
- Presence you set yourself, including invisible
What is different
- No account. Nothing to sign up for, no email, no password
- No company in the middle. Your messages go between the people in the conversation
- Your server cannot be taken down — there is nothing to take down, and no terms for it to fall foul of
- Nothing is scanned or sold, because there is nowhere central for it to happen
- You own the history. Every member holds a complete copy
And what you would give up
Worth knowing before you move a group of friends rather than after.
- Messages need somebody online. There is no machine holding the backlog for a friend who is away — when they open Hidra they catch up from whoever is around. For a group that talks most evenings this is invisible. For one where everybody is in a different timezone and nobody overlaps, it is a real limitation.
- No bots, no integrations, no web version. Not yet, and possibly not ever for some of it.
- No moderation tools beyond the honest ones. Rules are agreements every copy honours, not locks a referee enforces — because a referee would be a middle, and the middle is the thing being removed.
- Nothing is imported. There is no way to bring a server’s history across, and there will not be. You start fresh.
If those are fine, the way to try it is to get a few friends on it for one evening. It takes one download each and an invite pasted into a chat you already have.
Who it is for
Four kinds of group keep asking for the same thing, for four different reasons.
Groups of friends who play together
The eight of you who have been in the same voice channel for years. Nothing about that changes: servers, channels, drop-in voice, screen sharing, all where you expect them. What changes is that the room belongs to the people in it, so it is still there in five years whoever has been acquired by then.
Communities that have been shut down before
If you have ever rebuilt a community from scratch after a platform decision, you already understand the argument. There is no company to appeal to here because there is no company in the way: no terms your server can fall foul of, no report queue, nothing to suspend. Every member holds the whole thing.
People who would rather not be the product
No account, no email, no password, and no profile built up about you — your identity is a key your own machine made. Messages go between the people in the conversation. Nothing is scanned or sold, and that is not a promise about our conduct: there is nowhere central for it to happen.
People who would otherwise host it themselves
If the alternative was a box you rent and patch, this is the same independence without the box. Nothing to deploy, nothing to keep updated, no domain, no certificate, no backups to forget. A server is a document every member holds a copy of, which is the backup.
A fifth group asks about work — a studio, a small agency, anybody whose calls should not go through somebody else’s machines. Much of the above applies, and people already use it that way. Said plainly, though: there is no administration console, no seat billing and no support contract, so today a business gets exactly what everybody else gets. That part is being thought about rather than sold.
Cut off one head
The hydra of the myth grew two heads for every one taken. Hidra is arranged the same way, for an ordinary engineering reason rather than a poetic one: there is no middle to go for.
Ordinary chat puts a company in the middle of your conversations. It relays every message, holds every backlog, and decides who may speak. That is convenient, and it means your conversations last exactly as long as somebody else’s interest in hosting them.
A Hidra server is not a machine anybody rents. It is a document that every member holds a complete copy of, and the copies keep each other up to date. Joining one is taking a copy; leaving is dropping yours. What you are all looking at is the same thing, and it is not anywhere in particular.
What you get
Servers and channels
Text channels and voice channels, arranged the way you would expect. Make one, share the invite, and whoever takes it holds a copy from then on.
Talking
Voice, with noise suppression that can be turned off when it would eat what you are sharing. Screen sharing. Calls go directly between the people in them.
People
A friends list, private conversations, and presence you choose rather than presence inferred from whether the window is open. One name and one picture, everywhere you are.
No account
Nothing to sign up for, no email to hand over, no password to forget. Your identity is a key this machine made, and your friend code is how people find you.
Yours to keep
Each server decides how long it keeps messages and files, and every copy honours it. Nothing is mined, nothing is sold, and there is nowhere central for either to happen.
In your language
English, Spanish and German, with seven themes including high contrast. Every colour pairing is measured against the accessibility threshold rather than eyeballed.
What it does not do
Having no middle costs something, and it is better said here than found out later.
- Somebody has to be online. A message reaches people who are running Hidra. There is no machine holding it for a friend who is asleep — when they open it, they catch up from whoever is around.
- Every copy holds everything. Joining a server means taking its history, so a large one takes a moment to arrive and takes up room. That is what makes it survive.
- Rules are agreements, not locks. Who may rename a channel is written down and honoured by every copy of Hidra. Somebody running altered software could ignore it. There is no referee, because a referee is a middle.
- Windows only, for now. One download, one file, nothing to install beside it.
Not open yet
Hidra is in closed beta. When it opens it will be one file — nothing to install beside it, no account to make, and nothing to sign up for.
Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. Roughly 25 MB. There is no waiting list and no email to leave — this button is the announcement, and it goes live when the build does.