pagechat

PageChat

Real-time chat for any website. Drop a script tag on your site and let visitors chat with each other — no accounts, no databases, no third-party services.

Features

• Per-page chat rooms — visitors on the same URL automatically share a room
• Built-in UI — beautiful chat interface at / and an embeddable widget for any site
• Zero configuration — single binary, runs anywhere
• Profanity filter — built-in content filtering powered by go-away
• Message history — configurable TTL, served over a REST API
• Lightweight — no database required, messages stored in-memory
• Embeddable — use as a standalone server or import as a Go library
• Production-ready — graceful shutdown, structured logging, health checks, CORS

Quick Start

Binary

# Install
go install github.com/akhil-datla/pagechat/cmd/pagechat@latest

# Run
pagechat --port 8080 --filter

Docker

docker run -p 8080:8080 ghcr.io/akhil-datla/pagechat:latest

From Source

git clone https://github.com/akhil-datla/pagechat.git
cd pagechat
make run

Built-in UI

Start the server and open http://localhost:8080 in your browser to use the full-page chat interface. It includes username selection, message history, connection status, and auto-reconnect.

Embeddable Widget

Add a single script tag to any website to get a floating chat bubble:

<script src="https://your-pagechat-server.com/widget.js"></script>

The widget automatically detects the server URL from the script's src attribute.

Widget Options

Configure via data-* attributes on the script tag:

<script
  src="https://your-pagechat-server.com/widget.js"
  data-position="bottom-left"
  data-theme="dark"
></script>

Custom Integration

For full control, connect directly via WebSocket:

<script>
  const ws = new WebSocket(
    `ws://localhost:8080/ws?website=${encodeURIComponent(location.href)}`
  );

  ws.onmessage = (event) => {
    const msg = JSON.parse(event.data);
    console.log(`[${msg.username}] ${msg.content}`);
  };

  function sendMessage(username, content) {
    ws.send(JSON.stringify({ username, content }));
  }
</script>

Fetch Message History

const url = encodeURIComponent(location.href);
const res = await fetch(`http://localhost:8080/api/messages?website=${url}`);
const messages = await res.json();

API Reference

Message Format

Send (client → server):

{ "username": "alice", "content": "Hello everyone!" }

Receive (server → client):

{
  "website": "https://example.com/page",
  "username": "alice",
  "content": "Hello everyone!",
  "timestamp": "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z"
}

Configuration

Use as a Library

package main

import (
    "context"
    "log"
    "time"

    "github.com/akhil-datla/pagechat"
)

func main() {
    srv := pagechat.NewServer(pagechat.Config{
        Addr:          ":9090",
        MessageTTL:    12 * time.Hour,
        MaxMessages:   500,
        ContentFilter: true,
    })

    if err := srv.Start(); err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
}

Architecture

┌─────────┐   WebSocket   ┌──────────┐   broadcast   ┌──────┐
│ Client 1 │──────────────▶│          │──────────────▶│Room A│
└─────────┘               │          │               └──────┘
                          │  Server  │
┌─────────┐   WebSocket   │          │   broadcast   ┌──────┐
│ Client 2 │──────────────▶│          │──────────────▶│Room B│
└─────────┘               │   Hub    │               └──────┘
                          │          │
┌─────────┐   REST API    │          │
│ Client 3 │──────────────▶│          │
└─────────┘               └──────────┘

• Server — HTTP server with graceful shutdown, CORS, and routing
• Hub — manages rooms, broadcasts messages, stores history
• Client — WebSocket connection with read/write pumps and keepalive
• Room — per-website group of connected clients

Development

make test       # Run tests with race detector
make cover      # Generate coverage report
make lint       # Run golangci-lint
make build      # Build binary to bin/
make help       # Show all targets

License

GNU General Public License v3.0

Built by Akhil Datla