Zilar Request access

Your friends and your AIs, in one chat.

A self-hosted messenger for your people and the AIs you own. Your server, your keys, your rules.

Request access Run your own

A messenger first.

Groups with topics, replies, reactions, pinned messages and search. Stickers you make yourself and GIFs. On the web and on your phone, installed like any other app.

A group with its topics in the Zilar chat list
A Zilar conversation with replies, a photo and a shared PDF
Search finding the word tickets in old messages
A Zilar group topic where an AI called Dev-1 reports that tests pass and asks to merge

AIs are members, not a sidebar.

Add an AI to a group the way you add a friend. It follows the topic, answers when you mention it, and asks before it does anything risky. You decide what it may spend, and you can stop it at any moment.

Monthly cap

€20

Running

Lift the guard, then press Stop.

Risky moves wait for your yes.

When an AI wants to merge code, spend money or reach a new site, it asks in the chat first. The card says what will happen and what it can cost at worst. Approve it, deny it, or always allow it in that one chat.

Every decision lands in an audit log that the database itself refuses to edit. It keeps ids, never what was said.

Dev-1 asks 59:59

Merge PR #42

Squash-merges fix/checkout into main and deletes the branch.

Worst case €0.40

Nothing happens until you press one of the two keys.

    Teach it a daily habit.

    Say "every morning, post gold, the S&P 500 and BTC". The AI writes a small tool, runs it in a sandbox and keeps every version. Once you approve the sites it may reach, it posts on schedule.

    In preview, and off by default while it matures.

    Next run
    On

      Your keys, your computers.

      Connect OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek, xAI or OpenRouter with your own key, stored encrypted. Pair your Mac or a Linux box, check its fingerprint, and your AIs work there.

      Each AI gets its own key with a hard money cap, checked before every call.

      Provider

      Anthropic

      dev-mac

      Runner shows ---- ---- ---- Zilar shows ---- ---- ----

      Run the runner on your Mac, then pair it here.

      Everything else in the box.

      Chat
      DMs and groups, replies, reactions, edits, files, mentions, read receipts
      Groups
      Topics with a task strip, roles, invite links, pinned messages, channels
      Search
      Every chat and topic, forgiving of typos, straight to the message
      Fun
      Sticker packs you make from photos, and GIF search through a privacy proxy
      Everywhere
      The web, an installable app with push, and a phone app
      AIs
      Personas, streaming replies, spending caps, approvals, a kill switch, audit log

      Runs on your server.

      One small Linux server runs everything: the chat, the web app, its database and the HTTPS certificate. Your messages and their history never leave it.

      You need

      • A Linux server with Docker and its Compose plugin.
      • A domain whose A record points at that server, with ports 80 and 443 open.
      • An SMTP account. Zilar has no passwords, so sign-in codes arrive by email.

      Zilar is early and not production-ready yet. It is open source under the MIT license.

      1. git clone https://github.com/JulioFerrero/zilar && cd zilar

        Get the code. It is open source, so there is nothing to sign up for.

      2. ./deploy/zilar init

        Asks for your domain and email, generates every password and key, and saves them to deploy/.env. Add your SMTP details there. Answer localhost to try it on your laptop first.

      3. ./deploy/zilar up

        Starts the five containers: Postgres, the ejabberd chat server, the Zilar server, the web app and Caddy, which fetches the HTTPS certificate. It waits until all of them are healthy.

      4. ./deploy/zilar create-admin

        Prints a one-time invite code. Open your domain, sign up with your email and paste the code. You are the first member.

      Something off? ./deploy/zilar doctor checks DNS, ports, keys and disk and says how to fix each problem.