A chat application allows users to communicate with others via texting, messaging, video and audio conferencing. While developing a web application web masters always think that they should communicate with their audience directly rather than emails, phone or contact forms, or chat applications can be used in various web applications such as social networking sites, business sites for live support etc.
Here at SkyTechGeek We explored myriad of Google’s pages to find out these 15 free open source chat applications and tools, developers can use them in their upcoming and current projects and with the help of these applications users not only can communicate via messaging but they can also communicate with audio and video conferencing that would be helpful for business or e-commerce related web applications. We hope you find this useful for your projects.
1. Balloons.IO
Balloons.IO is a web multi-room chat server and client ready to use. It’s build with the help of node.JS, Express, Socket.IO and Redis. Balloons uses easy-OAuth for authentication with Twitter. The user interface looks pretty slick. It is released under MIT Licesne. You can install it on your own server for free easily.
[button-dark url=”https://github.com/gravityonmars/Balloons.IO” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
2. Candy : JavaScript Based Multi-User Chat Client
Candy is a JavaScript-based multi-user chat client. There are plenty of web-based chat clients out there. Most of them are built to emulate your instant messenger. They offer you tons of settings. Candy is different. It’s built for your community.
Candy focused on real-time multi-user chatting. It is easy to configure, easy to run, easy to use. It is highly customizable and 100% well-documented. And it is used and approved in a productive environment with up to 400 concurrent users. It works with all major web browsers including IE7.
[button-dark url=”http://candy-chat.github.com/candy/” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
3. Anologue
Anologue is an approach to ad hoc, linear dialogue in realtime. With anologue you can quickly and easily engage in an anonymous (or not) linear dialogue with any number of people (within reason). There is no accounts or installations required. Your “chat room” is created by the time this link loads.
Best of all: Anologue is open source. built with php 5.3.1, using the most non-heinous, totally rad lithium framework, couchdb, jquery, a few other scripts as well as some classy, original and established iconography for ui; all coming together for the conversational goodness you’re about to experience.
[button-dark url=”http://anologue.com/add” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
4. Nurph : Real Time Chat on Your Website
Nurph puts Real-Time Chat on your website. ‘Nurph’ any URL by entering it in the URL Box, or by using the Bookmark, and Nurph puts a real-time chat on top of the page. There is no installation required. Just enter a URL, promote it and chat.
You can also promote your Nurph URL across the Web, email, Facebook and Twitter. For example, how about linking to Nurph on your Twitter profile? When people visit your Twitter profile, they can click your Bio URL, Login via Twitter, and join your virtual hangout to chat with you in real-time!
[button-dark url=”http://nur.ph/” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
5. Chat 2 : Group Chat Room With PHP, jQuery & a Text File
This is Chat2, which is an update to original Chat Room published on CSS-Tricks. In some ways, the technology is the same. We employ PHP to talk to the server, jQuery to keep the chat rolling, and the chats themselves will be stored in .txt files just like the first version.
There are some new features in Chat2. Usernames are now unique to users currently chatting. You can see a “currently chatting” user list. And there are multiple rooms for chatting available now.
[button-dark url=”http://css-tricks.com/chat2/” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
6. Tinychat : Create Your Own Conference
Tinychat delivers dead simple video conferences without the extraneous ad-ons and inconvenience, making video conferencing an accessible, uncomplicated experience. You can have up to twelve people in a room with HQ video, protected by passwords and moderators, share your desktop with them, and your conferences can be recorded and embedded on your website.
Tinychat is the ultimate meeting solution for those who want to meet without stress and hassle. The Developer API is available and able to return information in both JSON and XML about a specific room as well.
[button-dark url=”http://tinychat.com/” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
7. Open Source Ajax XHTML Chat
XHTML Chat is barely more then a single html page + CSS + javascript. The server side bit is as small as it can be and could be accomplished with almost any available technology (down to php + textfile). This looks very well revolutionise the way the web looks and feels today.
Apart from this being a chat you can use XHTML Chat as:
• An advanced comment function for blogs offering immediate communication between users.
• An advanced shoutbox.
• A live single/multi-user publishing system.
• A XHTML Broadcasting tool for live coverage of events.
All of these could degrade gracefully if javascript is not available. XHTML Chat (including XHTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, all images) ,is licensed under a Creative Commons License as well.
[button-dark url=”http://chat.plasticshore.com/” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
8. ShoutMix : Free Shoutbox or Tagboard Chat Widget
ShoutMix is a Fee shoutbox or tagboard widget, which is an easy to use messaging system that allows you to interact with others instantly. A shoutbox can be placed on your blog or website. Your visitors can then easily post comments in it. They can also use the shoutbox to chat with you and other visitors at the same time. You will be able to customize the sizes, styles, fonts, colors, labels and more when you get your own ShoutMix too. The basic version is Free, however you have to pay in order to upgrade to premium version.
[button-dark url=”http://www.shoutmix.com/v3/” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
9. Plugoo : Chat With Any Visitor of Your Website
Plugoo enables you to chat directly from your Instant Messenger with any visitor of your blog, personal webpage, e-sales site or even your web application. When you’re logged into your Instant Messenger (Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, GoogleTalk, Jabber or ICQ), you can receive in real time all the comments of your visitors or any question they might ask, and answer instantly!You can also change colors, title of your Plugoo, and visitors can choose a nickname to contact you.
[button-dark url=”http://www.plugoo.com/” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
10. Privy Talks : Simple, Secure & Instanct Chats
PrivyTalks is a free, simple and security-focused chat application that encrypts and decrypts the communication with RSA on the client-side. Usage is pretty straightforward; once the room is created, the chat link is shared among two partners and the communication begins.
And, to make sure that there is no 3rd party sniffing the communication, fingerprints are created for each side, so they can exchange this information via another channel (like e-mail or SMS) and check if the connected user is the one that they are expecting.
[button-dark url=”https://privytalks.com/” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
11. Cryptocat : Open Source App for Encrypted & Private Chats
Cryptocat is an open source and web-based chat application that focuses on making sure that the communication is encrypted and private. It is built with PHP and works with a single file besides the static files (CSS, JS and images) used. The interface is simple-yet-nice and messages are encrypted with AES-256 using crypto.js library. For a private group communication inside a chat room with other users, a passkey (used by all of the group) comes to the rescue.
[button-dark url=”https://crypto.cat/” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
12. JsChat : Open Source Chat System
JsChat is an open source chat script that is built with Ruby (Sinatra), uses a simple protocol based on JSON and comes as a server/client application.
It is similar to IRC but simpler and has very useful features like:
• IRC-like commands: /names, /name new_name (/nick works too), /clear, /lastlog
• auto-linking: pasting an image displays it inline, Youtube and Vimeo videos will appear as well
• last messages are displayed when logged in
Users can “login to” or create multiple chatrooms (and they will be saved when logged out). And, optionally, users can authenticate with their Twitter profiles.
[button-dark url=”http://jschat.org/” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
13. BigBlueButton : Open Source Video Conferencing
BigBlueButton is an open source video conferencing application which is specifically built for remote learning but can be used for standard meetings as well. The application enables multiple users to login & share their webcam orcommunicate via VOIP at the same time. It is a very ideal application for presentations as users can upload PDF or office documents & keep everyone in sync with their current page, zoom, pan, mouse pointer etc.
[button-dark url=”http://bigbluebutton.org/” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
14. PHP : Ajax Chat Application : Mia Chat
Mia Chat is an Ajaxed PHP chat application which is very simple to use & install. It functions similar to the messenger applications, you can add buddies, chat with several users at the same time, change your online status & more. This PHP chat supports many databases for storing data like MySQL, MSSQL, Oracle 8+, MS SQL Server 2000+, SQLite 2+ and PostgreSQL 7+.
[button-dark url=”http://wiki.brilaps.com/wikka.php?wakka=MiaChat” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
15. Ajax Chat : Voice Enabled Web Chat Software
AJAX Chat is a powerful, open source, fully customizable web chat software built with JavaScript, PHP and MySQL. AJAX Chat supports voice chat that is powered by Flash & Ruby (sound support is optional). This free AJAX chat software integrates easily with PHP community softwares like phpBB, MyBB, PunBB, SMF, vBulletin and sample integrations are provided with the software.
[button-dark url=”https://blueimp.net/ajax/” target=”_blank” position=”right”] Source [/button-dark]
