Campfire

What is Campfire?

Group chat for companies that you install on your own server, with rooms, DMs and @mentions.

Who is Campfire best for?

Campfire is best for small companies that want simple internal group chat on their own server without a monthly bill.

• Cutting chat subscriptions

  One install covers the whole company, with no per-user fee.

• A backup chat

  A separate Campfire keeps people talking when the main chat service is down.

• Air-gapped and private groups

  It needs no outside internet, so it suits labs, boards and other closed groups.

• Events and conferences

  Attendees scan a QR code to join a room from their phones.

How much does Campfire cost?

Campfire is completely free and MIT licensed; 37signals sells no hosted plan, so the only cost is the server you run it on.

37signals offers no hosted version or paid tier. Its sizing guide runs from 2 GB of RAM and 1 CPU for 250 concurrent users to 64 GB and 32 CPUs for 10,000. Full pricing on once.com. We checked these prices on 8 Nov 2026.

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Is Campfire open source?

Yes. Campfire's code is public under the MIT licence, so you can run it on your own server.

Host it on a serverDigitalOcean and Railway set it up on a server for you with a one-click install.

Hosting with

What are the best Campfire alternatives?

Campfire is an open source alternative to Slack and Zoho Cliq. Buzz, Rocket.Chat, Mattermost and Cinny do the same job and are open source too.

SlackFree

Team messaging with AI summaries, search and huddle notes.

Zoho CliqFree

Team chat, calls and integrations from Zoho.

BuzzOpen Source

Block's open-source team chat where people and agents share channels.

Rocket.ChatOpen Source

Team chat with channels, threads, calls and video that organisations run on their own servers.

MattermostOpen Source

Channels, calls, playbooks and AI agents for engineering, security and operations teams.

CinnyOpen Source

Matrix chat client with a clean interface, end-to-end encryption and DMs kept apart from rooms.

Questions about Campfire