mooncafé.space

If you enjoy this little chatroom and appreciate the effort behind keeping it online, you can support the project here
Every contribution goes directly into hosting, server upgrades, and improving mooncafé

This project currently runs on a very limited server plan. With rising traffic, it may hit request limits or downtime.
Your support helps keep the chat fast, stable, and alive for everyone.

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mooncafé.space is a nostalgic, ephemeral chat application inspired by the simple, anonymous chatrooms of the early 2000s. No accounts, no profiles, no history. Just a quiet corner of the web for transient conversations.

"A small, old-school café on the internet where conversations come and go like passing clouds."

The Story

I built mooncafé.space because I missed the simplicity of the early internet those small, no-pressure chatrooms from the 2000s where anyone could drop in, choose a nickname, talk for a while, and disappear again without leaving a trail. No accounts, no profiles, no algorithms watching over you. Just a quiet corner of the web where people could speak freely.

This project is a love letter to that era. It's intentionally lightweight, with a focus on ephemerality and user privacy.

Features

• Anonymous & Ephemeral: No accounts required. Chat history is not stored on the server. All data is held in memory and disappears forever once you leave.
• Circles (Chat Rooms): Users can create their own private circles and share a link to chat with friends.
• Real-Time Communication: Live messaging powered by WebSockets.
• Rich Text Formatting: Style your messages with bold, italics, underline, and different fonts.
• Message Replies: Easily reply to specific messages.
• User Presence: See who’s currently in your circle.
• Sound Notifications: Get audible alerts for new messages or when users join/leave.
• Retro UI: A user interface inspired by old-school desktop chat applications.
• Self-Hostable: The entire application can be run on your own machine for maximum privacy.

Tech Stack

• Backend: Node.js, Express.js, Socket.IO
• Frontend: Vanilla JavaScript (ES6+), HTML5, CSS3
• No Database: All chat data is stored in-memory on the server
• Hosting: Render

Getting Started

You can run mooncafé.space on your local machine. This is the recommended approach for the best privacy.

Prerequisites

• Node.js (version 18 or higher)
• npm (comes with Node.js)

Installation & Running

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/ayahack89/mooncafe.space.git
   cd mooncafe.space

2. Install dependencies:

   npm install

3. Start the server:

   npm start

4. Open in your browser: Navigate to http://localhost:3000

The app will now be running.
You can create a new circle by clicking "Create/Share Circle" and sending the generated link to your friends.

Privacy & Security

The application is intentionally lightweight.
There is no database, no stored history, no logging of messages, and nothing is written to disk.

Everything exists only in memory while you're connected.
When the circle is empty, the data is gone.

The public instance is hosted on a platform that may keep standard access logs on their end, but the chat application itself stores nothing.

For Maximum Privacy (Run Over Tor)

You can run mooncafé.space as a Tor onion service for full anonymity.

1. Install Tor
2. Configure a Tor Onion Service
   • Edit your torrc file:

     HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/
     HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:3000
     

   • Restart Tor
3. Get Your Onion Address
   • Read the hostname file inside HiddenServiceDir
4. Run the app locally
5. Visit through Tor Browser

Friendly reminder:

Please do not use this chatroom for illegal or harmful activities.
Each person is responsible for what they post.
mooncafé.space is not meant to be a secure or end-to-end encrypted messaging platform.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome!
Please see the CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Now grab a cup of coffee and enjoy :)