Apps (chat and calling)
Apps are long-running services you own. Unlike a one-time unlock, each one is a real running server, billed for as long as it's active.
An app belongs either to a site or to you personally, and each app says which it is sold as. A site's apps live under that site's Apps page and are shared with whoever has access to the site. A personal app lives under Apps in your own menu, has no site behind it, and is shared — if you want to share it at all — by granting someone access under Account → Delegation, the same way you share a saved mail or calendar account. Anything shared with you that way appears under Shared with you on the same page. Everything below works the same way in both places; only where you find the app differs.
Available today:
- Chat server — channels, messages, attachments, and a member roster for your site.
- Media server — an add-on that adds voice, video, and screen share to a chat server you already run.
- Password vault — encrypted passwords for you and the people you share them with. This one is always personal: it belongs to you, never to a site. See Password vault.
Renaming an app
The list shows what kind of app each row is, which reads the same for every copy — three password vaults all say "Password vault". Rename gives one your own name for it. The slug, and so the app's URL, doesn't change; clear the name to go back to the app's own.
Buying a chat server
Open your site, then Apps → New app. Pick Chat server, give it a slug — the short name used
in its URL, like general-chat — and choose Purchase.
The panel shows what each app includes before you buy: its description, its price, and how much storage and bandwidth are included. Usage beyond the included allowance is metered and appears on your bill.
Provisioning takes a moment while the server starts up. The row updates itself from provisioning to running — you don't need to refresh the page.
Adding calling
A media server is sold only as an add-on, so buy your chat server first and let it reach running. Then choose New app → Media server. An Add calling to picker appears listing your running chat servers; pick the one that should get voice and video, give the add-on its own slug, and purchase.
Back in the list, the chat server shows a Calls on badge, and call controls appear inside it.
If you haven't got a running chat server yet, the picker is empty and the panel says so — that's the only reason a media server can't be bought.
Starting and stopping
Each app row has actions:
- Open — opens a running chat server.
- Stop — shuts the app down. Its data is kept, and its users are disconnected until you start it again.
- Start — brings a stopped app back up, with its data intact. It appears on any app that isn't currently running.
- Delete — permanently destroys the app and its data. There is no undo.
Stopping is reversible; deleting is not.
When an app shows an error
An app in the error state shows the reason underneath its status. Common causes are the server it runs on being restarted, being temporarily unreachable, or no longer being able to run that kind of app at all.
Choose Start to recover it. That does whatever the situation needs:
- If its containers are gone, they are rebuilt from scratch — your data lives on separate storage that survives, so it comes back with the app.
- If the server it was on can no longer run that kind of app, the app is moved to one that can, and its data is restored there. You don't need to know which server it was on, or pick a new one.
If a server is simply restarting, the app isn't moved — it comes back where it was, with its data untouched. Give it a few minutes before retrying; a server that stays down is recovered automatically.
If Start keeps failing, the reason text is what to quote when you contact support.
A note on where your app runs
Apps run on one of the servers in the cluster, chosen for you when you buy. Not every server can host every app — some run no app hosting at all, and a video/media server additionally needs a server with a public address. You never pick one: the platform only ever places an app somewhere that can actually run it, and if nothing can, the purchase is refunded rather than left half-finished.
Running an app in more than one place
Some apps can run as several copies at once, on servers in different places. Each copy holds the full data and can serve on its own, and the copies keep each other up to date. Two reasons to want this:
- If one location goes offline — a power cut, a network outage, a whole provider failing — the app keeps working from the other copy.
- People near a copy are served by it, so it stays fast, and it keeps working for them even while the link between locations is down.
Open an app's Copies to see where it runs and how current each copy is. A copy that has fallen behind is marked, and the platform will prefer a more up-to-date one while it can reach it. If it can't reach any other, it serves the copy it has rather than showing you nothing.
Add a copy asks for one more, placed in a different location where possible. It is not instant — the new copy is set up and then catches up, usually within a few minutes. You can remove a copy too, but never the last working one: to get rid of the app entirely, delete the app.
Not every app supports this. Apps that don't simply have no Copies option.
Billing
Each app is metered while it exists: a monthly charge per instance, plus storage and bandwidth beyond the included allowance. Each extra copy is charged monthly as well, and its storage and bandwidth count separately, because a copy is a real server's worth of resources. Stopping an app disconnects its users but does not end the subscription — delete it if you no longer want to be billed for it. See Billing & usage.
Moderation and privacy
Chat and call content on a Premium App may be reviewed by MFIndustries staff, and every such access is recorded. A notice to this effect appears on every chat and call surface. As the site owner you also have your own moderation tools inside the app — you can ban, mute, or remove a member and resolve reports without involving us.