active Self-hosted workspace platform 2025.06

Chatbarry

My self-hosted replacement for ChatGPT / Claude desktop, multimodal agent chats, projects, agents and scheduled tasks, on usage-based cost instead of a subscription.

TypeSelf-hosted workspace platform
Statusactive
UsersPersonal use only
FeaturesThreaded multimodal chats with any model: OpenAI, OpenRouter, Anthropic, any OpenAI-compatible provider, Cron and manual agents that run real multi-step workflows, Projects with per-project instructions and knowledge files, Project knowledge bases: pgvector hybrid search over documents and every conversation, Native browser engine: agents drive a headless Chromium with live view, DiffMem long-term memory across chats, Deep research runs via Parallel's Task API, Desktop Electron bridge for local MCPs and updates, Usage and budget management across all connected LLMs

Chatbarry is my replacement for ChatGPT and Claude desktop, a workspace I actually own and control, without giving up powerful tooling.

It supports multimodal agent chats, projects, custom agents, and scheduled tasks, all backed by the DiffMem memory system for durable, structured long-term memory across conversations.

Why I built it

I was enjoying Claude Cowork, but it locked me into a single vendor at flat subscription pricing, and it wanted desktop-level access I wasn’t comfortable granting a black box. So I built the equivalent workspace myself: provider-agnostic, usage-billed, running on infrastructure I control.

So I built something with only the features and functions I actually wanted, and a lot of the other stuff simply wasn’t necessary. I wanted the same level of co-working harness, but without being locked into a single LLM: the Claude co-work experience, without being stuck with Claude and Anthropic.

That also means ownership end-to-end, my data, my models, my infrastructure, no black-box SaaS, and a usage-based cost model instead of a flat monthly subscription. It’s self-hosted on a VPS, so the whole system runs on infrastructure I manage.

This page is a living document, I’ll keep expanding it as Chatbarry grows.