Blog
Notes on chat, limits and owning your own data.
Why Slack hides your history after 90 days, what per-seat pricing does to a growing team, how to run chat on your own server, and how the open source options genuinely compare — including where they beat us.
12 posts, no newsletter popup.
Slack's 90-day message history limit, explained
Your messages aren't deleted. They're just standing behind a velvet rope, and you're not on the list.
ReadSelf-hosting· 4 minThe best self-hosted Slack alternatives in 2026
Same five products, different question: not “what can it do” but “what will it do to your Sunday.”
ReadPricing· 4 minWhy per-seat pricing gets expensive
The pricing model that makes hiring a budget event and turns “should we add this contractor?” into a finance conversation.
ReadPricing· 3 minWhat Slack costs at 10, 25, 50 and 100 people
A short exercise in multiplication that makes a surprising number of people put down their coffee.
ReadSelf-hosting· 4 minHow to self-host team chat with Docker
Three commands to a working chat server, then the four unglamorous things that decide whether it's still working in a year.
ReadSlack· 4 minHow to keep Slack messages longer than 90 days
Five options, one of which is “pay forever” and one of which is “become the kind of team that writes things down.” Both are harder than they sound.
ReadSelf-hosting· 4 minSelf-hosted vs cloud team chat, honestly
One of these gives you control and a pager. The other gives you a status page and an invoice. Neither is free.
ReadSlack· 4 minCan you export your entire Slack history?
Short answer: some of it, in JSON, and the interesting parts are the ones with asterisks.
ReadSelf-hosting· 4 minThe real cost of self-hosting team chat
The server is the cheap part. Here's the whole invoice, including the line item labelled “a person.”
ReadEngineering· 5 minWhy we put everything in one Postgres
Including the part where we admit what this decision will cost us eventually.
ReadEngineering· 4 minHow realtime works when the socket isn't the point
Most chat apps break badly when the websocket dies. Here's the architecture where it just gets slower.
ReadBy topic
Slack
Pricing
Self-hosting
Comparisons
Enough reading. Try the thing.
Every post here ends in the same place, so we may as well save you the scroll: it's free, hosted or self-hosted, with unlimited history.