Welcome to BroChat

BroChat is a privacy-respecting, minimalist real-time chat application built from scratch for niche businesses that need simple, secure, and effective communication. Just like Slack, but stripped to the essentials — public chat, DMs, no distractions.

Built with:

• Rust + Axum backend (fast, safe, async-ready)
• Tauri + Vue.js frontend (native desktop feel with web flexibility)
• PostgreSQL database (reliable, relational, robust)

🛠️ Tech Stack

Layer	Stack
Backend	Rust + Axum
Frontend	Tauri + Vue.js 3
Database	PostgreSQL
Auth	JWT
Protocol	WebSockets (for real-time chat)

🧠 Why BroChat?

Most chat platforms are bloated, full of unnecessary features and data mining. BroChat focuses on core communication:

• Public Chat — where every registered user can participate.
• Direct Messages (DMs) — for one-on-one convos with end-to-end routing.
• Built from scratch, not on any third-party chat API.
• Designed for cross-platform deployment via Tauri.
• Uses JWT-based authentication for secure login and user sessions.

Perfect for:

• Small teams
• Niche internal networks
• Companies wanting chat ownership (no third-party dependencies)

🚀 Features

• ✅ Auth system with login & registration
• ✅ Real-time Public Chat
• ✅ Real-time Direct Messaging (DMs)
• ✅ Avatar upload support (optional)
• ✅ Native app for all platforms (Tauri-powered)
• 🔒 Token-based auth (no cookie mess)
• 🔧 Fully customizable & open source

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Run Locally

⚠️ Requirements: Rust, Node.js, PostgreSQL, Tauri CLI

Commands in backend folder

export DATABASE_URL=postgres://name:port@localhost/database_name

cargo sqlx prepare

Command for android (in UI/frontend)

export ANDROID_HOME="$HOME/Library/Android/sdk"
export NDK_HOME="$ANDROID_HOME/ndk/$(ls -1 $ANDROID_HOME/ndk)"

export JAVA_HOME="/Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents/jbr/Contents/Home"

Database commands

Open Database

psql -U name -d database_name

CREATE

psql -U name -d postgres -c "CREATE DATABASE database_name;"

DELETE

psql -U name -d postgres -c "DROP DATABASE database_name;"

Migrate

sqlx migrate run

1. Backend (Rust + Axum)

cd brochat/backend
cargo run

2. Frontend (Rust + VueJs)

cd brochat/UI/frontend/

For Web

npm run dev

For android

cargo tauri android dev

Production APK build, signing, and sharing: see docs/ANDROID.md.

For ios

cargo tauri ios dev

For Desktop

cargo tauri dev

Deploy on AWS (Easiest: Single EC2 + Docker Compose)

1) Launch EC2

• Ubuntu 24.04 instance
• Open inbound ports: 22 (SSH), 80 (HTTP), 443 (HTTPS)

2) Install Docker on EC2

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y docker.io docker-compose-v2
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker

3) Copy project and start services

git clone <your-repo-url>
cd brochat
docker compose up --build -d

4) Run database migration once

Your backend expects the schema from backend/migrations/20250502140530_init.sql. Copy and execute migration in the postgres container:

docker cp backend/migrations/20250502140530_init.sql $(docker compose ps -q db):/tmp/init.sql
docker compose exec db psql -U brochat -d brochat -f /tmp/init.sql

5) Production env values

• Set a strong JWT_SECRET in docker-compose.yml
• Set ALLOWED_ORIGINS to your domain(s)
• Optional: add TLS with Nginx + Certbot or place ALB/CloudFront in front