Hey HN,
I built Telechat — a self-hosted Claude AI bot that runs on your machine and connects to Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack, and web chat simultaneously from a single process.
When Anthropic launched Claude Code Channels in March, I was excited — finally, Claude on my phone. But Channels only supports Telegram and Discord, routes everything through Anthropic's servers, and requires a Pro/Max subscription. I wanted something that:
So I built Telechat.
npm install -g telechatai && telechat init
One command sets up config, walks you through bot tokens, and starts the process. From there:
Telechat runs as a single Node.js/Python process on your machine. Messages from Telegram/WhatsApp/Slack/Web arrive at local webhook endpoints (or long-polling for Telegram). They're processed locally, sent to the Anthropic API, and the response goes back. Your messages never touch any server I control. There is no cloud relay, no telemetry, no analytics.
Channels wins on: zero setup (it just works if you have Claude Pro), Anthropic-supported (it's a first-party product), no self-hosting overhead.
Telechat wins on: privacy (self-hosted), cost (API keys are cheaper than Pro for moderate usage), surfaces (4 vs 2), budget controls (Channels has none), Desktop Bridge (unique feature), and you own the deployment.
If you're already paying for Claude Pro and just want Telegram, Channels is the easier choice. If you care about privacy, cost control, or need WhatsApp/Slack, Telechat is worth the 5-minute setup.
npm install -g telechatai
pip install telechatai
Happy to answer any questions about the architecture, self-hosting tradeoffs, or the Desktop Bridge implementation.