Telechat: self-host Claude AI across Telegram/WhatsApp/Slack with one npm install

A developer has released Telechat, a self-hosted Claude AI bot that connects to Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack, and web chat from a single process. The tool runs on user hardware, stores conversation history locally in SQLite, and routes queries to the cheapest Claude model that handles them, saving about 60% on API costs. It also includes budget caps, persistent memory, and a desktop bridge for remote approval of destructive actions.

Built something the r/selfhosted crowd might appreciate: Telechat — a self-hosted Claude AI bot that connects to Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack, and web chat from a single process. Why self-hosted matters here Anthropic launched Claude Code Channels recently — Claude on Telegram/Discord, managed by Anthropic. It works great, but every message goes through their cloud. Telechat takes the opposite approach: - Runs on your machine laptop, VPS, RPi, NAS — anything that runs Node.js or Python - Messages flow: phone → your server → Anthropic API → back to phone - No relay server, no telemetry, no analytics - SQLite for conversation history, stored locally - The only external call is to Anthropic's chat-completions API for inference Your messages, your hardware, your data. Install telechat init walks you through an interactive setup — API key, bot tokens for whichever platforms you want, model preferences, budget limits. What it does - Multi-platform — Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack, Web Chat. All running simultaneously from one process. - Smart model routing — Routes queries to the cheapest Claude model that handles them. Saves ~60% on API costs vs always using Sonnet. - Budget caps — Per-user daily and monthly limits. Set $5/day and forget about it. - Persistent memory — SQLite-backed. Context carries across conversations. - Desktop Bridge — If you run Claude Code on your desktop and it needs approval for a destructive action, you get a push notification on your phone. Approve/deny remotely. - Media support — Send images for analysis, generate images if you have DALL-E configured. Resource usage Light. Single process, ~50MB RSS idle, spikes briefly during inference calls. SQLite means no database server. The bottleneck is always the Anthropic API latency, not local compute. Self-hosting tips - Run behind a reverse proxy Caddy/nginx for HTTPS if using webhooks - Telegram supports long-polling no public IP needed — great for home setups - WhatsApp requires the WhatsApp Business API webhook-based, needs HTTPS - Set up systemd/Docker restart policies for reliability telechat.fyi https://telechat.fyi?utm source=devto&utm medium=syndication&utm campaign=telechat&utm content=telechat-self-host-claude-ai-across-telegram-whatsapp-slack-with-one-npm-install | GitHub https://github.com/telechatai Would love feedback from the self-hosting community. What would make this more useful for your setup?