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Show HN: Amber – better Beeper, a modern all-in-one messenger
Hi HN! Excited to share early access to Amber.
I’ve tried every all-in-one messenger out there (Beeper included) but they always fell short. No real folders, no AI, clunky UI, no CRM features… As a founder who speaks with hundreds of people every quarter, I needed something better. So I decided to rebuild the entire experience from ground up.
Thoughts from one of our users: "The app I've been searching for for a looong time."
Check it out for free today!
Demo:
https://www.loom.com/share/8b5bc80b9893436b9190ae41fc3f0f50 https://www.loom.com/share/8b5bc80b9893436b9190ae41fc3f0f50
Features:
- All messages (Whatsapp, Telegram, iMessage) unified in a beautifully crafted interface.
- Split inboxes (folders) to effortlessly focus on work, friends, a particular project.. whatever matters the most right now.
- Mark read – no read receipts (even on Whatsapp and Telegram), mark done only when you’re done.
- Personal CRM: a lightweight private database of knowledge about each person with (optional) AI pulling important facts straight from conversations. (the latter is coming soon)
- Command bar + shortcuts.
- Send later + reminders.
Everything is securely stored on-device. All messages are end-to-end encrypted and go straight from your device to the network of choice – never touching our servers.
- Abidrahman435 1y ago[flagged]
- e38383 1y agoDoes this support every feature of the messengers you support?
- jshchnz 1y agoas much as i want something like this to exist... fool me once, shame on thee; fool me twice, shame on me with that being said, good luck!
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agothanks
- andrewmcwatters 1y agoYou need screenshots on the front page. Put one front and center next to your hero text so it's right there above the fold.
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agoGreat thought! We're fixing this right now.
- andrewmcwatters 1y agoBest of luck on your work, it does look solid!
- 0x264 1y agoYes, pictures of the user interface will help a lot. Thanks!
- giancarlostoro 1y agoScreenshots and gifs or something like your Loom, you need a little trailer thing that showcases the app, and its top use cases with minimal noise (minimal chat windows for demo purposes). Heck, start with a few messages, then flood in, and showcase how it helps to keep you organized, that sort of thing.
- ajsnigrutin 1y agoThree random services only, and "AI" for some reasons... Pidgin at least supports service plugins and many more protocols, and doesn't have AI, which is a big plus when we're talking about private messaging.
- dingnuts 1y agoAI feeding into a "private" database, so after the keylogger sends everything to OpenAI you can have a garbage summary! Or if it uses a local model, enjoy the warmth and sound of your GPU while it consumes all of your system resources for instant messaging on, well, as you put it, three random services but you know he tried Beeper!!!
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agoOur users (including top founders and VCs) usually trust us with the AI features because it saves time and thinking. However, you can turn off the AI features if you're into full privacy. :)
- giancarlostoro 1y ago> However, you can turn off the AI features if you're into full privacy. :) I think marketing for AI should always start off with "Includes opt-in AI features should you want them" instead of just "HEY WE HAVE AI" I feel like it would make a lot of people close the browser tab much later than expected.
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agogreat point
- giancarlostoro 1y agoI'm one who loves some of the AI stuff after being a skeptic, but I see a LOT of immediate hatred for it, sadly even when it is purely opt-in (as it should be tbh).
- kingnothing 1y agoNot what I want to see from the homepage for an app that wants to read all of my messages. > Secure Connection Failed > An error occurred during a connection to useamber.app. PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agolmao Seems like a DNS issue. Are you using VPN? We used Framer to host the site.
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agoThe Framer team wonders if you continue experiencing the same issue if you use a different browser. Hope this is helpful.
- CryptoBanker 1y agoAre you on a work computer/network? Your IT department may be blocking things as mine is
- devilkin 1y agoBefore I would even consider something like this: * Where's your privacy policy? * What/how are you handling the different customer protection laws? What juristictions are you working in? Where's the data hosted? * Where's the design description? * What encryption are you actually using? If you rolled your own, then well.. good luck. * How could you ensure end-to-end encryption over multiple protocols, without either completely reverse engineering said protocols? If your answer here would be that you're using a central server where messages get passed between services (and thus decrypted), it isn't end-to-end. The site is also very flaky. Sometimes it loads, sometimes it doesn't. There are so many questions, and zero answers.
- giancarlostoro 1y ago> The site is also very flaky. Sometimes it loads, sometimes it doesn't. That's probably the HN front page effect to be fair.
- busymom0 1y agoSomething is weird about the javascript or CSS on the site. When I first scroll down, many things didn't animate and didn't show. When I scroll up and then scroll back down again, then they animated in.
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agoWhat browser are you using?
- busymom0 1y agoI tested on macOS Safari.
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y ago- Yep. You can read our privacy policy here: https://dimadolgopolovn.notion.site/Amber-Privacy-Policy-2568a89c5295807fb21cf8a4e0ea882a https://dimadolgopolovn.notion.site/Amber-Privacy-Policy-256... - Check out the demo in the original post. - We use native API or reverse-engineer a solution depending on the platform. This approach maintains the security standard as high as the original app. Everything is done locally on your computer.
- richwater 1y ago> All messages are end-to-end encrypted and go straight from your device to the network of choice – never touching our servers. Just because the messages themselves aren't proxied doesn't mean a service can't steal the content on the end device. I'm obviously not saying you _are_ doing that, but the trust issue is my biggest issue here.
- giancarlostoro 1y agoLooks neat, I'm a little concerned about your iMessage support, is this even allowed by Apple? You might find some resistance on that front.
- j4hdufd8 1y agoResistance is futile
- threatofrain 1y agoGoogle only login :(.
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agoWe're working on it
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- NVQXE23I 1y agoA deal-breaker for me and others.
- numbers 1y agoif you can make the UI/UX of this better than messages, whatsapps, etc combined, then I'd be willing to pay money for it.
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agoWould love to hear your thoughts on the app! Feel free to reach out to me directly if you encounter any issues. dima@perillalabs.com
- whilenot-dev 1y agoIs your AI implementation on device only or is it making use of a 3rd party service (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google etc.)?
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agoWe use OpenAI models, and the data is never stored on our servers. The features are, however, fully optional.
- whilenot-dev 1y agoThis does conflict with the premise "All messages are end-to-end encrypted and go straight from your device to the network of choice".
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agoAll AI features are _optional_. :)
- ohcmon 1y agoThis is super cool, but unfortunately has to be open source and with signed reproducible builds.
- NoImmatureAdHom 1y agolol yes 100% If it's not open source it's a trap.
- vips7L 1y agoWhy?
- NVQXE23I 1y agoYou can only sign in by using Google? This sounds really phishy to me.
- kylecordes 1y agoThese tools always fall short, not because the teams making them are bad, but because the underlying chat tools they build on are adversarial to the idea of a third-party UI replacing their UI. A new entrant might escape their ire for a while, of course.
- saulpw 1y agoMac only.
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agoWorking on it
- starik36 1y agoHow are you supporting iMessage? What method?
- dotancohen 1y agoI'm most interested in the CRM. I'm a Linux and Android user, so there's currently nothing for me to try, but a page dedicated to the CRM features might get my email address on your mailing list. Good luck!
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agoThanks for the feedback
- Imustaskforhelp 1y agoI think beeper does have folders right? Also the fact is that I don't need AI included into this software. Its nice that it never touches your server but beeper is also moving forward in that direction and beeper is also open source and uses the matrix protocol so you can actually be free to use any matrix clients. What about yours? As someone who uses beeper for talking with insta chats with my friends, I have no regrets picking beeper.
- emaro 1y agoI don't think Beeper is Open Source. They published some of their bridges, but the client is closed source afaik.
- Defletter 1y ago> Also the fact is that I don't need AI included into this software. Yup, the fact that every new service now is AI-first is troubling... it's literally the first thing said about Amber when going on their website. My tab says "Amber — AI-enabled all-in-on...". It's like the only thing they want you to know about their service.
- mathiaspoint 1y ago>Personal CRM Interesting to hear I'm not the only one who's found the need to write something like this.
- Lalabadie 1y agoIt's a market! Kindest seems to have staying power: https://www.kindestapp.com https://www.kindestapp.com I first thought to share Clay (https://clay.earth https://clay.earth) but I see they were acquired by Automattic recently.
- Multicomp 1y agoMonica CRM is one too, it sits abandoned on my still powered on raspi zero w because I don't have a queue habit set up to cause me to go check it, but it was nice as a digital personal Rolodex with more automation than just contacts app that's barely more than a vcard
- emaro 1y agoCool, I like to see more innovation in this space. You obviously have different needs than what Beeper provides, but claiming it's better when you only support a fraction of the networks is a bit steep imo. Curious what other networks you plan to support and what are your monetization plans? I really like the addition of folders and CRM features compared to Beeper. The networks I'm interested in are Telegram (you already got that), Signal, Instagram, Matrix, Threema, Slack and Teams (in that order).
- jagermo 1y agoMe too. Even if a lot of the innovation is what we already had with pidgin or trillian years ago. but i love that the walled gardens get torn down a bit. More, please.
- sjdrc 1y agoYou write all messages multiple times, them clarify it's only 3 services. Stop that. If it doesn't support everything mainstream, don't claim "all".
- pbiggar 1y agoWould love you to add Signal, as well as DMs in Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky, LinkedIn.
- Abidrahman435 1y ago[dead]
- thedumbname 1y agoLight mode and Apple font please
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agoon the roadmap!
- hmokiguess 1y agoAre there any open source clients for this out there? Also, if someone were to build that, what are the protocols one would even use to get these things talking to each other and reconciling the different accounts quirks
- Jonovono 1y agoI think most of these are built using Matrix: https://matrix.org https://matrix.org. They have connections with most providers like iMessage, FB, Instagram, etc
- WorldPeas 1y agoI don't think they use that anymore though? From what I've heard it all happens locally now with a proprietary solution.
- Jonovono 1y agoInteresting, i'd be curious to learn more. It's been awhile since I looked into Beeper/Texts type apps.
- WorldPeas 1y agoat least from talking to Eric at a meetup, I think some are still on remote implementations. I know texts definitely needs to do the iMessage implementation locally, but they're moving everything client-side, which to me as a thunderbird user, makes the most sense. I just wish we could have something like libpurple again that would allow me to finally get back to the everything-in-one-app paradigm
- swyx 1y agook is there an "open source beeper" that has emerged that i can play with? cant use amber because closed source
- 1y ago
- mvine217 1y agoNiceeee
- danpalmer 1y ago"better Beeper" This is a different Beeper. I don't want a personal CRM, I know everyone in my Beeper chats well enough that I don't need a sidebar to prompt me about where they live. Conversely, I need Signal and Facebook Messenger because that's where my loved ones are. However I can absolutely see that some people would want this. CRM for email is a solved problem and many professionals use CRM tools, but it doesn't exist in the same way for chat, and maybe it should (although email feels like the bigger market). This is probably in desperate need for a LinkedIn connection though. My advice to the Amber team: is this for work or personal use? Pick one, make it great for that, and don't try to force it to be the other.
- ls-a 1y agoAnything is automatically better than Beeper
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agogreat point
- lxe 1y agoI've been using BlueBubbles because the only thing I needed Beeper for is to get iMessage working on windows and linux.
- vips7L 1y agoDoesn’t phonelink support that on windows?
- curtisszmania 1y ago[dead]
- vivzkestrel 1y agoi have never seen a messenger app made by anyone that was capable of migrating all the existing users and their chats from another platform instantly. the day someone makes this, its gonna get traction by a mile compared to anything else out there. imagine clicking "import from messenger" and boom all users and chats from messenger added and clicking "import from whatsapp", "import from wechat" you get the idea
- DmitryDolgopolo 1y agoyou should try the app :)
- nkotov 1y agoCool product! I'd love to see a more refined personal CRM. Right now, it's a hit and miss with contacts on Apple.
- PaulShin 1y agoGood job bro