About Linen.dev
Linen.dev is a tool built for online communities that run on Slack or Discord and want their conversations to be discoverable outside those closed platforms. It syncs threads from public channels into an SEO-friendly website, so search engines can index community discussions and members can find answers without logging into Slack or Discord.
By making content available at a public URL, Linen reduces repeat questions in growing communities and lets maintainers link specific conversations, for example in GitHub issues, without requiring the reader to sign in to a chat workspace. A paid edition can run Linen under a project's own subdomain, generating SEO-relevant content for that domain with a 301 redirect preserving the SEO benefit, along with custom branding.
Linen only syncs conversations from public channels, and the project states it stores only display names and profile pictures, not email addresses or other private information, from Slack or Discord. It is written in TypeScript and released under the AGPL-3.0 license, with a free self-hosted tier and a paid hosted/custom-domain option.
Key features
- Syncs Slack and Discord threads to a public site
- SEO-friendly, search-indexable community archive
- No-login viewing of community conversations
- Custom subdomain with SEO-preserving redirect (paid)
- Privacy-conscious syncing of public channels only
Good fit for
- →Making an open-source community's Slack searchable
- →Reducing repeat support questions in Discord communities
- Built with
- TypeScript
- Tags
- slack-alternative
- community
- seo
- discord
- self-hosted
- typescript
- search
Linen.dev: questions and answers
- What is Linen.dev used for?
- Linen.dev is an AGPL-licensed, open-source tool that syncs Slack and Discord community threads to a Google-searchable website, positioned as a lightweight Slack alternative. It is a good fit for making an open-source community's Slack searchable and reducing repeat support questions in Discord communities.
- Is Linen.dev open source?
- Yes. Linen.dev is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at Linen-dev/linen.dev and is written mainly in TypeScript.
- Is Linen.dev free?
- Yes. Linen.dev is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.
- Can I self-host Linen.dev?
- Yes. Linen.dev can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
- What is Linen.dev an alternative to?
- Linen.dev is an open-source alternative to Slack and Discord. Other open-source alternatives to Slack include Cinny, VoceChat and Sharkord.
- Is Linen.dev actively maintained?
- The most recent commit to Linen.dev was on 9 December 2024. The project has 2.8k stars on GitHub.
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