Documentation
Everything you need to understand, evaluate, and self-host Pug Network.
Pug Network is a relay for end-to-end encrypted, ephemeral chat rooms. No accounts, no persistence, no plaintext on the server. These pages are the canonical, language-agnostic description of how it works and what it deliberately refuses to do.
Start here
What is Pug Network?
The pitch in five minutes: four non-negotiable commitments and what the product is for.
How it compares
Pug Network vs. Signal, Matrix/Element, Wickr, and SimpleX — including honest tradeoffs.
FAQ
Why no accounts? Why no history? Why two implementations? Common objections answered.
Architecture
Trust model
What the server can see, what it cannot, and why a coerced operator still cannot decrypt.
Architecture
Three cooperating layers — HTTP, realtime gateway, in-memory room registry.
Room lifecycle
Challenge, create, join, message, leave, purge — the six steps every implementation must follow.
What it is not
Persistent history, accounts, federation, file transfer — and why they will stay out.