Just discovered https://kallax.io/ but neither FOSS nor self-hostable. Still looks pretty good solution
this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2025
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Looks really cool! I'll probably give it a whirl myself
Multiple groups in your current app.
Player Recruitment, Event Planning, and Events or something
I think the simplest suggestion would be a discord server (or similar. I'm not familiar with open source alternatives). You can set up channels for people looking for games, roles for people who want to be pinged about games, etc.
It comes with some drawbacks, like needing to maintain and moderate the server. But if it's only advertised locally, I don't see why it wouldn't work out.
It's not very conductive for BG planning, as per a dedicated software. Also discord is a whole big issue for people.
Discord is an issue but WhatsApp is not? Strange...
It is an issue, ergo my post.
Yeah I misread, apologies.
There's matrix which is a decentralized alternative to discord. I haven't used it myself but I've heard good things about it.
There's literally 0 chance I can convince random people to use matrix instead of whatsapp. Less than 0 chance when it's not even a boardgame specific solution.
Well it's open source and self-hostable just like you needed and like discord you can create different rooms for the different topics (or games) so things don't get mixed.
If that's too much I only see the option to go in Telegram and create/search for some bots that fill your needs.
I'm looking for specific software for my needs, not trying to repurpose a general chatting software to do the same thing kinda badly.
What about something like a Trello project management solution?
https://vikunja.io/ is apparently a good self-hosted and open source version but FWIW I haven't used it.
What about some spreadsheet where everyone can add time/date and game that he wants to play.
Than everyone can see the options and vote/add themselves to the event he wants to go. Than you can send group emails with information and calendar event file.
I think that something like this can be put together with nextcloud and email bot.
It might be more for a single group finding a single game to play, but maybe gamenightpicks.com can help? It connects to BGG to know what games you all have, let's you schedule, and let's invitees suggest and vote on games.
Is a selfhost non-federated forum software not going to fly?
Misago is pretty good, if you are using proxmox there's a script for deploying.
If you are looking for a shared calendar maybe a full groupware suite like Tracim? Turn off different bits for different classes of user?