Where Fluxer is headed in 2026 and what we’re working on next.
They do have an LLM usage policy, if anyone is interested: https://github.com/fluxerapp/fluxer/blob/main/.github/LLM_USAGE_POLICY.md
The tl;dr is: you can use an LLM for private research, but you cannot use an LLM to write anything (except translations).
This line is kinda sus though:
This policy applies to every person who does not have write access to this repository.
… So… is this Hampus carving out an exception for himself? <x-files.mp3>
Overall, I’m a huge Fluxer fan. I think they’re doing the right things 90% of the time. I’ve never seen them enthusiastically embrace AI, but they haven’t been vocally anti-AI either. The LLM policy does basically seem like a ban though?
IDK. I suppose the large amounts of code churn may be a sign of AI? That’s definitely not conclusive though. Any software engineer will tell you running a code generator (not LLM, we have to regenerate our protobufs every time we change our API) or a code formatter or static analyzer (updates a bunch of files) or vendoring your deps (shout out to Go devs) will also inflate your line count.
I also checked out a few random files and they don’t look like the slop I’m forced to generate at work. I glanced at like 5 files. I guess Hampus could be tuning Claude to hide the AI slop better? IDK… this is all starting to feel like a conspiracy theory…
AI was used in the development of this app because of course it was.
Where did you see that?
12m lines of code committed in the last 3 months (the bulk of that within the last month) by one committer doesn’t exactly scream human input.
doesn’t exactly scream human input.
You’re right. Code generators, formatters, static analyzers, vendoring exist btw.
Not human input != LLM
Are there any actual software engineers in this thread. 😅
There’s no need to be an ass about it. I didn’t say this is definitely slop, but it is unsurprising that people think it is. I don’t think it’s without merit to wonder if someone committing 12 million lines of code within a few weeks is using AI.
It was in a blog post on the site that’s conveniently missing now.
I will ask him about it. He is active in the “Fluxer HQ”.
Here is what it says in the FAQ:
Q: Is Fluxer vibecoded?
Fluxer is not vibecoded.
Q: But a random stranger on an internet forum told me it is!
Oh well, then it has to be true, right?
Q: I still don’t trust you!
If you have used any vibecoded software before you’ll know that Fluxer is too good to be that. Trust your own feeling when using the app and when reading the code if that’s your sort of thing, not karma-seekers on Reddit, is my piece of advice.
I think “vibecided” is intentionally used. I remember the post I referenced talking about him using it for tasks, but then checking the code. I don’t think that’s technically vibe coding, but intentionally not disclosing any AI use is concerning to me.
Yes, overly specific denial is sus.
No human being can check 15 million LoC in three months.
A meaningful distinction to me at least is that when I’m vibecoding a one-off personal project I don’t care about, I don’t even look at the code.
When I’m using LLMs on a serious project that matters, I never blanketly give it a task to write code. Debugging and investigation work is more “go do the thing” vibecody, but when it comes to actually implementing fixes or features: I’d only ever use an LLM when I already know what the code should look like. And most of the time, when I’m writing in a language that I’m not perfectly familiar with, it’s writing as good as me if not better. Its a flat win case. In something like C++, I have a particular style and am very pedantic, and I know the standard very well, and so I tend to need to handhold and fix or rewrite a lot more. The vast majority of programmers who write C++ don’t write like I do, and I’m willing to bet that my “like me or better” statement about languages I’m only intermediate in applies to most casual or junior C++ devs.
With that said, his diff seems to have a hell of a lot of additions. I’d be willing to bet if he’s using Frontier LLMs that the vast majority of that is testing (and comments if they use claude…)
I think if someone has a hard no-AI stance, then it’s probably just safe to avoid the project. Whether or not it’s “vibecoding” depends a lot on their workflow and their standards.
If I need to write 10,000 lines, and I know what it should look like, and the AI produces that: I see no reason why I should waste my time typing it all out by hand. With that said, “Bot, go implement XYZ” isn’t how I or most experienced devs work with AI, and that’s where a lot of problems come from.
The good news is that it’s mostly a self-solving problem, because those codebases become completely impossible to work in over time.
Fluxer is PURE slop. 1.5 million lines commuted in one month by one person is obviously not human made.
Im trying sharkord atm. Sharkord is alpha but looks promising and the setup is quite easy for self hosting especially if you use it with caddy. Love it, uploads , screen share, DMs.
I was not aware of this until you brought it up. How do you personally host it. I have a group of friends I would like to get one setup for; but I don’t open up my network to the outside world (with exception of VPN for my personal use.)
How you liking it so far?
I suspect fluxer is gonna be where all the discord users inevitably flee to, should that come to pass… But I’ve always been bothered by the project for some reason.
I feel like the vibes are off on the whole thing, which makes me super suspicious of it even if I don’t have an obvious answer as to why that may be.
I feel like the vibes are off … I don’t have an obvious answer as to why
What a lousy reason not to break free from Discord.
Fluxer provides Open Source freedom. It’s full AGPLv3, no community edition bullshit: https://github.com/fluxerapp/fluxer/blob/main/LICENSE
Like, Real Open Source ™️ freedom because they don’t require a CLA, like a lot of fake Open Source projects: https://www.reddit.com/r/FluxerApp/comments/1r8724q/heads_up_fluxer_has_a_big_red_flag_it_requires/
They promised self-hosting… and it’s HERE (it’s on the frontpage!): https://docs.fluxer.app/operator/get-started/
Yes, they optionally ask for money, which is GOOD. Hosting fluxer.app costs money. Infrastructure costs money. Hiring more devs costs money. Food costs money. Rent costs money. If the devs can’t pay their bills, then they’ll have to get some other job, which is BAD for the project.
Have you guys used Stoat?? It’s slow as hell. Last time I checked, they purposely disabled some of the calling features because they couldn’t afford the bandwidth on their public instances. Getting money is GOOD!
I guess some of the Matrix folks are a little miffted that Fluxer is eating their lunch, but dudes and dudettes, Matrix has a LOT of work to do on UI/UX to get people to use it. I convinced my programmer friends to switch to Matrix. We used Element. It sucked ass. Sure the encryption and tech is cool, but at the end of the day, if I can’t receive my friend’s messages because of some encryption roadblock, then it’s not useful. After a few days, everyone got fed up with Matrix and went back to Discord.
Fluxer has a familiar UI that people already know and like. It looks pretty, which matters. It’s true Open Source. They provide self-hosting. They’re working on federation (unlike Stoat). Mobile apps are just coming out. They’re getting funding so they can continue to focus on the project. It’s a real viable chance to take back some power from Big Tech that your friends would actually move to.
P.D. If you can actually convince your friends to switch to Matrix, then great. I managed to convince my small group of friends to try out Fluxer and we’re still on Fluxer, so I guess we moved. Let’s just get off of Discord!
I’ve been vouching for it since it admittedly works pretty well, but lately I’m back on the fence. I was under the impression that it only started as a vibecoded project, but has shifted gears since (and while I don’t like to excuse AI slop bullshit, unfortunately it is much more common in software dev than anything else). I thought I read that since putting a team together it’s become much better in that regard, but judging by very recent commit histories that doesn’t seem to be the case.
All of that, plus the early payment options and general corporate feel to it, I’m not really vouching for it much any more. It’s already starting to feel kind of bloated.
Unfortunately I still can’t really see most active discord users switching to any other alternative, because Fluxer is the only one that really aims to replicate the experience.
I mean realistically Matrix is what people should, but won’t use. So ignoring that Ive been sorta cheering for stoat.
The team actually seems to care about the project in like that… “old school open source” way, and they dont use ai. I believe funding is all donation only too, which is quite nice.
They had like 4 lines of ai code they removed and some people took that as ‘omg stoat uses ai’ and ran away from it, but IMO stoat is a good balance between discord-like and my “vibe check” as it were.
Stoat is not currently interested in federation though: https://developers.stoat.chat/faq/
As of right now, Stoat does not feature any federation and it is not in our feature roadmap.
Agreed, though tbh even I found Matrix extremely confusing, buggy, and lacking features when I last tried it, I can’t imagine how non-technical users would find it. I don’t see it ever really becoming a massively widespread replacement (not that it needs to be, they’re very much doing their own thing).
Stoat felt really clunky last time I tried it but that was way back when Discord first announced the age bullshit, so maybe I’ll give it another look. Maybe I’m misremembering and/or it’s changed since then, but I don’t recall self-hosting and decentralization being on their roadmap?
Stoat is technically self hostable iirc, as everything is open source but federation isn’t planned so there’s not as much draw to selfhosting it, since you’d basically have a completely disconnected instance.
To me, that’s an acceptable con of the ‘vibe’ based decision I’m making, but to others it may not be.
and yeah stoat’s servers struggled with the large influx of people.
It feels corporate and the essential features like self hosting and federation are roadmapped, which is just a promise. I really get that there’s serious issues with Matrix, but in the “leaving discord” wars it doesn’t feel fair for them to carry baggage of years of real world concerns and issues, only for a project like this to present a clean slate as superior rather than untested.
Selfhosting is not roadmapped, it’s available today, and has been for months.
While I do agree, it is also just a single developer making this. I’m definitely disappointed with the priorities, but I respect how much work he’s been putting into it
It was originally. Lots of people bought Plutonium and he has now added additional developers.
Hmm, to my knowledge he is still the only active dev, maybe you’re right though
He is not, and has not been for quite some time.
I think it’s more-or-less accurate to say that it’s “just a single developer”.
While it’s technically true that more than one developer has committed code, the comically overwhelming vast majority of commits were made by a single developer and a battery of automated tools. If we exclude those bots (at least, the obvious ones), then the remaining maybe-human contributors have been responsible for less than 0.2% of the total codebase.
Source: did some math on numbers from their github repository stats.
how is it heavier to selfhost it in comparison with matrix synapse ?
It’s slopware. It might run fine, and next commit it might die. Synapse is made by humans and a foundation who cares about what they do because they also provide their services to governments.
