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---
layout: post
title: "Javascript live chat tutorial: Free alternative to Firebase"
date: 2020-02-10 13:37:00 +0000
tags: tutorial decentralization chat iris
---
Need a chat box for your website? Want something more independent and affordable than Firebase? In this super simple tutorial, I'll show you how to build a chat using [iris](https://github.com/irislib/iris-lib).
The chat is offline-first and end-to-end encrypted. It is stored and propagated using the distributed database [gun](https://github.com/amark/gun).
No signup of any kind required: just generate a key pair for the chat recipient. Optionally spin up your own free heroku instance to relay messages. **Cost $0**.
# 1. Include iris, gun and sea
Sea is gun's cryptography library.
```
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/gun/gun.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/gun/sea.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/iris-lib/dist/iris.min.js"></script>
```
# 2. Initialize gun
```
var gun = new Gun({peers: ['https://gun-eu.herokuapp.com/gun']})
```
You can connect to someone else's gun node, or you can easily spin up one using Heroku or Docker.
# 3. Create a key for the user (chat initiator)
Generate a new key:
```
var key = await iris.Key.generate()
```
Or generate a key and store it in localStorage:
```
var key = await iris.Key.getDefault()
```
# 4. Get the chat recipient's chat link
1. Go to [iris.to](https://iris.to) ([Github mirror](https://irislib.github.io/iris-messenger/src/)).
2. Click "Copy your chat link"
3. Paste:
```
var chatLink = [chat link here]
```
# 5. Create chat
```
var chat = new iris.Chat({gun, key, chatLink})
```
# 6. Add chat box to document
Iris library comes with an embeddable chat box.
```
var box = chat.getChatBox()
document.body.appendChild(box)
```
It's as simple as that! Chats opened by users will now show up for the key / account you created at iris.to.
Feel free to inspect the element and override the stylesheet to match your site's look and feel.
# Full example
```
<html>
<head>
<title>Live Chat Example</title>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/gun/gun.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/gun/sea.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/iris-lib/dist/iris.min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<script type="text/javascript">
iris.Key.getDefault().then(key => {
var gun = new Gun({peers: ['https://gun-eu.herokuapp.com/gun']});
// replace chatLink with your own chat link from iris.to
var chatLink = 'https://iris.to/?chatWith=4JhaYuPVcq4y2Sp6sRAGkbwM5FdhsMih3b4E6tvd5W4.ULpD5dhra5ojHtKFEdcTZ80UZEmZnRl4dfM2JCEzj2M&s=ZaUbkxPsQeSSdSP1ety7y19eTjPq1gHu15s1v8cbGX4&k=26vMMto5xufO';
var chat = new iris.Chat({gun, key, chatLink});
var box = chat.getChatBox();
document.body.appendChild(box);
});
</script>
</body>
</html>
```
[Codepen](https://codepen.io/mmalmi/pen/bGddeqE), [Github](https://irislib.github.io/iris-lib/example/chatbox/)
# Technical notes
Chats are persisted in users' browsers. Heroku nodes are ephemeral: their filesystem is reset once in a while. If you want to persist the chats on a server, you can add S3 storage to your heroku gun instance, or run a docker gun node.