Where your people
actually hang out
A free, EU-hosted place for your community. Text, voice and video, no ads, and no scanning of your private messages.
Try a theme. The app has 31.
What we don't claim
Marketing pages love absolute promises. These are three we refuse to make, and what is true instead.
- “End-to-end encrypted DMs”
DMs are encrypted in transit and at rest, but not end to end: our safety team has to be able to act on abuse reports. We say that plainly instead of implying parity with E2EE apps.
Read the full answer- “An independent audit”
Venoly has not been audited by a third party yet. Until it is, every security layer is documented in the open: the architecture, the mechanisms, and how to verify them yourself.
Read the security model- “Your data never leaves the EU”
Accounts, messages and files live on our own servers in the Netherlands. A short, public list of named providers processes specific data for us, some of them in the United States under standard contractual clauses.
See the subprocessors
Security you can read
The rules that screen every login, signup and upload are plain files, and this is one of them.
login_guard.vnlAbridged. Enforcing.
guard login_protection on login_attempt lock paranoid { rule failed_attempts when login.failed_count > 3 { action warn("Multiple failed logins: " + str(login.failed_count) + " failures"); action flag("failed_logins", "Elevated failed login count"); } rule lockout when login.failed_count > 7 { action block("account_lockout", "Too many failed login attempts — account temporarily locked"); } rule credential_stuffing when login.ip_accounts_attempted > 5 { action block("credential_stuffing", "Suspected credential stuffing attack"); }}- A rule you can readVenilator is a small policy language. Each rule names the event it watches, the condition, and what happens. There is nothing hidden behind it.
- Real thresholdsFive failed logins inside fifteen minutes start a back-off that doubles each time; past eight, this rule locks the account outright. Six accounts tried from one address inside ten minutes is treated as credential stuffing. These are the numbers in production, not an illustration.
- Twelve policies, in the openLogins, signups, invites, uploads, spam, raids and more each have a file like this one. The security page describes all twelve.
- The refusal is the file’s own wordsA blocked login is answered with the sentence written in the rule, not a generic error. Change the file and you change what the person reads.
- Read the security model
No ads, no third-party trackers, no chat control
Venoly does not read or scan your private messages and does not implement Chat Control in any form. We publicly oppose it. No algorithmic feed, no engagement tricks, and every notification has an off switch. Your messages are the product you use, not the product we sell.
Read the transparency report
Pay for room, never for looks
Free is the product, not a trial. The paid tiers only add space: storage, bigger files, longer messages.
Free
€0forever
Complete out of the box.
- Animated profiles, custom themes, voice, threads, polls
- Unlimited servers and members
- 250 MB storage
- 10 MB per file
- Messages up to 4000 characters
Aurora
€4.99per month
The full Aura experience.
- Everything in Spark
- 10 GB storage
- 50 MB per file
- Messages up to 6000 characters
- 2 server boosts a month
Supernova
€9.99per month
Maximum capacity.
- Everything in Aurora
- 25 GB storage
- 95 MB per file
- Messages up to 8000 characters
- 4 server boosts a month
Server boosts and server-wide plans exist too. See the full comparison
Questions people ask
Yes — the Free tier is the product, not a trial. Unlimited servers, unlimited members, voice and video rooms, animated profile pictures, banners, and effects all included. Spark (€0.99/mo), Aurora (€4.99/mo) and Supernova (€9.99/mo) are optional upgrades that buy capacity only — more storage, bigger files, longer messages. Server boosts (€1.99 each) are how members upgrade a server — they stack across the community to reach Levels 1, 2, and 3.
Is Venoly really free?
Yes — the Free tier is the product, not a trial. Unlimited servers, unlimited members, voice and video rooms, animated profile pictures, banners, and effects all included. Spark (€0.99/mo), Aurora (€4.99/mo) and Supernova (€9.99/mo) are optional upgrades that buy capacity only — more storage, bigger files, longer messages. Server boosts (€1.99 each) are how members upgrade a server — they stack across the community to reach Levels 1, 2, and 3.
Wait, animated avatars and banners are free?
Yes. Every account gets animated profile pictures, animated banners, and profile effects on the Free tier. Cosmetics are not a paywall — paid tiers exist for real utility upgrades only.
Why not just use Discord, Slack, or Telegram?
Venoly isn't a clone — it's a fresh build. The other platforms are stuck patching old architecture with known security debt: leaked tokens, weak captcha, shaky raid protection. We got to design the security model from scratch — Venilator policy VM, vault encryption, DGCA forensics, encrypted SVG captchas, custom DDoS shield. On the user side: threads that collapse, no algorithmic feed, no third-party tracking, animated profiles free for everyone.
What kinds of communities is it for?
Anything — gaming clans, art collectives, study groups, fandoms, friend circles, mod communities, book clubs, hobby servers. Any community that lives in a chat platform fits here.
Do I really have to verify my email?
Yes — every account confirms an email link before logging in. It's a small extra step that meaningfully raises the cost of bot signups and makes raid waves much harder to spin up. Servers stay healthier when accounts are real people. Unverified accounts auto-purge after 30 minutes.
How do server boosts work?
Each boost is €1.99/month and applies to one server. Multiple members can boost the same server, and the totals stack. Without boosts a server has 50 emoji slots and 64 kbps voice audio. At 2 boosts it reaches Level 1: a server banner, an invite background, 100 emoji slots and 128 kbps voice audio. At 7 boosts, Level 2: 150 emoji slots and 256 kbps voice audio. At 14, Level 3: a vanity invite link like venoly.nl/invite/yourcommunity, 250 emoji slots and 384 kbps voice audio. Aurora includes 2 boosts a month and Supernova includes 4, to give wherever you want. Server plans, where the owner pays for a level outright (€2.99, €6.99 or €12.99 a month), are priced but not on sale yet.
Can I export my data?
Yes. Your account data — profile, messages, friends and settings — downloads from Settings → Privacy. A server owner can export the server itself (channels, roles, settings and the member list) as JSON; message history and attachments are not part of that server export. You can leave whenever you want.
Where is my data stored?
On our own servers in the Netherlands. A short list of named providers processes specific data on our behalf — some of them in the United States, under Standard Contractual Clauses — and every one of them is on our Subprocessors page. The server software can be self-hosted by arrangement.
An account takes a minute. Your first server takes another.
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