[opensourcedex]

Huly is a free, open source collaboration & communication project written in TypeScript and released under EPL-2.0. It has 27,700 GitHub stars, 2,155 forks and 849 open issues, and was last pushed 10 hours ago. On this registry it ranks #7 of 41 tracked projects in Collaboration & Communication, and is listed as an open source replacement for 3 paid products, with 5 head-to-head comparisons available. It gained 55 stars over the last 6 tracked days.

Huly — All-in-one workspace for project, chat, and docs

What is Huly?

Huly is an open-source, EPL-2.0 licensed, TypeScript-built all-in-one work platform that folds project management, issue tracking, chat, CRM, HRM and applicant tracking into one system teams can run on their own servers, aimed at organisations that want the ground Jira, Linear, ClickUp, Slack and Notion cover without renting it from five separate vendors.

What it is

Huly is a platform, not a single app. The repository ships a framework for building business applications together with several ready-made ones: Chat, Project Management, CRM, HRM and ATS. It lives in the TypeScript ecosystem and is distributed under the Eclipse Public License 2.0. Other products are built on top of it, including Huly itself and TraceX, which is why the README describes it as a framework first and a product second.

The concrete problem it solves is tool sprawl. Teams normally pay for and administer a tracker, a chat tool, a document workspace and a CRM separately, then wire them together. Huly replaces that stack with one platform where the same records, people and conversations are visible across modules. Its topic list names the ground it covers directly: issue-management, issue-tracker, project-management, chat-application, crm-platform, hrms, applicant-tracking-system, qms and support. It is positioned as an open alternative to Jira, Linear and ClickUp, and the GitHub description extends that to Slack, Notion and Motion.

Key capabilities

  • Bundled applications for Chat, Project Management, CRM, HRM and ATS, built on a shared platform rather than stitched together.
  • A typed API client published at huly.core under packages/api-client, giving programmatic access to every Huly operation for integrations and custom apps.
  • Working API examples maintained separately in the huly-examples repository.
  • Two release channels: production tags prefixed v such as v0.7.310, and development tags prefixed s such as s0.7.313, with only v* builds recommended for production.
  • A Docker-based self-hosting path in the huly-selfhost repository, aimed at operators who want to run Huly without modifying it.
  • Documentation covering architecture in ARCHITECTURE_OVERVIEW.md, per-version notes in changelog.md, and a step-by-step docs/guides/backup-restore.en.md for exporting and restoring data.
  • Coverage of adjacent business domains through topics including crm-platform, hrms, applicant-tracking-system, qms and support.

Who uses it and how

  • Self-hosting teams running the Docker stack from huly-selfhost on their own infrastructure, a deployment path the README states is not affected by the hosted service shutdown.
  • Existing hosted Huly customers migrating their data before the shutdown date of July 20, following the backup and restore guide to download a backup and restore it on a self-hosted instance or another hosted option.
  • Product teams building business applications on the platform itself, following the path already taken by Huly and TraceX.
  • Developers writing integrations against the typed API client rather than the user interface, using huly-examples as a starting point.
  • Contributors working from the repository's setup, verification and branch guidance in a local development environment.

Getting started

The README directs anyone who wants Huly without modifying it to the huly-selfhost repository, which provides a Docker-based method for quick setup on a own server. Development versions should be avoided for production; use v* release tags instead.

How it compares

Against Jira, Linear and ClickUp, the split is licence and control: Huly is EPL-2.0 open source and can be self-hosted, so the code, the data and the upgrade schedule sit with the operator rather than the vendor, and there is no per-seat subscription attached to those products. The same contrast extends to Slack, Notion and Motion, which the project lists as tools it replaces by covering chat, documents and scheduling-adjacent work inside one platform. That breadth cuts both ways: replacing five products with one means one system to run and one to migrate away from.

When to use it — and when not to

A self-hoster takes on operating the platform's full service set as a Docker deployment, plus storage for it and the responsibility for running backups, since the project supplies the restore guide rather than a managed service. Anyone who wants zero-ops hosting should look elsewhere: the hosted Huly service is being discontinued because its hosting is no longer funded, with shutdown expected on July 20, leaving self-hosting as the durable route. The project is also large and busy, with 849 open issues at last count, so teams expecting a small, quiet dependency should weigh that before committing.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

Huly Platform

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⭐️ Your star shines on us. Star us on GitHub!

[!IMPORTANT] Hosted Huly is shutting down — please migrate your data.

The hosted Huly service is being discontinued because its hosting is no longer being funded. If you keep important data on the hosted platform, export and back it up, and migrate as soon as possible — we can help you move to either a self-hosted setup or a hosted option.

Not sure how? Follow the backup & restore guide for step-by-step instructions on downloading your backup and restoring it elsewhere.

The service shutdown is expected on July 20. Please make sure to export and migrate your data before then rather than wait until the last day.

Have questions or want updates? Join the Huly community to discuss migration and stay informed, or email us at [email protected] with any questions. This affects only the hosted Huly service — self-hosted deployments are not affected.

About

The Huly Platform is a robust framework designed to accelerate the development of business applications, such as CRM systems. This repository includes several applications, such as Chat, Project Management, CRM, HRM, and ATS. Various teams are building products on top of the Platform, including Huly and TraceX.

Huly

Self-Hosting

If you're primarily interested in self-hosting Huly without the intention to modify or contribute to its development, please use huly-selfhost. This project offers a convenient method to host Huly using docker, designed for ease of use and quick setup. Explore this option to effortlessly enjoy Huly on your own server.

Activity

Alt

API Client

If you want to interact with Huly programmatically, check out our API Client documentation. The API client provides a typed interface for all Huly operations and can be used to build integrations and custom applications.

You can find API usage examples in the Huly examples repository.

Changelog

For detailed information about changes, improvements, and bug fixes in each version, see our Changelog.

Versions

The Huly Platform uses two types of version tags to distinguish between production-ready and development releases:

  • Production Versions (v*) - Stable releases for end users

    • Example: v0.7.310, v0.7.307, v0.6.501
    • These versions are recommended for production deployments
    • Suitable for self-hosted installations
    • Published with release notes on GitHub Releases

  • Development Versions (s*) - Pre-release builds for developers

    • Example: s0.7.313, s0.7.292, s0.7.288
    • Used for development and testing purposes
    • May contain experimental features or bug fixes
    • Not recommended for production use

Architecture

For detailed information about the platform architecture, services, and their interactions, see our Architecture Overview.

Table of Contents

Pre-requisites

If you use nvm, run this after entering the repo to align your shell with the repository Node version:

nvm use

Verification

To verify the installation, perform the following checks in your terminal:

  • Ensure that the docker commands are available:
docker --version
docker compose version

Branches & Contributing

  • The main branch is the default branch used for production deployments. Changes to this branch are made from the staging branch once a version is ready for community use.

  • The staging branch is used for pre-release testing. It is stable enough for testing but not yet ready for production deployment.

  • The develop branch is used for development and is the default branch for contributions.

We periodically merge develop into staging to perform testing builds. Once we are satisfied with the build quality in our pre-release deployment, we merge changes into main and release a new version to the community.

Setup dev environment

To initialise the communication submodule

git submodule init
git submodule update

To update the communication submodule

git submodule update

Authentication

This project uses GitHub Packages for dependency management. To successfully download dependencies, you need to generate a GitHub personal access token and log in to npm using that token.

Follow these steps:

  1. Generate a GitHub Token:
  • Log in to your GitHub account
  • Go to Settings > Developer settings > Personal access tokens (https://github.com/settings/personal-access-tokens)
  • Click Generate new token
  • Select the required scopes (at least read:packages)
  • Generate the token and copy it
  1. Authenticate with npm:
npm login --registry=https://npm.pkg.github.com

When prompted, enter your GitHub username, use the generated token as your password

Fast start

sh ./scripts/fast-start.sh

Installation

You need Microsoft's rush to install the application.

  1. Install Rush globally using the command:
npm install -g @microsoft/rush
  1. Navigate to the repository root and run the following commands:
rush install
rush build

Alternatively, you can just execute:

sh ./scripts/presetup-rush.sh

Build and run

Development environment setup requires Docker to be installed on system.

Support is available for both amd64 and arm64 containers on Linux and macOS.

cd ./dev/
rush build    # Will build all the required packages.
# rush rebuild  # could be used to omit build cache.
rush bundle   # Will prepare bundles.
rush package  # Will build all webpack packages.
rush validate # Will validate all sources with typescript and generate d.ts files required for ts-node execution.
rush svelte-check # Optional. svelte files validation using svelte-check.
rush docker:build   # Will build Docker containers for all applications in the local Docker environment.
rush docker:up # Will set up all the containers

Be aware rush docker:build will automatically execute all required phases like build, bundle, package.

Note: For resource-constrained machines, you can use the minified variants rush docker:min and rush docker:up:min to build and run only the required services (excludes hulypulse, redis, process, backup, rating, preview, link-preview, elastic, fulltext, payment, stats, print, sign, hulygun, hulykvs).

Alternatively, you can just execute:

sh ./scripts/build.sh

By default, Docker volumes named dev_db, dev_elastic, and dev_files will be created for the MongoDB, Elasticsearch, and MinIO instances.

Add the following lines to your hosts file:

  • macOS / Linux: /etc/hosts
  • Windows: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
127.0.0.1 huly.local
::1 huly.local

Accessing the URL will lead you to the app in development

readme truncated — read the full docs on github

Frequently asked questions

Is Huly free to use?

Huly is open source under the EPL-2.0 licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does Huly do?

All-in-one workspace for project, chat, and docs

What is Huly written in?

Huly is primarily written in TypeScript. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/hcengineering/platform, and it has 27,700 GitHub stars.

What is a good open source alternative to ClickUp?

Huly is one of the open source options listed as an alternative to ClickUp, Jira, Linear. Compare licences, stars and activity side by side on the Huly profile.