A Self-Hosted FaceTime Alternative for the Whole Family
FaceTime is great if everyone has Apple devices. If they don't, you need an alternative that's cross-platform, private, and simple enough for anyone to use.
FaceTime only works on Apple devices and can't be self-hosted. A cross-platform, self-hosted alternative gives you the same simplicity — tap a name and call — without the Apple lock-in or privacy trade-offs of other platforms.
FaceTime does a lot right. It’s simple — tap a name, make a call. It’s end-to-end encrypted. It uses the native call screen. It doesn’t try to be a chat app, a social network, or a project management tool.
The problem: it only works on Apple devices.
The FaceTime model
What makes FaceTime good isn’t the technology. It’s the design philosophy:
- Just calls. No chat, no stories, no feed, no read receipts.
- Native call integration. Incoming calls show up on your lock screen like a phone call.
- No sign-up friction. It’s already on your phone. Your Apple ID is your identity.
- E2E encrypted. Apple can’t see or hear your calls.
This is the right model for personal video calling. The issue is that Apple keeps it locked to their ecosystem.
The cross-platform problem
When your family or friend group has a mix of iPhones and Android phones, FaceTime stops being an option. You end up on one of these:
WhatsApp. Owned by Meta. Requires a phone number. End-to-end encrypted, but you’re trusting Meta’s implementation. It’s also a messaging app first — calling is secondary.
Google Duo/Meet. Tied to Google accounts. Not end-to-end encrypted in Meet (Google’s servers process media). Duo offered E2E encryption but Google merged it into Meet.
Zoom. Designed for business meetings, not personal calls. Heavy client. Standard “encryption” is not end-to-end by default.
Signal. Genuinely private. But it’s a messaging app with calling added on, it requires a phone number, and you can’t self-host it.
None of these replicate what FaceTime does well: simple, private, calls-only.
The self-hosting advantage
FaceTime can’t be self-hosted. Your calls are routed through Apple’s infrastructure. You trust Apple not to change their privacy policies, not to be compelled to add backdoors, and not to discontinue the service.
Self-hosting removes all of those dependencies:
- You run the server. On your own hardware, wherever you want.
- You own the data. User accounts and contacts in a database on your machine.
- You control the updates. Upgrade when you want, or don’t.
- No single point of failure. Your ability to call family doesn’t depend on a corporation’s business decisions.
What a real alternative looks like
A FaceTime alternative should match what FaceTime gets right, without the limitations:
- Cross-platform. iOS and Android from day one.
- Just calls. No chat, no messaging, no feed. Tap a name, make a call.
- Native call screen. Incoming calls should look and behave like phone calls.
- End-to-end encrypted. The server should never see or hear your calls.
- Self-hostable. Run it on your own hardware if you want to.
- No phone number required. Connect with friend codes, not phone numbers.
What we’re building
Farscry is designed to be exactly this. A cross-platform, self-hosted, E2E encrypted video calling app that does one thing and does it well.
- iOS and Android from a single React Native codebase
- One Docker container to self-host
- Native call integration (CallKit on iOS, ConnectionService on Android)
- Friend codes instead of phone numbers
- Open source (AGPL-3.0)
Farscry is in active development. Star the GitHub repo to follow progress, or check back here for updates.
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