Grupo Chat is a self-hosted PHP chatroom script sold on CodeCanyon for $75. It installs on a standard web server and gives a site owner a full messaging platform: group rooms, direct messages, voice notes, video and audio calls, AI chatbots, moderation tooling and optional paid memberships. It suits community builders, niche social networks and agencies that want their own chat product rather than a hosted widget rented by the month. The listing carries 1,860 sales and a 5/5 average across 265 reviews, which is a strong signal for a script in the Grupo Chat Social Networking bracket.
What the script actually delivers under the hood
The feature set is broader than most chat add-ons at this price, and several parts of it are genuinely unusual for a PHP script.
Room types and conversation modes
Administrators can create an unlimited number of rooms and assign each one a visibility model: public, private, secret, password-protected, role-restricted, or “unleavable” — a room members cannot exit on their own. That last option is a small detail that matters for onboarding flows and structured courses. Alongside rooms, the script supports one-to-one direct messaging, plus a whisper mode that sends a private aside inside a group conversation without breaking the main thread. Voice messages and a friend/follow system round out the everyday messaging layer.
Real-time calling and broadcasting
Video and audio run through WebRTC, the browser standard for peer-to-peer media, but the script does not ship its own signalling server. Instead it integrates with LiveKit (self-hosted or cloud) or Agora. LiveKit’s self-hosted edition is free and open source, which keeps running costs near zero on a server that supports WebRTC. On shared hosting, where WebRTC infrastructure is usually unavailable, the practical route is LiveKit Cloud or Agora and their usage-based pricing. Screen sharing and a broadcast mode — one member streams their camera while others watch, gated by role permissions — come included.
AI features and automated moderation
Two AI functions stand out. Chatbots can hold simulated conversations in private chats, which is useful for engagement seeding or simple support triage. More practically, AI content moderation connects to OpenAI Moderation, Google Cloud Vision and SightEngine to flag offensive text and harmful images automatically. Each of those is a third-party API with its own key and billing, so the vendor’s feature list implies ongoing operational cost that the $75 price does not cover.
Moderation, security and monetisation
The safety toolkit is deeper than typical: a profanity filter with regular-expression support (pattern matching for custom rules), link filtering, minimum signup age, age-gated rooms, one-account-per-IP limits, and bans based on IP address or device fingerprint — a browser signature that persists even when a user changes IP. IP intelligence checks flag VPN and proxy traffic.
Revenue options include site adverts, paid memberships, paid groups, a user wallet and tipping between members. Payments route through more than 20 gateways, from Stripe and PayPal to regional processors such as Razorpay, Flutterwave and Pesapal. One catch is stated plainly in the listing: memberships, paid groups, the wallet and tips all require an extended licence, which costs more than the standard $75. Budget for that before promising clients a subscription product.
Where Grupo Chat fits, and where it does not
The strongest fit is a niche community that wants chat as the centrepiece of its own domain. Examples: a fan site adding member rooms, a membership business layering chat onto existing content, a regional social network, or a creator running a paid Discord-style space without Discord’s branding. Agencies building white-label community portals for clients are another natural buyer, since source files are included (PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, SQL) and the code can be rebranded.
Self-hosting is the deciding factor. Organisations with data-residency requirements, or anyone who refuses to pay per-seat SaaS fees, get full database ownership here. The one-click installer, which asks only for database credentials and a purchase code, lowers the technical bar considerably — the vendor states it runs on shared hosting, and the compatibility list covers PHP 7.x and 8.x with MySQL 5.x and 8.x.
Grupo Chat is the wrong purchase in three scenarios. First, teams without any server access or appetite for maintenance: a self-hosted script means updates, backups and security patching are the owner’s job, and no vendor manages that. Second, projects needing native mobile apps — this is a responsive web application, not an App Store product. Third, anyone expecting the paid-membership features at the base price; the extended licence requirement makes the real entry cost higher than the headline figure.
Strengths and limitations in plain terms
Strengths
- Unusually complete feature set for the price: rooms, DMs, voice notes, calls, screen sharing and AI moderation in one codebase.
- Choice of three WebRTC backends, including a free self-hosted LiveKit path for owners with suitable servers.
- Genuine moderation depth — fingerprint bans, VPN detection and regex profanity rules go beyond keyword blocking.
- Source files included, so the platform can be customised and rebranded rather than rented.
- Strong marketplace track record: 1,860 sales and a perfect 5/5 from 265 reviews.
- Broad payment gateway coverage, including African and Asian processors often missing from Western scripts.
Limitations
- Monetisation is licence-gated. Memberships, paid groups, wallet and tips need an extended licence, so the $75 figure understates the cost of a revenue-generating build.
- AI moderation and chatbots depend on paid third-party APIs (OpenAI, Google Cloud Vision, SightEngine), adding recurring costs the vendor does not quantify.
- Video and audio require external infrastructure — LiveKit or Agora — configured separately; shared hosting effectively forces a paid cloud option.
- No native iOS or Android apps are offered; mobile use is browser-only.
- Self-hosting transfers all patching, scaling and backup responsibility to the buyer.
- The listing does not state load limits or concurrent-user capacity, so scalability has to be tested on the target server.
How it compares with the wider chat platform category
Buyers researching this space usually weigh three routes: hosted SaaS chat (Discord, Circle, BuddyBoss-style subscriptions), lightweight WordPress chat plugins, and standalone scripts like this one. Hosted platforms win on zero maintenance and polished native apps, but charge per member and keep the data. WordPress plugins are cheap and simple but rarely offer WebRTC calling, AI moderation or paid rooms. A standalone PHP script sits in the middle: more capability and ownership than a plugin, more setup work than SaaS.
Within the standalone-script segment, Grupo Chat’s differentiators are the breadth of room permission types, the three-backend calling approach and the moderation stack. A simpler script might cover group and private text chat for less money, but it would likely lack video, broadcasting, AI filtering and gateway-based monetisation. The trade-off is complexity: more moving parts, more third-party accounts, more to configure. Compared with building from scratch, the script clearly saves months of development, and the review record suggests the vendor’s implementation holds up in practice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Grupo Chat work on shared hosting?
Yes for text chat, but calling needs extra infrastructure. The vendor states the script runs on shared hosting, and the installer only asks for database details and a purchase code. Video and audio, however, require WebRTC support, which shared plans usually lack, so the realistic setup there is LiveKit Cloud or Agora rather than the free self-hosted LiveKit option.
Do I need an extended licence to charge members?
Yes. Paid memberships, paid groups, the wallet system and member tipping are all listed as requiring an extended licence. The standard $75 purchase covers the chat platform itself, including adverts, but any subscription or paywall revenue needs the higher tier. The extended licence price is set by CodeCanyon’s licensing terms, not by the vendor.
What AI features are included and do they cost extra?
AI chatbots and automated content moderation are built in, but they run on external services. Moderation calls OpenAI Moderation, Google Cloud Vision or SightEngine, and chatbot responses depend on an AI provider account. Each service bills separately, so owners should expect a modest recurring API cost on top of the script price and plan keys accordingly.
Can the script be rebranded for client projects?
Source files are included, so the code can be modified and restyled. The package ships JavaScript, JSON, HTML, CSS, PHP and SQL files, which allows changes to layout, wording and branding. Buyers should still check CodeCanyon’s licence terms for each project type, since redistribution rules differ from single-site use and extended licensing applies to monetised deployments.
Verdict
Grupo Chat earns a recommendation for site owners and agencies who want to own their community platform outright and are comfortable with a self-hosted PHP application. The combination of multiple room permission models, WebRTC calling through three backends, serious moderation and 20-plus payment gateways is hard to match at this price point, and the 5/5 rating across 265 reviews suggests the vendor, baevox, ships working code. Buyers planning paid memberships must factor in the extended licence and the third-party API costs for AI and calling before committing. Those who want a zero-maintenance, app-store-native chat product should choose a hosted service instead — this script rewards owners who intend to run their own infrastructure.
