Chat Messaging

Stream Chat adds real-time messaging to your app: direct messages, group conversations, livestream chat and support flows. The API keeps channels, messages, threads, reactions and read state in sync across devices; the SDKs add offline storage and prebuilt UI on every major platform.

See it running in the live demos, or take the interactive tour of the API.

SDKs

Chat ships in three tiers. Start with the UI components and drop down a tier where you need more control.

UI Components

Complete chat interfaces with message lists, channel lists, threads and reactions built in.

React

Components and hooks for web apps.

Overview Tutorial

iOS

SwiftUI and UIKit component libraries in Swift.

Overview Tutorial

Android

Jetpack Compose and XML components in Kotlin.

Overview Tutorial

React Native

Native iOS and Android chat UI from one codebase.

Overview Tutorial

Flutter

Chat widgets for every platform Flutter targets.

Overview Tutorial

Angular

Components built on the JavaScript client.

Overview Tutorial

Client Side SDKs

Connection handling, channel state and offline support, with the interface left to you.

Server Side SDKs

Full API access from your backend: provision users, create channels, send messages and enforce moderation.

Build with AI

Your AI agent can work with Stream from the terminal with the Stream CLI. There's also an Agent Skills pack so it can look up docs and configure your app.

curl -fsSL https://getstream.io/cli.sh | bash
getstream skills

Agent Skills

Stream CLI

Platform

Users, auth and the rest of the account-level machinery work the same in every Stream product, so they are documented once in the platform docs. Chat apps touch these first:

Authentication and tokens

Create the user tokens your app connects with.

Users

Create, update, query and delete the users behind every channel.

Permissions and roles

Control who can post, flag and moderate, per channel type.

Push notifications

Deliver messages while the app is closed.

Webhooks

React to chat events from your own backend.

Start here

Each tutorial builds a working chat app from an empty project. Pick your platform:

FAQ

Which SDK do I need?

Start with a UI component SDK. Use a client SDK to build your own interface on the same state layer, and a server-side SDK for anything that touches your API secret.

Does chat work offline?

Yes. The client SDKs store messages locally and update the UI optimistically, then sync when the connection returns.

Do I need my own backend?

In production, yes: user tokens are signed with your API secret on your server. For a prototype, developer tokens let clients connect without one.

Does Chat include moderation?

Stream Moderation plugs into Chat: AI engines screen messages and borderline cases go to a human review queue.

Do Chat and Video share users?

Yes. Users, tokens and roles are app-level and shared by every Stream product; the platform docs cover them once.

Can I read these docs as markdown?

Append .md to any page URL. /llms.txt indexes every page.