Product tour
ggbro Features
Everything ggbro can do — from everyday chat to voice, bots, client plugins, user badges, GGBRO Plus, and full server backups — written like a field guide for members, owners, and developers.
ggbro is an all-in-one community platform: text and rich media chat, SFU voice and video, screen sharing with system/app audio, customizable servers (including Discord-style server folders), friends and group DMs with a full Manage Group panel, discovery, in-app Streamers watching, Gemini AI, PDF Studio, Youtube Search & Downloader, Discord-style user badges, safe desktop client plugins, GGBRO Plus perks, a Solana token ecosystem, and a first-class bot API. This page is the long-form map of those capabilities and the stack that powers them.
Servers & channels
Own your community space
Create unlimited servers with icons, banners, descriptions, invite links, and optional vanity URLs for verified communities. Organize with categories, text channels, and voice channels (including meeting-style channels). Enable the official Discord Theme plugin to place the server list on the left like modern Discord.
Discord-style server folders
Organize your server rail the way Discord does — drag, nest, and color folders on the desktop client.
- Create — hold one server over another briefly, then drop to make a folder (nest highlight).
- Reorder — white insertion line shows exactly where a server or folder will land.
- Collapsed — 2×2 mosaic of the first four server icons (or a custom folder icon).
- Expanded — solid folder color tile plus a tinted group of member servers; auto-expands when you select a server inside.
- Folder settings — right-click to rename, pick a Discord-style color, mark as read, set/remove a custom icon, or close (ungroup) the folder.
- Nest & remove — drop a server onto a folder to add it; drag a server out to the rail to leave the folder. Empty folders dissolve automatically.
- Server banner in the channel sidebar — set and position it in Server Settings → Overview.
- Server menu — click the server name to invite, open settings, create channels, mute, copy invite/ID, report, or leave.
- Templates — save or apply structure (roles, channels, categories) and share template links.
- Invites — create, expire, limit uses; invite people straight into a voice channel when needed.
- GIF server icons — animated icons stay on the first frame until you hover or select that server.
Chat & media
- Realtime text chat with replies, edits, deletes, pins, reactions, and embeds.
- File uploads, images, GIFs, link previews, and search across channels.
- Voice channels with Text Chat — when enabled, a chat icon opens that channel’s message pane without leaving (or before joining) voice.
- Slowmode, NSFW flags, topics, and channel / category permission overrides.
Voice, video & screen share
SFU voice rooms (LiveKit)
Server voice channels use a self-hosted LiveKit SFU over wss://ws.ggbro.app — one media room per channel instead of a full peer mesh. That keeps joins stable as rooms grow, and camera / screen share ride the same path as mic audio.
- Voice basics — mute, deafen, camera, push-to-talk, soundboard with blue play glow and per-user soundboard mute (GGBRO Plus), and a live participant list in the channel sidebar.
- Speaking indicators — green glow on avatars and member chips when someone talks on mic. Camera and screen tiles stay clean (no fake glow from video or game audio).
- Screen share — share a full display or a single application window; watchers can focus, pop out, or fullscreen the tile. As the sharer, hover your tile to see who’s watching; you’ll hear a soft chime when someone starts or stops watching.
- Share computer audio — Discord-style: you hear the call normally; the stream carries system/game/app sound with voice-channel playback excluded (WASAPI process-exclude). Mic still works both ways.
- Application audio — when sharing a window, GGBRO prefers capturing only that app’s audio when Windows supports it.
- Moderation — server mute / deafen / move / disconnect for roles with the right permissions; meeting channels support raised hands.
- DM & group calls — voice and video calls outside servers, with the same mute/camera/screen controls.
Presence & activity
- Statuses: Online, Away, Do Not Disturb, Invisible — with automatic Away after idle (manual Away/DND/Invisible are respected).
- Desktop Activity — the Windows app can detect running games/apps and show “Playing …” on your profile.
- Activity clears when you go offline and only returns when something is actually detected again — no stale all-day games.
- Custom activity icons for a polished look across Active Now and profiles.
Friends, DMs & groups
Manage Group (group DMs)
A wide settings-style panel for group DMs with sidebar tabs — built for owners and members alike.
- Overview — icon, rename, member/online counts, owner, capacity (up to 50), created date, copy Group ID.
- Members — searchable list; owners can transfer ownership or remove people.
- Invite — add friends and recent DM contacts (owners).
- Notifications — mute the group on this device for 1h / 8h / 24h / until unmuted (silences message toasts and call rings).
- Calls — start a voice or video group call from the panel.
- Danger Zone — leave the group or (as owner) delete it for everyone.
- Friend requests, block list, Active Now, and Notification Center.
- Direct messages and group DMs with the same media features as server chat.
- DM avatar spacing — roomier gutters in DMs and group chats so avatars aren’t cramped against the message column; larger avatars in the DM sidebar.
- GIF avatars — animated profile pictures play on hover, or while that DM / conversation is selected.
- Profile popups with banners, bios, member-since, and live activity.
Roles, permissions & moderation
- Fine-grained role permissions, hoisting, colors, and per-channel / per-category overrides.
- Kick, ban, timeout, audit log, reports, and invite controls.
- Two-factor authentication available for sensitive owner actions (delete server, restore backup, etc.).
Backups & templates
Full server backups
Owners can enable Backup Server and run Backup Now. Snapshots store channels, roles, permissions, current members’ roles, messages, reactions, pins, and files up to 10MB. Larger files are skipped with skip notes. Save and restore are paced so the host stays healthy.
- Free servers: 1 backup · backup & restore once a week.
- Verified servers: up to 3 backups · backup & restore once a day.
- Delete an old backup to free a slot. Live restore does not re-add people who left or were banned.
- Deleting a server soft-deletes it for 30 days with a pre-delete snapshot you can restore from User Settings → Servers.
GGBRO Plus, discovery & verified
- GGBRO Plus: verified user badge · 500 MB uploads (DMs, groups, any server) · up to 5 Discovery listings · game & general ads · featured placement · listing banners · cross-server soundboard · cross-server custom emojis · optional Gemini AI access when staff enable Plus-only mode.
- Server Discovery — browse and feature communities with banners and categories. Open Discover from the Apps launcher (9-dot button) on the server rail.
- Verified servers: golden badge & invite pages · vanity invite URL · 500 MB uploads in that server · 3 backups · daily backup/restore · daily automatic backup schedule.
- GGBRO Token — Solana token ecosystem with its own public pages and analytics.
User badges
Discord-style profile badges
Compact icons next to usernames with rich hover tooltips — category eyebrow, title, optional description, and large icon preview. The existing GGBRO Plus blue checkmark stays as-is; custom badges sit beside it.
- Where they show — profile popups, server messages, the member list, DMs (conversation header + message authors + DM sidebar names), and group DMs (message authors + member badges).
- Manual grants — badges can be created (icons, effects, sort order) and granted or revoked with optional expiry.
- Limited auto campaigns — set an auto-grant until date (e.g. GGBRO Plus until next month). People who qualify before then keep a permanent copy; after that, new people do not get it automatically. Use Close auto-grant to snapshot everyone who currently matches and stop new auto awards immediately.
- Bot eligibility — optional per-badge checkbox so bot accounts can receive the badge (e.g. a Plus campaign can exclude bots even if a bot has GGBRO Plus).
- Auto-rules — badges can apply automatically to bots, GGBRO Plus members, or platform staff.
- Built-in Slash Commands — bots that support slash commands get the green “Supports Commands” badge automatically.
- Effects — optional glow, shine, or pulse on the icon for standout awards.
Apps launcher · Gemini · Streamers
One place for Discover, Gemini, Streamers, and plugin apps
The server rail’s Apps launcher (3×3 grid) opens Server Discovery, the Gemini assistant, Live Streams, and enabled plugin apps — without cluttering the rail.
Youtube Search
Find videos without leaving GGBRO — then play or download.
- Rich results — title, channel, thumbnail, duration, and paged “Load more”.
- Player & Downloader — Search buttons next to the URL field; Play opens the playlist player, Download fills the Downloader link (or queues on desktop).
- Official plugin — Apps → Youtube Search; other plugins can dispatch
ggbro:youtube-search-open. - Sources — desktop prefers yt-dlp search; web/API can use Piped or the YouTube Data API when configured.
PDF Studio
Advanced desktop PDF viewer & editor as an official host plugin — open from Apps or from chat attachments.
- Viewer — zoom/fit, continuous / single / two-page spread, day/night/sepia tone, grid, thumbnails, outline, search, go-to-page, rotate view, print; Hand tool selects & copies page text.
- Annotate — highlight, underline, strike, freehand, line/arrow/rect/ellipse, redact & whiteout, inline text & sticky notes, stamps, place image, drawable signature; select/move; properties + annot list; undo/redo; flatten on Save As.
- Shortcuts — Ctrl+Z/Y, Ctrl+C/X/V, Ctrl+S, Delete, Ctrl+/- zoom; Space hand; [ ] pages; G grid; tool keys V/T/N/H/D/L/R/O/E.
- Organize — rotate, reorder, duplicate, delete, extract, insert blank, page numbers, whiteout margins, merge, split, document info.
- Compress — Screen / eBook / Print / Custom presets (client-side).
- Extras — text or image watermark, password-protect export, fill AcroForm fields, export page PNG/JPEG; local annotation drafts per file.
- Chat — PDF chips in channels, DMs, and groups offer Open with PDF Studio / Download / Copy link (plugin must be enabled).
- Official plugin — Settings → Plugins → Official Examples → Install & Enable (catalog pack), then Apps → PDF Studio; host event
ggbro:pdf-studio-open. - Window — resizable, minimizable, full screen (F11); drag the title bar to move.
Youtube Downloader
Official desktop plugin for YouTube videos and list=PL… playlists.
- Preview — thumbnail, title, and length before download; playlists list every entry with thumbs.
- Quality — video Best / 1080p / 720p / 480p / 360p, or audio MP3 Best / 192 / 128 kbps.
- Downloads popup — real progress, pause/resume/cancel (force-stops yt-dlp on Windows), thumbnails; files named after the video title under
Downloads/GGBRO YouTube. - Playlist player — per-track download and Download all for PL lists.
- App updates — pause/cancel while downloading a GGBRO update; update rows use a square icon (not the YouTube thumb slot).
Discord Theme
Official theme that restyles the desktop chrome like modern Discord.
- Left server rail — servers move from the top bar to a vertical rail with Discord-style pills (works with server folders).
- Blurple chrome — accents, denser layout, channel sidebar, composer, buttons, and scrollbars.
- Extras — Discover / Plus / Help live in Apps and Settings; Inbox opens beside the rail (not clipped off-screen).
- Gemini assistant — live streaming replies with conversation history, model picker, markdown, syntax-highlighted code blocks, tables, and image lightbox.
- Multimodal — attach images and common files; EXIF is stripped server-side. Generated images open in the same lightbox as chat media.
- Privacy & security — Google keys never ship in the desktop/web client. All calls go through
/api/v1/aiwith JWT auth, optional GGBRO Plus gating, and daily message limits.
Live Streams — watch without leaving ggbro
Browse GGBRO streamers or search any platform handle, then watch in a movable (or popped-out) player while you keep using chat and servers normally.
- Platforms — Twitch, YouTube Live, and Kick (TikTok is optional and off by default).
- Watch popup — draggable/resizable overlay with quality, free 0–100 sound, opacity, Pin, and Popout to a separate window (closing it docks the player back into ggbro).
- View-only chat — Twitch, Kick, and YouTube live chat beside the player.
- Streamer profile — add your handles under Account Settings → Streamer to appear in the GGBRO Streamers directory (with categories).
- Follows & schedule — follow streamers, optional live notifications, plus schedule and clips on profiles.
Bots & developer API
- Create apps in the Developer Portal — get a bot user and token.
- REST API for messages, members, roles, bans, invites, presence, and more.
- Channel webhooks — Discord-style incoming URLs to post into a channel (multiple per channel); manage in Edit Channel, Portal → Webhooks, or the API.
- Socket.IO gateway for realtime events, slash commands, and interactions.
- Python helper SDK (
ggbro.py) plus sample music and welcome bots. - Voice text-chat rules apply to bots too: if a voice channel has chat disabled, bots cannot post there.
Client plugins
Safe desktop extensions
Install community or your own .ggbro-plugin packs on the Windows desktop app. Plugins run in a sandboxed iframe with a tight permission model — they can theme, toast, store local data, show host-rendered panels, and decorate messages on your screen only, without raw access to your account or Electron.
- Install — User Settings → Plugins: pick your own plugin file or folder (Windows asks which), or install from the official catalog. Packs extract under your user data directory; KV storage survives reinstall until you Uninstall.
- Permissions — declare only what you need; sensitive ones (
net.fetch,messages.*) require a confirm. HTTPS allowlists are per-plugin. - UI — enabled packs with
ui.panelshow Controls in Settings and an Apps tile. Runtime errors surface on the plugin card. - Official examples — PDF Studio (view/annotate/compress/organize), Discord Theme (left server rail + blurple chrome), Youtube Search, Youtube Downloader (preview, quality, pause/resume), Spotify, Theme Pulse, Pomodoro, Session Coach, Client Lab, and more.
- Docs — full plugin author guide at /developers/plugins.
Desktop, web & mobile
- Windows desktop — Electron app with auto-update (pause/cancel while downloading an update), Activity detection, WASAPI screen-share audio, Apps launcher, Discord-style server folders, client plugins (PDF Studio, Youtube Search, Youtube Downloader, Discord Theme, and more), group DM Manage Group panel, GIF avatars that play on hover/select, user badges, and system tray-friendly controls. Latest installer tracks the changelog.
- Web app — same UI in the browser at
/app(screen-share system audio uses the browser’s capture path; plugins are desktop-only). - Android — native client in development (quiet sideload APK for testers; public Play Store download stays closed until ready).
Technology stack
ggbro is built as a modern realtime communication stack. Here is what powers the product end to end:
Desktop client
Electron + React (TypeScript)
Web client
React SPA (same UI as desktop)
Backend
Node.js + Express (TypeScript)
Realtime
Socket.IO v4 gateway
HTTP API
REST (JSON) under
/apiDatabase
SQLite (better-sqlite3)
Voice / media
LiveKit SFU + WebRTC · Socket.IO signaling
Screen audio
WASAPI process-loopback (desktop) · clean-feed fallback
Auth
JWT sessions · optional TOTP 2FA
AI assistant
Gemini via secured
/api/v1/ai proxyStreamers
Twitch / YouTube / Kick embeds · optional TikTok · popout player
Bot tooling
Python / Node Socket.IO clients · REST
Client plugins
Sandboxed iframe host · CSP · permission grants
User badges
Auto-rules · profile / chat / members
Styling
Tailwind CSS · custom design tokens
Packaging
electron-builder (Windows installer)
Token
Solana (GGBRO ecosystem pages)
You will also find this stack summary in the desktop app under User Settings → About, right after Platform.
Privacy & principles
- No ads and no third-party tracking pixels on the product experience.
- Permission checks happen on the server for every sensitive action — UI alone is never enough.
- Backup archives are private (not publicly downloadable via
/uploads).