What is Sidefire?

Sidefire is a simple, fast group chat you can open right in your phone's browser. There's nothing to download. Sign in with your phone number, get a text with a code, and you're in. Create a room, share the invite link, and your group is chatting in seconds.

It works on any device — iPhone, Android, laptop, tablet. Add it to your home screen and it looks and feels like a native app.

How it started

Sidefire was built in February 2026 as a from-scratch project: no templates, no boilerplate, no React. The entire application — backend, frontend, database, real-time messaging — was written in one pass and deployed to Cloudflare's edge network so it loads fast everywhere in the world.

The goal: the easiest possible way to get a group of people chatting without anyone needing to install anything or create yet another account. Just a phone number and a link.

Features

• Instant sign-in — Phone number + text code. No passwords.
• Group rooms — Create rooms, invite with a link.
• Real-time — Messages appear instantly. See who's online and typing.
• Images — Share photos directly in the chat.
• Push notifications — Get notified even when the app is closed.
• Works everywhere — Any modern browser. PWA home screen support.
• Dark & light mode — Matches your system preference.
• Reactions — Long-press messages to add emoji reactions.