Cloister
A quiet, private, lightweight home for your messaging apps.
- Role
- Solo build
- Stack
- Rust · Tauri 2 · Svelte 5 · TypeScript
- Status
- v0.4.1, open source (MIT)
- Link
- muntahi-safwan.github.io/Cloister
The problem
Most all-in-one messengers ship a full copy of Chromium and keep every service awake. On an ordinary laptop that is a lot of memory for reading short messages, and privacy is usually a setting buried in a menu. I wanted WhatsApp, Discord, Gmail and Messenger in one window that stayed light and treated privacy as the starting point.
What I built
- Light on memory
Cloister is written in Rust with Tauri, so it uses the browser engine already on the computer instead of shipping its own. A service loads only when you open it, and idle ones can be put to sleep.
- Isolated sessions
Every service runs in its own browser profile. Cookies and logins never mix.
- Native notifications
Messages arrive as Windows notifications, with unread counts on the tray and the taskbar.
- Veil and app lock
One shortcut blurs every chat for screen sharing or working in public, and the app can lock behind Windows Hello.
- Focus sessions
Hold notifications for a set time, let named people through, and get a summary of what arrived when the session ends.
- A command palette
Jump to any service or action from the keyboard. Any website can be added as a service of its own.
- Local only
No account, no telemetry and no server of mine. Fonts and icons ship inside the app.
What it led to
Released as open source under the MIT licence, with installers for Windows and other systems (the Windows one is about 5 MB) and a landing page where anyone can download it.
How it fits together
What is next
Keeping the releases coming, and listening to what the first users ask for.