# Who knows a Rails Instant Messanger? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [April 7, 2008, 10:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/who-knows-a-rails-instant-messanger/134105 "2008-04-07T22:15:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tharrisx](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e19adc/32.png) [@tharrisx](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tharrisx)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 10:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/who-knows-a-rails-instant-messanger/134105/1 "2008-04-07T22:15:28Z")
Hello group, I’ve been looking for a RoR IM (instant messaging program) for quite a while now, but I haven’t found anything that works. What I’m looking for: an IM where - people can send private messages between each other, - while having multiple tabs in the IM window, 1 tab per IM partner, if possible. Does anybody know some plugins or gems for this functionality? (How come there are so many plugins and gems out there, but not IMs…?) Thank you all for any hints on that! Tom ---
**Author:** ![tharrisx](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e19adc/32.png) [@tharrisx](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tharrisx)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 10:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/who-knows-a-rails-instant-messanger/134105/2 "2008-04-07T22:25:22Z")
On 07 Apr 2008, at 22:15, Tom Ha wrote: > (How come there are so many plugins and gems out there, but not > IMs…?) Because Rails is not a CMS, it is a framework. You should have a look at juggernaut, that’s what you’ll probably want to use for the persistent connection. Then you can write your own chat client. It can be done, campfire from 37signals is a chat application. Best regards Peter De Berdt ---
**Author:** ![tharrisx](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e19adc/32.png) [@tharrisx](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tharrisx)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 10:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/who-knows-a-rails-instant-messanger/134105/3 "2008-04-07T22:32:05Z")
But, as far as I know, Campfire is a “group chat” app. What I’m basically looking for is a private messenger (which allows for a “one-to-one chat”, with no group involved)… ---
**Author:** ![tharrisx](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e19adc/32.png) [@tharrisx](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tharrisx)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 11:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/who-knows-a-rails-instant-messanger/134105/4 "2008-04-07T23:03:10Z")
Tom, Rails is not an application, it’s a web development framework. Rails plugins are developer features added on to the framework. If you want a chat application in Rails, you’ll have to build one yourself. Jason ---
**Author:** ![tharrisx](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e19adc/32.png) [@tharrisx](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tharrisx)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 3:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/who-knows-a-rails-instant-messanger/134105/5 "2008-04-09T15:33:55Z")
I may be wrong but I believe that Campfire went the ‘polling’ route (prototype’s PeriodicUpdater on the page pulling new messasges from the server). It’s a simple, clean solution but can be pretty server- intensive if you get a lot of chat volume. +1 for Juggernaut (Peter’s suggestion above). It’s pretty simple to integrate and has enough flexibility that you could do private messaging as well as public chat. Again, it’s a tool, not a solution. HTH, AndyV ---
**Author:** ![tharrisx](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e19adc/32.png) [@tharrisx](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tharrisx)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2008, 10:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/who-knows-a-rails-instant-messanger/134105/6 "2008-04-08T22:19:21Z")
What about an XMPP/Jabber Jem?