Why Gryt Has Been a Bit Quiet Lately
A personal update on why Gryt development has slowed down recently, what I've been working on instead, and what's new in the latest beta.
A quick honest update
I wanted to write this so it's clear why progress on Gryt has been a bit slower lately.
The biggest reason is simple: I'm currently in the process of switching jobs, and that takes a surprising amount of time and energy. Applications, interviews, preparation, all of it adds up quickly. On top of that, I've also been working on some of my other projects, and a few of them need attention right now.
If you want to see what else I've been building, I've put everything into one docs hub here: docs.sivert.io. That includes projects like MAT and ME, both of which currently have some bugs I need to investigate and fix.
Outside of software, I'm also in the middle of a pretty major car project. I'm doing a complete engine overhaul on my GTI, and I'm documenting the process over on Edition 35. That job will probably take me around 2 to 3 weeks, and I want to give it my full attention while I'm doing it so I don't make stupid mistakes.
So life is just a bit busy right now, and I'd rather be transparent about that than pretend otherwise.
Gryt is still moving forward
Even though I haven't been pushing out stable releases as often as I'd like, Gryt has still been moving forward in the beta channel.
The latest beta includes a bunch of work I'm really happy with:
- new screen sharing tech that you can already test
- fixes for sign-in getting stuck
- addons and themes
- an embedded server, which means you can start a server directly from your client
- and a bunch of smaller fixes and improvements
I'll be releasing another update soon, but I'm being more careful than usual.
Gryt has grown a lot over the past few weeks. We're now at 170+ users, which is honestly a lot more than I expected this early. That's great, but it also changes how I think about releases. When the user base is small, it's easier to push things out quickly and fix them as you go. When more people rely on the app, unstable releases become much more expensive.
So for now, I'd rather keep new work in beta until I'm confident it's stable.
I need beta testers
If you want to help shape Gryt, please enable the beta channel and test things properly. Go to:
Settings → About → Beta channel
There may still be some rough edges when switching over, but in general it should be pretty smooth.
If you self-host, I'd also strongly recommend upgrading your server to the beta channel as well so the client and server are aligned.
What's new lately
I don't want to turn this into a giant changelog, but here's the short version of what has been happening recently.
Client
Recent work has focused on:
- embedded server support
- fixes for the embedded server not starting
- addon support
- addon reload behavior improvements
- screen capture fixes
- camera and codec-related settings work
- LAN discovery improvements
Server
Recent work includes:
- custom invite code support
- improved LAN discovery
- version status cleanup
- embedded server startup fixes
SFU
Recent work includes:
- PLI and keyframe recovery improvements
- health checks for UDP connectivity
- Docker and build reliability improvements
- ongoing work related to screen sharing and forwarding stability
The project is still very much alive. A lot of the recent work has just gone into the kind of things that are less flashy from the outside but make the platform feel more reliable and easier to run.
How to switch your server to the beta branch
If you're already self-hosting Gryt and want to help test the beta branch, you do not need to rebuild everything from scratch.
In most cases, all you need to do is change your image tags from latest to latest-beta.
Step 1: update your compose file
Look for the Gryt images in your docker-compose.yml or compose file. In production they probably look something like this:
sfu:
image: ghcr.io/gryt-chat/sfu:${SFU_VERSION:-latest}
server:
image: ghcr.io/gryt-chat/server:${SERVER_VERSION:-latest}
image-worker:
image: ghcr.io/gryt-chat/image-worker:${IMAGE_WORKER_VERSION:-latest}
client:
image: ghcr.io/gryt-chat/client:${CLIENT_VERSION:-latest}
Change them to this:
sfu:
image: ghcr.io/gryt-chat/sfu:${SFU_VERSION:-latest-beta}
server:
image: ghcr.io/gryt-chat/server:${SERVER_VERSION:-latest-beta}
image-worker:
image: ghcr.io/gryt-chat/image-worker:${IMAGE_WORKER_VERSION:-latest-beta}
client:
image: ghcr.io/gryt-chat/client:${CLIENT_VERSION:-latest-beta}
Step 2: pull and restart
Once you've changed the tags, run:
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d
That will pull the beta images and restart your stack with the new versions.
If you want to double-check that everything is running fine, use:
docker compose ps
docker compose logs -f
Optional: use the dedicated beta compose file
If you'd rather not edit your existing compose file manually, you can also use the official beta compose file directly:
That file is already configured for the beta branch.
Optional: make your server visibly beta
If you want your instance to clearly identify itself as beta, you can also change a few environment values:
environment:
SERVER_NAME: ${SERVER_NAME:-Gryt (Beta)}
SERVER_DESCRIPTION: ${SERVER_DESCRIPTION:-A Gryt voice chat server (beta)}
S3_BUCKET: ${S3_BUCKET:-gryt-beta}
Not required, but nice if you're running both a stable and beta instance.
What happens next
For the next couple of weeks, my main priority outside work will probably be the engine overhaul and cleaning up some issues in other projects. After that, I'll be back in a better position to push Gryt forward more aggressively again.
Until then, the best thing you can do is:
- test the beta channel
- report bugs
- tell me what breaks
- tell me what feels weird
- help me make sure the next public release is actually stable
I'd much rather ship a release a little later and know it won't wreck the experience for a growing user base.
Thanks to everyone who has been trying Gryt, reporting issues, and sticking around while I build this. It genuinely means a lot.