Users can create and join channels where they will be able to participate and chat with other users. A channel represents a chat between a group of users. A channel can support up to 300,000 members and can contain an unlimited number of messages. Any message exchanged in the channels will be pushed to all other members of the channel in real-time.

Channel Types

Upstra supports the creations of 4 types of chat channels. Each type is designed to match a particular usecase for chat channels.

Here is a table to show what features each channel offers:

For more information on how to create these channel types check out the documentation on:

• ​IOS Create Channel​

• ​Android Create Channel​

Standard Channel

All Standard channels are visible on the admin panel.

The Standard channel is our default channel type and can be discovered by all users and admins. It acts as a public chat channel that showcases all of the features that the SDK has to offer.

It also comes with all of the SDK's moderation tools such as:

• Message and user flagging

• Muting/Unmuting users

• Banning/Unbanning users from channel

• Profanity filters

• Whitelisted urls

• User ratelimiting

Private Channel

All Private channels are visible on the admin panel.

The Private channel is identical to our Standard channel in features with the caveat that users will not be able to discover Private channels when querying for all channels unless they are already a member. Private channels offers the ability for users and admins to create channels with exclusive memberships. However users and admins can still invite other users to join the channel.

Private channels come with all of the SDK's moderation tools such as:

• Message and user flagging

• Muting/Unmuting users

• Banning/Unbanning users from channel

• Profanity filters

• Whitelisted urls

• User ratelimiting

Broadcast Channel

All Broadcast channels are visible on the admin panel.

The Broadcast channel is a public channel which any user and admin can discover and join. However only admins will have the ability to send messages inside a Broadcast channel. This channel type is perfect for creating channels designed to send out messages to a large user base in the SDK. Wherever those messages will be for promotions, notifications or alerts, the Broadcast channel is optimized to distribute one-way messages with speed and scalibility.

Broadcast channels come with some of the SDK's moderation tools such as:

• Banning/Unbanning users from channel

• Profanity filters

• Whitelisted urls

Conversation Channel

All Conversation channels are not visible on the admin panel.

The Conversation channel is our solution to 1-on-1 messaging. Unlike the other channel types, a Conversation channel can be created simply by knowing the userId of the user we want to converse with. Users can start conversations with any other user and only they will be able to see their conversation.

If a user were to leave a Conversation channel with another user and then decides they want to start conversing again with the same user; they will automatically be placed back into the same channel and can continue where they left off.

There are no moderation tools for Conversation channels, users will be able to converse freely with no oversight!