Do I need an account?
No. Here is what you get if you make one anyway, and what it costs you if you don't.
No. Download Gryt, open it, and you can host a server and talk to people on your network in under a minute. Nobody signs up for anything.
That is not a trial or a limited mode. A guest identity is a real identity: it signs the same challenge, gets the same roles, and can own a server. The difference is who vouches for it.
The two ways to be somebody
When you join a server, your client signs a one-time challenge with a private key that never leaves your device. The server checks the signature against a certificate saying which key belongs to whom. What differs is who signed that certificate.
A guest identity signs its own. The key vouches for itself, there is no sign-up, no email address, and nobody — including us — can connect it to a person. Your client makes a separate key for each server, so two servers cannot work out they are talking to the same person.
An account identity is signed by id.gryt.chat after Keycloak has
authenticated you. The same sub appears on every Gryt server, which is what
makes you recognisably the same person across all of them.
Which one you want
| Guest | Account | |
|---|---|---|
| Sign-up | none | email and password |
| Same person on other servers | no, deliberately | yes |
| New device | a new identity, unless you authorise the device | sign in |
| Lost your device | the identity is gone with it | sign in again |
| Servers that will have you | those accepting local | all of them |
| A ban on you holds | until you make a new key | until you make a new account |
| Anyone can tell it is you | only that server, only while you keep the key | yes, by design |
Pick guest for a LAN party, a game night, one weekend's server, or anything you would rather not attach your name to. It is the lower-commitment option in every sense, including the one where you lose everything if the laptop dies.
Pick an account if you are on servers you intend to stay on, if you use more than one device, or if you want people to recognise you when you turn up somewhere new. It is also what a server admin needs if bans are supposed to mean something.
You are not choosing once. Making an account later keeps the membership you already have — your roles and history come with you rather than starting again.
A server tells you which it accepts before you try. The Add Server dialog shows No account needed or Gryt account required as soon as it has looked the server up, so you never find out by being turned away.
For server admins
The tier your server accepts is one setting, and the trade is bans. A guest can generate a new keypair in about two seconds, so a ban on a guest identity holds until they bother to. Servers accepting guests lean on the door instead — invites, approval, LAN-only — rather than on bans.
The full picture, including how to set it, is in Server → Identity.