Hey Product Hunt! 👋 I'm Josh, the solo founder and engineer behind Vela - a new kind of workplace messaging platform designed to bring back human connection in remote teams while respecting your attention and productivity. As a remote software engineer for the past 4 years, I've experienced firsthand how existing messaging platforms can lead to isolation, notification fatigue, and poor work-life balance. That inspired me to build a solution for myself and others who are exhausted by the de-facto standard communication methods we have as remote workers. Here's what makes Vela special: 🎙️ Natural Conversation • Drop-in virtual rooms with push-to-talk voice chat • Open your "door" to join the conversation, including receiving push notifications 💬 Contextual Threading • Taggable conversations for easy reference • End-to-end encrypted workspace communication 🫡 Respects Your Attention • No direct messaging • No online/offline presence ⚡️ Lightning-Fast Native Experience • Built natively for macOS in Swift (no Electron) • Global hotkey access via floating panel (like Spotlight/Raycast) • Fully keyboard-driven interface for power users • Minimal UI that stays out of your way Vela is currently available for macOS as a closed beta, which you can sign up for via waitlist on the website. I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback! Feel free to ask me anything in the comments here on ProductHunt, or privately through the website's contact page.

I like the mission of your product, curious if you have integrations with other communication tools that we already use for example slack?

Looks great! Congrats on your launch! Is it going to have integrations with our Slack or Gmail, for example, so that such requests get aggregated from there?

Love the concept. Hope it works. But at then end I think connection is very much up to the intention and psychology of individuals if they want to make the effort to connect on a more human level.

I was fortunate enough to meet Josh and get an early demo of Vela, and I'm very excited by this product. It's the true Mac native app you've been waiting for to replace Slack, especially for all remote teams. Give it a try! It may not have every feature you need yet, but Josh is rapidly iterating on this product and is listening to user needs.

Unreal work Josh, it looks seamless & easy to use! Nothing worse than having a work platform for messaging that you simply don't want to open, bad working vibes etc. This seems like a mega alternative :) Best of luck w/ the launch Josh!!

Wow! Such an underrated problem you picked up to solve. Loved this one! Specially 'No online/offline presence', and 'Comprehenve threads' features, those are gem to me. Congrats and sending wins :)

Congrats on the launch, man! Any plans to eventually bring this to iOS, or is it staying Mac-only?

Seems very nice, unfortunate it is only a beta..

Congratulations on the launch of Vela! It's great to see a platform prioritizing human connection in remote work. How does Vela ensure that team members can effectively manage their attention while fostering meaningful interactions?

I can see it replacing other messaging apps in the near future.

Love the UI/UX.