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.

Josh Nies

Vela

Maker

📌

5mo ago

esai lazing

@joshnies j'apprécie

Dzianis Pomazau

Sense — Automatic Work Hub

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?

Thanks @pomazau! Yes, I plan on adding Slack and Teams integration in the near future so that those who don't have the option of transitioning their team to Vela yet can still use the app themselves.

Sam @CRANQ

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!!

Vela

Workplace messaging that fosters human connection

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