The open-source AI receptionist for calls, texts, and appointments. An alternative to Myaifrontdesk, Upfirst, Goodcall, Phonely, etc.
LobbyStack is an open-source AI receptionist platform for small businesses. It answers phone calls, responds to SMS messages, books appointments, handles reschedules and cancellations, and transfers conversations to a human when needed.
It is built for clinics, salons, repair shops, local service companies, restaurants, and any business that loses revenue when nobody is available to answer the phone.
LobbyStack gives teams a modern AI front desk that can be hosted in the cloud or self-hosted on their own infrastructure.
Website · Try the app · Docs · Self-hosting · GitHub
Most AI receptionist tools are closed, expensive, and difficult to adapt to real business workflows. LobbyStack is different.
- Open source by default. Inspect the code, self-host it, extend it, and keep control of your data.
- Built for real phone calls. Handle natural voice conversations, interruptions, transfers, and follow-ups.
- Calls and SMS in one place. Manage phone conversations and text messages from the same inbox.
- Scheduling built in. Book, reschedule, and cancel appointments through Google Calendar or Outlook.
- Designed for SMBs. Simple setup, transparent pricing, and no enterprise-only feature gatekeeping.
- Human fallback. Transfer calls or escalate messages when the AI should not handle something alone.
LobbyStack answers inbound calls with a natural voice agent trained on your business information. It can answer common questions, collect caller details, take messages, qualify requests, offer appointment slots, and transfer to a human when required.
Customers can text the business number and receive helpful replies automatically. LobbyStack can answer questions, continue conversations after calls, and handle replies to booking confirmations.
LobbyStack connects to calendars, checks availability, offers time slots, books appointments, and sends confirmations. Customers can also reply later to reschedule or cancel without calling back.
Upload business information, FAQs, services, pricing, policies, and internal notes. The AI uses this knowledge to answer accurately and consistently.
Some conversations should go to a person. LobbyStack can transfer a live call, take a message, or notify the team by SMS, email, Slack, or another configured channel.
Review calls, SMS threads, transcripts, recordings, appointments, and customer details from one dashboard.
LobbyStack is designed to connect with the tools small businesses already use:
- Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook for appointment availability
LobbyStack can be adapted for many local business workflows:
- Clinics and healthcare offices
- Salons, spas, and barbershops
- Auto repair shops
- Home service companies
- Restaurants
- Dental offices
- Law firms and professional services
- Property managers
- Any business that receives appointment, pricing, hours, or availability questions by phone or SMS
| Area | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Voice reception | Inbound AI calls through Twilio Voice, Twilio Media Streams, and OpenAI Realtime. |
| Business knowledge | Answers from structured business facts, text entries, documents, and imported website pages. |
| Booking | Service-aware scheduling with availability checks and calendar handoff. |
| Appointment changes | Safer cancellation and rescheduling flows with appointment lookup and verification. |
| Human handoff | Live transfer and follow-up tasks for calls that need staff attention. |
| SMS | Text conversations and booking outcomes connected to the same customer history. |
| Dashboard | Calls, messages, contacts, appointments, recordings, transcripts, follow-ups, and analytics together. |
| Usage and billing | Hosted plans, voice usage, alert SMS, outbound call attempts, storage, and metered add-ons. |
| Layer | Main components |
|---|---|
| App | React, Vite, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui |
| Backend | Convex |
| Voice gateway | Fastify, Twilio, OpenAI Realtime |
LobbyStack is open source with a hosted cloud service.
Use LobbyStack Cloud when you want the product managed for you. You still control the receptionist behavior, knowledge, services, rules, numbers, integrations, and team workflow from the app.
Self-host when your team wants to run the stack on your own infrastructure with your own Convex, Twilio, OpenAI, calendar, analytics, billing, and email provider accounts.
Full product control in the hosted app. Infrastructure ownership when you self-host. Same open-source core either way.
LobbyStack is a TypeScript monorepo with Convex as the source of truth and a narrow voice gateway for the live call path.
apps/
web/ React + Vite dashboard for staff
voice-gateway/ Twilio Voice, Media Streams, and OpenAI Realtime bridge
convex/ backend, auth, business state, booking, knowledge, workflows
packages/ shared domain, providers, telemetry, config, and test helpers
mintlify/ public documentation source
docs/ architecture notes, ADRs, provider docs, and validation notes
Read the self-hosting overview for the provider map and deployment expectations, or use the Docker Compose guide for the official single-host baseline.
- Create a LobbyStack account.
- Verify your mobile number.
- Import website knowledge, or skip and add knowledge manually later.
- Claim a business number.
- Configure AI settings, services, knowledge, and rules before sending live calls.
The full hosted walkthrough lives in the quick start guide.
cp .env.example .env
pnpm install
pnpm convex dev
pnpm dev
pnpm seed:demoMock providers are part of the default development path, so contributors can exercise flows without live Twilio, OpenAI, calendar, or email credentials. Provider setup notes live in the docs.
git clone https://github.com/lobbystack/lobbystack.git
cd lobbystack
pnpm install
cp .env.self-hosted.example .env.self-hosted
pnpm self-hosted:secrets -- --write .env.self-hosted
# Edit .env.self-hosted for localhost smoke first; see the docs guide.
docker compose -f docker-compose.self-hosted.yml --env-file .env.self-hosted up -d convex-backend convex-dashboard
docker compose -f docker-compose.self-hosted.yml --env-file .env.self-hosted exec convex-backend ./generate_admin_key.sh
# Paste the generated key into CONVEX_SELF_HOSTED_ADMIN_KEY before continuing.
pnpm self-hosted:convex:env
pnpm self-hosted:convex:deploy
docker compose -f docker-compose.self-hosted.yml --env-file .env.self-hosted up -d --build
pnpm self-hosted:verifyFor prerequisites, local smoke vs production go-live, helper scripts, and troubleshooting, see the Docker Compose self-hosting guide.
Contributions are welcome. Start with CONTRIBUTING.md, keep Convex as the primary backend, and keep the voice gateway focused on the live call path.
Before opening a PR, run:
pnpm typecheck
pnpm build
pnpm testLobbyStack is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 only.