LobbyStack is an open-source AI receptionist platform for small businesses. It answers phone calls, manages website chat and SMS conversations, books appointments, handles appointment changes, and transfers calls to a person 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 messages in one place. Manage calls, SMS, and website chat from the same dashboard.
- Scheduling built in. Book, reschedule, and cancel appointments through Google Calendar.
- Designed for small businesses. Guided 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.
Review SMS threads, send manual replies, and manage website chat from the same dashboard. Website chat can answer from saved knowledge and hand conversations to an operator.
LobbyStack connects to Google Calendar, checks availability, offers time slots, books appointments, and sends confirmations. Callers can also reschedule or cancel during a later call.
Upload business information, FAQs, services, pricing, policies, and internal notes. The AI uses this knowledge to answer accurately and consistently.
LobbyStack can transfer a live call, take a message, or notify the team by SMS or email when a person needs to respond.
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 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 website chat
| 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. |
| Messages | Manual SMS conversations and AI-assisted website chat connected to customer history. |
| Website widget | Embeddable chat, lead capture, and browser calls with per-site access controls. |
| 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 spending caps. |
| Bring your own API keys | Self-hosted deployments can use your own Twilio, OpenAI-compatible AI, calendar, email, analytics, and billing provider credentials. |
| Layer | Main components |
|---|---|
| App | Next.js, React, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui |
| Backend | PostgreSQL, Drizzle ORM, Redis, BullMQ |
| 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, bring your own API keys, and use your own PostgreSQL, Twilio, OpenAI-compatible AI, 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 PostgreSQL as the durable source of truth and a narrow voice gateway for the live call path.
apps/
admin/ Next.js dashboard and HTTP API
worker/ asynchronous jobs and outbox dispatch
voice-gateway/ Twilio Voice, Media Streams, and OpenAI Realtime bridge
packages/embed/ Vite bundle for the embeddable website widget loader
packages/ database, domain, jobs, providers, telemetry, and shared contracts
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.
- Choose a plan.
- Claim a business number on Starter or Pro.
- Configure AI settings, services, knowledge, and rules before sending live calls.
The full hosted walkthrough lives in the setup guide.
cp .env.example .env
pnpm install
docker compose up -d postgres redis
pnpm db:migrate
pnpm devLocal development stores recordings and uploads under .lobbystack/storage. Set STORAGE_PROVIDER=s3 when you need to test an S3-compatible service.
Mock providers are part of the default development path, so contributors can exercise flows without live Twilio, AI, 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.example .env
# Replace every placeholder before exposing the stack.
docker compose --env-file .env up -d --buildThe stack uses stdout logs and health endpoints without running monitoring containers. Set OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT and OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS to send server telemetry to PostHog or another OTLP-compatible backend.
For 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 durable business logic in the domain/database layers, 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 MIT License.