Over the past two years, Reddit chat has evolved with the help and feedback of redditors around the world.

In that time, we’ve learned that Reddit chat facilitates fascinating discussion and that Reddit communities are a captivating window into humanity, human interests, and needs. Some Reddit communities are large, some are small, but each community on Reddit has its own requirements when it comes to real-time communication.

Today, we’re excited to roll out subreddit and one-to-one chat to all users and communities. Years of testing have proven that these two new features will enhance engagement among redditors individually and within communities, lower the barrier for individual contribution, and speed up the response time for engagement.

Reddit Chat in Our Ecosystem

We know our users and communities want real-time communication, be it through live threads following international headlines in r/worldnews, game threads in r/NBA, or Bachelor watch parties in r/thebachelor.

Subreddit and one-to-one chat allows users to connect, share, ask questions, follow live events, and collaborate in the moment. Subreddit chat also allows moderators to take advantage of and create countless chat rooms within their communities to encourage members to join live conversations on Reddit, for the very first time.

A peek inside a r/BayArea subreddit chat room

How We Built It

We built Reddit chat in partnership with SendBird – who is powering the framework for one-to-one and subreddit chat – and with moderators, users, and community at the heart. We worked closely with moderators to develop moderation and internal safety tools for subreddit chat and collected feedback from users to make it easier for new users to join live conversations — another key benefit of these new chat functions.

The user interface for one-to-one chat and subreddit chat

How Chat Works

Using intuitive prompts in the chat user interface, moderators can set up private chat rooms within their communities, invite additional members to participate, and even start public chats for all.

To try one-to-one chat, users simply hover over a username and select the “start chat” button to initiate a chat, to which the other user can accept or decline and preview the message before responding. To try subreddit chat, mobile users can click to join via the top tab labeled “Room” in a subreddit and desktop users can click to join via the subreddit sidebar labeled “Chat Rooms”.

Examples of how to join chat rooms displayed on the sidebar of a subreddit and the “start chat” prompt when hovering over another username

What’s Next

As you read this, Reddit one-to-one and subreddit chat are live and available to all communities and users. So look for a chat room in your favorite subreddit, send a fellow redditor a friendly message, and let us know what you think!

For more details on Reddit chat functions, including icons, inviting others, how to accept or decline invites and more, check out our help center, our FAQ, and r/subchats.