<!-- ---
description: Additional information and details about the HOPR Chat node app.
--- -->

# HOPR Chat

To get started with HOPR, we'll use the **HOPR Chat node app**, a [REPL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Read%E2%80%93eval%E2%80%93print_loop) proof-of-concept command-line utility the HOPR team has put together to showcase HOPR’s capabilities as a privacy-preserving communication protocol. **HOPR Chat** allows you to communicate anonymously with other users running **HOPR Node** on their machines. Under the hood, **HOPR Chat** runs a **HOPR node** to communicate with other **HOPR** users.

To use **HOPR Chat**, your workstation or device running it requires one of the following pieces of software:

- [Node.js](https://nodejs.org/en/), a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine.
- [Docker](https://www.docker.com/), a containerisation engine able to virtualise any application.

{% hint style="info" %}
Please bear in mind that to run **HOPR Chat** using **Docker** in your computer, you need some minimal hardware virtualization requirements. For most users, we recommend running **HOPR Chat** using Node.js.
{% endhint %}

Follow our quick start guide to learn how to install and use **HOPR Chat** on your system.

![](../../images/hopr-chat-testnet.gif)
