Why I built Telebugs

Hey there,

I’m Kyrylo Silin, the guy behind Telebugs. Let me tell you how this whole thing came about.

Back in 2024, I launched Telebugs as a SaaS product. The idea was to mix error tracking with Telegram notifications — hence the name Telebugs. But, honestly, it flopped. People just weren’t into it.

Around that time, I stumbled across 37signals’ once.com, which was all about paying once for software and hosting it yourself. It was a total lightbulb moment. I was already fed up with the SaaS grind, and this felt like a breath of fresh air.

Still, I was stuck working on the SaaS version, so I kept at it. But that “pay once” idea wouldn’t leave me alone — it kept nagging at me.

Then it clicked: why not bring this to error tracking? I’ve been knee-deep in error tracking for nearly a decade, from interning at Bugsnag to spending most of my career at Airbrake. I’ve got this stuff down pat.

Here’s the thing: most error tracking tools are subscription-based, and your data ends up on someone else’s server. For solo devs and small teams who value privacy and hate endless fees, that’s a dealbreaker.

So, I thought, let’s flip the script. I built a self-hosted version of Telebugs. You pay once, host it yourself, and keep your data locked down — no tech giants owning it. Simple as that.

And that’s how Telebugs was born.