What is Evolution Go?

Evolution Go is a WhatsApp integration service written in Go that provides programmatic access to WhatsApp through HTTP endpoints. It supports real-time notifications, QR-based authentication, message persistence, and file storage. Operators deploy it as a container or local binary.

Should you self-host Evolution Go?

Evolution Go scores 54/100 on selfhost.directory (how scoring works) and ranks #8 of 14 in Messaging. It has 963 GitHub stars.

It shipped 3 stable releases in the past year. The latest, 0.7.2, came out on 3 July 2026. New versions land roughly every 5 weeks.

Setup is moderate: expect some configuration beyond a single command. An official Docker image is available. It is Other-licensed and written mostly in Go.

Its closest alternative on selfhost.directory is EMQX (78/100, 16 867 stars). It scores higher overall, so compare the two before you pick. See Evolution Go vs EMQX side by side.

How to configure Evolution Go

AMQP_GLOBAL_ENABLEDfalse
AMQP_URLamqp://admin:admin@localhost:5672/defaultAMQP/RabbitMQ connection URL
AMQP/RabbitMQ connection URL
CLIENT_NAMEevolutionClient identifier
Client identifier
CONNECT_ON_STARTUPtrue
DATABASE_SAVE_MESSAGESfalseEnable message storage
Enable message storage
EVOLUTION_OPERATOR_EMAILLicense — headless auto-activation by email. Set this to the email you used in your first manual license registration. On startup, the service will silently call /v1/register/auto and skip the browser flow. Falls back to the manual flow if the email isn't registered yet. Leave empty (or unset) to keep the default behavior (manual registration).
License — headless auto-activation by email. Set this to the email you used in your first manual license registration. On startup, the service will silently call /v1/register/auto and skip the browser flow. Falls back to the manual flow if the email isn't registered yet. Leave empty (or unset) to keep the default behavior (manual registration).
GLOBAL_API_KEYAPI authentication key (Required)
API authentication key (Required)
LOGTYPEconsoleLogging type
Logging type
MINIO_ACCESS_KEY
MINIO_BUCKETevolution-media
MINIO_ENABLEDfalseEnable MinIO for media storage
Enable MinIO for media storage
MINIO_ENDPOINTlocalhost:9000MinIO endpoint
MinIO endpoint
MINIO_SECRET_KEY
MINIO_USE_SSLfalse
OS_NAMEEvolution GO
PASSKEY_PUBLIC_URLPasskey (WebAuthn) pairing — required only for accounts that ask for a passkey when linking a device. Set this to the PUBLIC base URL of THIS API, reachable by the browser where WhatsApp Web opens (the Evolution Passkey Helper extension calls it from the web.whatsapp.com origin). Use a public domain in production, or a tunnel (ngrok/cloudflared) / LAN IP in development — NOT localhost if the brows
Passkey (WebAuthn) pairing — required only for accounts that ask for a passkey when linking a device. Set this to the PUBLIC base URL of THIS API, reachable by the browser where WhatsApp Web opens (the Evolution Passkey Helper extension calls it from the web.whatsapp.com origin). Use a public domain in production, or a tunnel (ngrok/cloudflared) / LAN IP in development — NOT localhost if the brows
POSTGRES_AUTH_DBpostgresql://postgres:root@localhost:5432/evogo_auth?sslmode=disablePostgreSQL database for authentication
PostgreSQL database for authentication
POSTGRES_USERS_DBpostgresql://postgres:root@localhost:5432/evogo_users?sslmode=disablePostgreSQL database for users
PostgreSQL database for users
PROXY_HOST
PROXY_PASSWORD
PROXY_PORT
PROXY_PROTOCOLProxy Configuration PROXY_PROTOCOL can be http, https or socks5. If omitted, it is inferred from the port (1080/2080/42000-43000 → socks5; otherwise http).
Proxy Configuration PROXY_PROTOCOL can be http, https or socks5. If omitted, it is inferred from the port (1080/2080/42000-43000 → socks5; otherwise http).
PROXY_USERNAME
SERVER_PORT8080Server port
Server port
WADEBUGDEBUGWhatsApp debug level
WhatsApp debug level
WEBHOOK_FILEStrue
WEBHOOK_URLWebhook URL for real-time events
Webhook URL for real-time events