About

About

Building the digital infrastructure Québec deserves.

Technologies Shelter-Bay inc., a two-founder Québec corporation, built Béluga because Québec deserves a collaborative suite worthy of its digital-sovereignty ambitions: complete, modern, French-first, hosted here — on servers we own.

What we believe

Server location is not enough: what matters is who owns them and which law applies. The U.S. giants' "Canadian regions" remain subject to the CLOUD Act. Loi 25 set the legal framework; what was missing was an offer from here. Béluga is that offer.

How we work

  • Sovereignty first, never as a paid option: the free plan is hosted on the same Québec infrastructure as the Entreprise plan.
  • Open-source foundations: Postfix, Matrix, LiveKit, MinIO, Keycloak — proven components we integrate and operate ourselves.
  • Native Québec French, not a late translation of "French (France)".
  • Transparency: we are in open beta, and we say plainly what is ready and what is not.
Technology

The stack behind Béluga.

Each Béluga module rests on a well-known open-source component — auditable and replaceable. Integration, operations and security are our work.

Application core

Django (Python) and PostgreSQL 16, with Redis for caching and background jobs. Next.js + React + TypeScript frontend, bilingual FR-CA / EN-CA.

Specialized modules

  • Mail: Postfix (SMTP) + Dovecot (IMAP) + Rspamd (anti-spam), guided DKIM/SPF/DMARC
  • Docs: Hocuspocus + Y.js (CRDT) + BlockNote — conflict-free real-time co-editing
  • Files: MinIO (S3 object storage), versioning and full-text search
  • Meet: LiveKit (WebRTC) + LiveKit Egress (recording)
  • Convo: Matrix/Synapse, end-to-end encrypted by default, isolated per organization
  • Calendar and Contacts: Radicale for CalDAV/CardDAV, wired to our data

Infrastructure

Bare-metal servers we own, in Québec — no third-party cloud provider. K3s orchestration, a dedicated edge gateway with an application firewall, administration reachable only over VPN. Daily encrypted backups with point-in-time recovery, off-site copy in Québec.

Authentication

Keycloak 26 (OIDC + PKCE): Béluga never stores your password. 2FA via codes or passkeys (Face ID, Touch ID, hardware keys), per-organization security policies.