# Communities

Communities are large-scale chats that can host hundreds or thousands of users at a time. Each community runs on an individual community-operated server, called a Session Open Group Server (SOGS). 

By storing messages on specialized SOGS (instead of on the Session Network), Communities are able to efficiently process chats with very large numbers of participants. 

Communities are commonly used to host conversations relating to specific interests or theme.

Although anyone can download and run the SOGS software, some technical expertise and resources are required to run your own server and set-up your own Community.

<table data-view="cards"><thead><tr><th></th><th data-hidden data-card-target data-type="content-ref"></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>How to setup a Session Open Group Server (SOGS)</strong></td><td><a href="/pages/4jPhAGpNnzCNJdZKyxVO">/pages/4jPhAGpNnzCNJdZKyxVO</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Creating a read-only channel using SOGS</strong></td><td><a href="/pages/M6U3malJkGt6eW7oyCfp">/pages/M6U3malJkGt6eW7oyCfp</a></td></tr></tbody></table>


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.getsession.org/readme/advanced-features/communities.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.