Since Bot API 5.0, Telegram made theBot API server open source, allowing you to host your own instance. For details on what benefits hosting your own instance has and how it works, please see theofficial docs.

Bot API 5.0 (and therefore local API server) is supported by PTB since v13.1.

• Before you can move your bot from the official server cloud to a self hosted server, you need to call thelog_out method.
• Before moving from one self hosted instance to another, you need to use thedelete_webhook andclose methods.
• To make PTB aware that you're not using the official server, pass the following to yourApplicationBuilder (orBot):
  • base_url='your-bot-api-server.com/bot'

• When running the server with the--local flag
  • you need to setlocal_mode=True
  • get_file will give you the local file path asfile_path. PTB detects that, so thatawait get_file(…).download_to_drive() just returns the local file string instead of downloading it.
  • you can send files by passing'file:///absolute/path/to/file' instead of an URL or a file handle.
  • passing relative paths (without prefix) or even passingpathlib.Path objects is supported as well, even if you're not running inlocal mode, in which case it will be opened and send via upload as usual.
  • To adjust for larger file sizes transmitted between PTB and the local API server, it may be beneficial to extend the timeout values for networking operations. See the wiki pages onhandling networking errors as well as onadding defaults. Additionally, it may be beneficial to not read the complete file into memory before sending it, but rather stream it. This can be achieved by setting the parameterread_file_handle toFalse. See alsothis wiki page.
• When running the serverwithout the--local flag
  • you need to setbase_file_url='your-bot-api-server.com/file/bot'
  • the Bot API server doesnot automatically serve the files obtained byget_file(), seetelegram-bot-api/#26. So be aware that you have to run a web server which serves them, otherwise you will run into 404 errors.