A state of messaging apps in late 2020

• Occasionally I checkout the latest messaging apps for fun.
• Over the years I have tried pretty much every app that looks usable.
• I may include a few apps/services which aren’t strictly IM (Instant Messaging) apps.
• There is quite a wide breadth of alternative messaging apps many may not be aware of.

Common

• WhatsApp - WhatsApp Web is great.
  • Open Whisper Systems partners with WhatsApp to provide end-to-end encryption
  • WhatsApp’s Signal Protocol integration is now complete
  • > Media and messages you back up aren’t protected by WhatsApp end-to-end encryption while in iCloud.
  • > Media and messages you back up aren’t protected by WhatsApp end-to-end encryption while in Google Drive.
• WeChat - More commonly used in Asia.
• SMS/MMS - It’s a useful backup.
• Email - Probably hit its peak a long time ago, now becoming outdated.
• Skype
  • Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype
• Facebook Messenger
  • Facebook Messenger deploys Signal Protocol for end-to-end encryption
• Snapchat - False sense of privacy.
• Kik
• Viber
• LINE
• iMessage - Apple specific.
• Android Messages - Android specific.
  • Google is rolling out end-to-end encryption for RCS in Android Messages beta
• Steam chat - Steam specific.
• Xbox Live - Xbox specific.
• PSN aka PlayStation Messages - PSN specific.

Common team chats

• House party
• Zoom
• Webex
• Microsoft Teams - Typing latency but decent VOIP.
• Google Meets
• Google Hangouts
  • Could also mention Google Allo and Google Duo.
  • Open Whisper Systems partners with Google on end-to-end encryption for Allo
• Slack - The VOIP sucks but chat is great.
• Gitter - Specific to OSS development for the most part.
• Discord - Also implements a half decent VOIP. Although it’s webRTC based which can cause issues with routing.
  • Discord message encryption plugin - SimpleDiscordCrypt

Early IM

• IRC
• ICQ
• AIM
• Yahoo Messenger
• Pidgin/Libpurple
• MSN Messenger aka Windows Live Messenger
• eBuddy

Early VOIP

• Mumble - Open source and self hosted.
• TeamSpeak - You can host your own secure server, the only downside is the text chat is basic and it’s not open source.
• Asterisk - Great VOIP software but has a bit of a learning curve unless using FreePBX.

Decentralised focused team chats

• Riot.im aka Matrix aka Element.io - They boast a huge selection of bridges/connectors which allow you to link various chat systems.
• rocket.chat - Self hosted Discord/Slack alternative.
• Jami
• Mattermost
• Jitsi - Open source Zoom alternative.
• Zulip

Privacy focused

• Signal - Probably the forerunner in this category.
• Silence.im - Fork of Signal focusing on SMS and no Google push service dependency.
• FireChat - Mesh networking.
• Briar - A modern version of FireChat imo.
• Telegram
• BCM - Blockchain messenger.
• DeltaChat - IM style PGP email.
  • Uses Signal’s user interface classes so looks similar.
  • Does Delta Chat support end-to-end-encryption?
  • > Delta Chat implements the Autocrypt Level 1 standard
• Session - Very cool as it only requires a GUID to chat, although their servers had uptime issues.
• Keybase - The social network for PGP key owners.
  • Keybase Crypto Documents - saltpack
  • saltpack GitHub repo
• Tox - Not tested.
• PGP/GPG email - A classic but rather involved setup email encryption solution.
  • SKS poisoning, keys.openpgp.org / Hagrid and other non-solutions
  • SKS Keyserver Network Under Attack
• Wire - Not tested.
• Threema - Not tested.