Alternative to Whatsapp? (thelemmy.club)

submitted 2 days ago by Hell_nah_brother@thelemmy.club to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk

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Hello, I’m doing some research for my family and friends to help them navigate the tech space and recommend them some better privacy focused alternatives. I’ve been stuck with the most important piece: instant messaging.

Ideally I would like something:

decentralised
Foss
Possibly not tied to phone number
Encrypted
Not funded by an US or Israeli company
Fairly easy to use by not tech people

If I manage to convince them, I can’t make them change in a year or so, the alternative needs to be future-proof.

Signal: is Foss (not completely) but not decentralised (one “wrong” update and we are back to square one) + very much american funded
Matrix: foss and decentralised but funded by an Israeli company (sorry I really can’t)
Telegram: phone number registration, not fully encrypted, server proprietary
Theema: server side not open source
IRC: no video/audio calls, not encrypted

That leaves me with SimpleX and XMPP, I think (I don’t know much about them). What do you guys use/recommend?

I’m reading [this wiki page].(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instant_messaging_protocols?wprov=sfti1#Table_of_instant_messaging_protocols)

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[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

https://www.messenger-matrix.de/messenger-matrix-en.html

Unfortunately I had quite some battery drain with SimpleX on Android, so unless that's fixed by now, I'd recommend XMPP out of your list. But have a look at the messenger-matrix as well. They mostly include technical aspects, though. Not relations with countries. I use Matrix. And Signal for the friends willing to leave WhatsApp behind. But neither of those are perfect at all. I'm regularly having all kinds of small little technical annoyances with Matrix these days, and Signal needs a phone number, which I don't like at all.

this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2025

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