What are the best cross-platform FLOSS messengers?

Question

15

Options
Considered

101

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Recs.

3 hrs

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 10 OptionsWhy?

Best cross-platform FLOSS messengers	Price	Platforms	Media
90 Telegram	-	Web, Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, macOS, BSD, Windows phone, UWP	images / video / audio / GIFs / stickers / PiP Video / Videomessages
-- Wire	-	Web iOS Android OSX Windows Linux	images / video / audio / GIFs
-- Riot	-	mac/windows/linux/android	Yes
-- Signal	-	–	–
-- Pidgin	-	Windows, Linux, Mac	Yes

See Full List

9 Other Options Considered

Wire

Top Pro

Open sourced everything

Servers used to be closed source, but this is no longer the case. Proof: https://github.com/wireapp/wire-server See More

cosmo's Experience

The interface is beautiful, and it's easy as hell to set up and get going. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web iOS Android OSX Windows Linux

Media:images / video / audio / GIFs

End-to-end encryption:Yes

Videoconferencing:No

See All Specs

Top Pro

Cross-platform desktop, mobile and web

Wire works on OS X, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, and as a webapp. See More

Top Pro

End to End encrypted with fingerprint verification

Top Pro

Based in Switzerland

Not subject to US government Gag Orders. See More

Top Pro

Inline photos, music and videos

In addition to sharing images inline, Wire integrates with SoundCloud and YouTube to embed music and videos. See More

Top Pro

Clean, modern interface

Top Pro

Federated, decentralized server network

Wire's fully open-source architecture allows anyone to host a server and selectively federate with the rest of the network (including Wire's official servers). In turn, federation allows for decentralization, guaranteeing stable, robust, and uncompromised service beyond even the lifetime of the company. See More

Top Pro

Respects your privacy

Top Pro

Completely free for private use

Check out their pricing. It cannot be cheaper for secure private communication. See More

See All

Riot

Top Pro

Encryption support

Riot allows for fully encrypted text, voice, and video chatting. See More

LoveableAstraeus's Experience

Use it with my whole family for month without problems. See More

Specs

Platforms:mac/windows/linux/android

Media:Yes

Message history:Yes

End-to-end encryption:Yes

See All Specs

Top Pro

Fully open source from the client to the server

Unlike many alternatives, Riot is open source and auditable at every level. See More

DecentEostre's Experience

OpenSource, works on every platform without lags. I can send messahes,files, talk with muy contacta using voip, videocalls See More

Top Pro

Bridges to other networks

You're not confined within Riot's or even Matrix garden, and you don't have to make users of other networks switch to Matrix. See More

cosmo's Experience

Riot has been absolutely lovely for secure group communication, and the recent addition of voice and video has made it my go-to chatting app on desktop and mobile. See More

Top Pro

Supports text, voice, video

Integrates with Jitsi for multi-party video chats See More

Top Pro

Uses Matrix, the open communications protocol

Top Pro

Web and mobile (iOS, Android) versions available

Top Pro

Supports VoIP calls

Top Pro

Rivals Slack in its feature set and accessibility

Riot's expansive feature set and ease of use make it the perfect open-source alternative to Slack. See More

Top Pro

IRC compatible

IRC servers are fully accessible via Riot's interface in addition the the multitude of Matrix networks. See More

Top Pro

Widgets support

Want to watch that flick at YouTube and discuss it at the same time? Have Grafana graphs stacked above your DevOps team chat? Collaboratively edit Google Docs and chat over without switching applications? This is possible with Riot. See More

Top Pro

Very good and simple interface

Riot has a very simple interface, adding the ability for more unexperienced PC-Users to use it. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use setup under Linux

Linux Clients available and own matrix-synapse Server possible under Linux. See More

See All

Signal

Top Pro

Supports encrypted group chats

Top Con

Needs access to your phone number and contacts to work

cosmo's Experience

They did it! Signal open sourced their server software! I'm more than happy to recommend Signal now as it's actually pretty wonderful now with its new and improved feature set. Although, I'm still fairly grumpy about Signal's disdain for decentralized infrastructure. See More

Specs

Open Source:Yes

Top Pro

Provides security and privacy

Signal uses an advanced end to end encryption protocol that provides privacy for every message every time. See More

Top Con

Centralized servers

User data is stored on centralized servers run by the company, making it a massively vulnerable single point of failure. If Signal goes down, so do your messages and your privacy. See More

Peter J. Mello's Experience

So few of us have the deep knowledge of cryptography necessary to gauge when our communications are secure, we have no choice but to select the best such arbiters we can. Signal is the consensus pick of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Edward Snowden, among others, and so this is where I hang my hat. See More

Top Pro

Supports sharing of various different media types

Signal supports: emoji, pictures, videos, audio, contacts, any location and GIF. See More

Top Con

Closed-source server software

Without the ability to audit server code, user security may be trivially compromised. See More

Top Pro

SMS/MMS support

Signal can be your default SMS/MMS text messenger. Encryption is not possible when sending SMS to your contacts, however. See More

Top Con

Uses message mirroring

You phone must be on and connected to the internet for Signal Desktop to work. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Signal is free and open source software, enabling anyone to verify its security by auditing the code. It's the only private messenger that uses open source, peer-reviewed cryptographic protocols to keep your messages safe. See More

Top Con

If SMS/MMS imported, other apps can't read SMS

For those using Join, Pushbullet, or similar apps to send and receive SMS/MMS from web or desktop, putting your SMS in Signal somehow breaks this functionally. The dev is aware but plans to remedy the situation have not been named a priority See More

Top Pro

You can easily view all media exchanged

You can easily view all media shared in the chat without scrolling back to when it was shared. See More

Top Con

Single device

You cannot send and receive messages from multiple devices. See More

Top Pro

Recommended by Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden uses this messenger and recommends it to everyone who is concerned about his privacy. See More

See All

Pidgin

Top Pro

Support for a wide range of additional chat services

Pidgin not only supports IRC, it also supports plenty of other services such as AIM, Google Talk, MSN, ICQ and plenty of others. This way, you can have all of your conversations in the same app and won't have to deal with multiple chat windows being open. See More

Top Con

No native VoIP support

While there are plugins there is no built in support for VoIP in Pidgin which is time consuming to implement instead of being baked in from the jump. See More

Peter J. Mello's Experience

Pidgin isn't the most friendly piece of software to use, the very nature of being a multi-protocol messaging suite leads to some fragmented development issues, but it remains one of the only ways to maintain contact with a large contact list over the increasingly diverse instant messaging ecosystem. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Media:Yes

Message history:Yes

Messaging systems:Many

Top Pro

Highly customisable with plugins

Pidgin not only has a large plugin library built-in, but also an array of third party plugins for a variety of functions. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Pidgin and its code is completely free and open source. Pidgin has no ads and no features behind a paywall. See More

Top Pro

Cross platform

The Pidgin instant messaging client is cross platform, working on Linux, Windows and OSX. See More

Top Pro

Convenient notification features

Like other quality IRC clients, Pidgin features notifications that the user can set in order to have a variety of things happen when the users is mentioned, such as an audio cue or changing the system tray icon. See More

See All

Ricochet

Top Con

Currently experimental

Specs

Platforms:Windows, MAC, Linux

Message history:No

End-to-end encryption:Yes

Messaging systems:Yes

surespot

Platforms:iOS, Android

Media:Yes

End-to-end encryption:Yes

Audio recording:Yes

Cryptocat

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux

Media:Yes

Message history:Yes

End-to-end encryption:Yes

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