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name requires phone number *4 works using only Linux *1 hides IP by default IP address can be hidden with Tor E2EE by default supports E2EE FOSS client requires registration requires payment offline messaging supports disappearing messages *8 supports voice chat screen sharing
Session no yes yes yes yes yes yes no no yes yes (not reliably if used on multiple devices) yes no
SimpleX no yes no *9 yes yes yes yes no no yes ? yes ?
LE CHAT no yes no yes no no yes no no usually not yes no no
qTox no yes no yes yes yes yes no no no ? yes no
Jami no yes no ? yes yes yes no no no no yes yes
Element (Matrix) no yes no yes yes yes yes yes no yes no yes yes
Gajim (XMPP) no yes no yes no yes yes yes no yes ? ? ?
Conversations (XMPP) no ? no yes yes yes yes yes no yes ? yes ?
Mega no yes no yes yes yes source available *7 yes no yes yes yes ?
Teleguard no yes no yes no *10 no *10 no yes no yes no yes ?
Wickr Me / Pro no yes no yes yes yes no yes no yes yes (always enabled) yes ?
Irssi (IRC) no yes no depends on the server no no yes usually, yes no usually not no no no
Mumble no yes no yes no no yes no no no ? yes ?
Email depends on the provider yes no usually, yes no yes *5 depends yes usually not yes no no no
Pixiv no yes no yes *2 no no no yes no yes ? ? no
Facebook yes yes no yes ? ? no yes no yes ? ? ?
Discord yes ? no ? no no no yes no yes ? yes yes
SMS / phone calls yes yes no *6 yes *6 no no depends yes yes yes no yes no
Steam ? ? no ? no no no yes ? yes no yes yes
Telegram yes no *3 no no *3 no yes yes yes no yes yes yes ?
Signal yes no no ? yes yes yes yes no yes yes yes ?
WhatsApp yes no no ? yes yes no yes no yes yes yes ?

Download: CSV, XLSX

*1 Android apps tested with Anbox in a Whonix-like setup. Apps that refused to work like that are considered unusable using only Linux.
*2 Pixiv blocks the IP addresses of Tor exit nodes. An additional hop after the exit node in the form of a proxy or VPN is required.
*3 Account got terminated a few days after creation. It's unclear if the account got terminated because of the use of Anbox, Tor or both.
*4 These tests were all done using a Whonix-like setup. Regular users may not get prompted to hand over their phone number because their residental IP address combined with other fingerprinting data is going to be used to uniquely identify them instead.
*5 Emails have a lot of meta data that will be visible in any case, like the subject line for example.
*6 These results are based on the assumption that one uses a good IP-based provider. Regular phone communication does not use the IP protocol and the user's origin can not be hidden in this case.
*7 The code for MEGA's clients is publicly available and reviewable but most of it is not licensed under a FOSS license.
*8 The term "disappearing messages" here means messages that are guaranteed to be deleted for all participants as long as they don't manually copy them somehow.
*9 The preconfigured SimpleX relays appear to all be controlled by the SimpleX organization along with an optional partner organization. It is possible to host your own relay but it seems as if those relays are only used by users who explicitly configure their clients to do so. The SimpleX network seems to therefore be centralized and SimpleX could log your IPs if they wanted to.
*10 Teleguard's implementation of E2EE appears to be so terrible that for all intents and purposes it might as well not exist at all.

Perfect Dark title font by Brian Kent

Last updated: Mon Jun 15 23:03:12 2026