| Name |
Decentralized |
Registration requirements |
Client |
Backend |
End-to-end encryption |
Summary |
| Discord |
No |
E-mail, username, date of birth, phone number |
Proprietary (probably better to use website) |
Proprietary |
No |
Needs phone number for account if VPN is used, some servers will require you to verify a phone number through discord directly, refuses end-to-end-encryption for DMs. |
| Facebook Messenger |
No |
E-mail or phone number, first name, last name, date of birth, gender |
Proprietary |
Proprietary |
No |
Made by Meta (Facebook), Avoid. |
| WhatsApp |
No |
Phone number, first name, last name |
Proprietary (use their web app if you are forced to use it) |
Proprietary |
They claim it's end-to-end encrypted |
Owned by Meta (Facebook), Avoid. |
| Telegram |
No |
Phone number, first name |
GPL-2.0 / GPL-3.0 and more |
Proprietary |
They claim some of it's end-to-end encrypted if enabled. |
Cringe. |
| Signal |
No |
Phone number, first name |
AGPL-3.0 / GPL-3.0 |
AGPL-3.0 |
Yes |
Recommended. |
| XMPP |
Yes |
Username |
Many |
Many |
Yes |
Recommended. |
| Matrix |
Yes |
Depends on your homeserver. |
Many |
Many |
Yes |
Recommended but try not using the matrix.org homeserver |
| GNU Jami |
Yes |
None, randomly generated account ID |
GPL-3.0 |
GPL-3.0 |
Yes |
Recommended |
| IRC |
No |
Username |
Many |
Many |
No |
Recommended |
| Tox |
Yes |
None, randomly generated account ID |
Many |
Many |
Yes |
Recommended |
| Session |
Yes |
None, randomly generated account ID |
GPL-3.0 |
GPL-3.0 |
Yes |
Recommended |