A modern alternative to IRC or Discord. Good for team chats and groups.
Element
Encrypted Hosted Self-Hosted Win Android iOS Mac Linux Bitcoin United Kingdom
Official website element.io
Our take
If you want a self-hostable team chat you actually control, Element on Matrix is the strongest open option here, closer to a Slack replacement than a Signal one. The honest cost is operational: running your own homeserver is a real commitment, and on hosted servers the metadata story is weaker than the encryption marketing suggests. Best for groups and organizations willing to administer it, overkill for one-to-one private chats.
GitHub at a glance
element-hq/element-web
Stars
13,221
+ 31 this week
Last commit
today
healthy
License
AGPL-3.0
Latest release
v1.12.21
9d ago
Stars, last 8d
Listed in
Element alternatives
Signal Similar look and feel of WhatsApp and other commonly used messaging apps, makes switching easy. Signal requires your phone number as an personal identifier.
SimpleX Chat Decentralized messenger that assigns no identifier to users, not even a random number. Contacts are established via one-time invite links or QR codes, with all data stored on-device only.
Session No phone number or email address is required to signup. Similar functionality like Element, but still in an earlier stage of development. Decentralized servers routed through…
Status No phone number or email address is required to signup. Uses the peer-to-peer (p2p) messaging protocol Waku that removes centralized third parties from messages.
Threema No native desktop apps available yet, but there is a web version for your browser. No phone number is required to signup but there is a payment involved to get the app.…
Molly Hardened fork of Signal for Android that adds an encrypted local database, automatic RAM wiping on lock, and Tor/SOCKS proxy support via Orbot. Ships in two variants: one with FCM push and one fully FOSS without Google.
Element license, in plain English
AGPL-3.0 Strong copyleft · network
Free to use, even commercially. Changes must be published under the same license, and running a modified version as a network service counts as distributing it.
Permits
- Commercial use
- Modification
- Distribution
- Patent use
- Private use
Requires
- Disclose source
- Network use is distribution
- Same license
- State changes
- License and copyright notice
Does not provide
- Liability cover
- Warranty
Why it matters: The network clause is the point. Anyone who runs a modified version as a hosted service has to publish those changes, so the code handling your data stays inspectable. This is why privacy-first projects reach for AGPL.
Plain-language summary of the project's license, not legal advice. Read the full text for the exact terms.