Signal
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2025
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second this. afaik signal is the best option right now for most people and the one i use, and also managed to get some friends, family and even coworkers (which was nice of them, even tho i guess it was easier for them to install signal and center our workplace communication there than to get me to reinstall fucking whatsapp) to switch to, alongside my SO.
Element is just one of many clients I find fluffy chat much more user friendly
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Signal is the most user-friendly option so far, which is also expected, given it's also one of the oldest one of those.
Simplex is also a good-ish option, but somewhat rough around the edges; the biggest benefit is, one doesn't need a phone number or e-mail to start chatting.
Matrix is questionable: it's quite feature-rich, but lacks solid android clients (IMO, fluffychat is among the best so far, yet when I last used it, it didn't handle stickers/custom emojis all that well, for example); as for the desktop/web clients cinny is a godsend due to allowing importing/exporting encryption keys manually, which just works all the time.
I have an unfederated XMPP server (running Prosody), family's using Conversations (Android) & Dino (Linux) with it. We can chat, send images, do voice & video calls. Has been working fine & reliably for the past ~6 years or so. Took about 1.5 minutes for them to get used to the clients.
I'm slowly opening it up for friends too, so friends, neighbours, classmates, etc can chat with us too. It's going great so far, no complaints.
I've managed to screw up every self-hosted service whenever I've made an update, edit a config file or just by looking at it. But my Prosody XMPP server? It's rock solid. That thing never fails, for years and years.
i just wish there was a prosody docker that allows for all the tweaks and addons. snikket was relatively simple to get going, but they don't provide a lot of info for adjustments
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Signal is probably your best bet but it's only mostly open source. Element/Matrix is another good option if open source is your concern.
Element can be a bit unreliable when it comes to matrix features, I recommend cinny instead
how so? Im looking for a matrix client thst has easy onboarding for family & friends with encrypted calls and encrypted messaging by default
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Signal is super user friendly. All my normie friends use it. Not super in the spirit of foss as it's not meant to be self hosted—which imo makes the server practically proprietary/source available. (ik people self host it anyway, but it's not supported and Signal don't like people self hosting or even making custom clients.) SimpleX is good too but not as polished as Signal.
Has an onboarding wizard, includes text, voice and video calling, OMEMO encryption, group chats etc.
But more importantly, what have you tried and why didn't they work for you?
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by "FOSS" you mean compatible with the core values of free/libre software?
This rules out Signal because: 1/ some of its server software is proprietary 2/ they dont allow you to communicate with "their" users if you want to run the server software yourself 3/ the prevented authors of free/libre software in the past to distribute their software (find a fdroid/signal thread) 4/ in practice they channel their users through their centralized servers hosted on AWS
(and that's without evoking their questionable funding, and long lasting commitment to make all their users identifiable through phone number, 10+y after US generals declared "we kill people based on metadata"....)
Simplex seems to me like the one really ticking all the boxes.
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Signal is easy and straightforward to use
Fluffychat (matrix), Deltachat seem really good but good luck getting anyone to change. Let us know if you figure out a way to persuade people they should make any effort or try something new.
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Most of the options listed are easy to use. The difficult part is getting enough users to adopt the new system initially to motivate the rest to migrate as well.
You're asking for a literal unicorn. I haven't found one after years of searching.
What's hard about signal? It's easy to use, my friends and family aren't tech savvy and they were using it in minutes and it has stuck ever since.
I don't consider it a "chat app" since it requires your phone number as an identifier. It has always been the equivalent of a texting app.
I don't consider anything that's phone-first as a chat app. A chat app should be platform agnostic/available for all platforms. You can only get a desktop app for Signal by connecting it to your phone app.
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