Alternatives to WhatsApp

Everyone uses WhatsApp. That's the main problem: moving your conversations to an alternative app means convincing the people you talk to as well. It's not easy, but it's possible — and it's worth it.

Since WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook (now Meta) in 2014, the privacy situation has changed dramatically. The metadata from your conversations is shared across Meta's entire ecosystem: who you talk to, when, how often, from where. Even if the content of your messages is encrypted, this information reveals a great deal about your life.

Alternatives fall into two categories. There are centralised apps like Signal, which work similarly to WhatsApp but with a far stricter privacy policy. And then there are federated apps, where there's no single central server but instead a network of independent servers that communicate with each other. Matrix and XMPP are the best-known protocols in this second category.

Federated apps have one enormous advantage: no single company controls the entire network. If the server you use shuts down, you can move to another one without losing the ability to communicate with your contacts. It's the same principle that makes email work across different providers.

Here's our recommendation: start by installing Signal and proposing it to your closest friends. For more technical communities and group chats, consider Matrix or XMPP. You don't need to abandon WhatsApp overnight, but having an alternative ready is already a meaningful first step.