Messaging Without Internet

There are broadly two distinct good reasons to want to communicate without the internet. The first is resilience: an earthquake, a power cut, a zone with no signal, or a Purple Tentacle trying to take over the world. In these cases you need tools that build their own local network — Bluetooth mesh, LoRa, direct Wi-Fi. The second is resistance: censorship, surveillance, monitored networks. Here what matters most is robust encryption and traffic anonymity.

Different tools for different threats. Meshtastic covers kilometres but requires dedicated hardware, and the default channel is not private. Briar is reliable and audited, works over Tor too, but is Android-only and has been in maintenance mode since 2026. Bitchat is zero-configuration but still a young project without an audit. Berty is promising but still in active development and without an audit.