This page's content is a modified version from the beparanoid.de website. It has been altered in some parts by me (I'm not the original creator). If you want to see the original content you can see it
HERE. femboy.hu "alternatives" page was also used here.This also means that this might be very outdated as it was written some years ago! I'll update it here and there, but it might not be as good as it originally was.
- Dani
If you want something modern with multimedia, screenshare, VC and encryption use Matrix with the Element client, if you don’t like electron use nheko
| Name | Decentralized | Federated | Client | Backend | End-to-end encryption | Summary |
| Discord | No | No | Proprietary (use their web app if you are forced to use it) | Proprietary | No | If you sing up from TOR it will ask you for your mobile number. Spyware for the cattle, avoid it at all cost. |
| Facebook Messenger | No | No | Proprietary (use their web app if you are forced to use it) | Proprietary | No | Made by Facebook, avoid it at all cost. |
| No | No | Proprietary | Proprietary | They claim it's end-to-end encrypted | Made by Facebook, avoid it at all cost. | |
| Telegram | No | No | GPL-2.0 / GPL-3.0 and more | Proprietary | They claim it's end-to-end encrypted | Avoid it |
| Signal | No | No | AGPL-3.0 / GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 | Yes | Recommended |
| XMPP | Yes | Yes | Many | Many | Yes | Recommended |
| Matrix | Yes | Yes | Many | Many | Yes | Recommended but avoid using the matrix.org homeserver |
| GNU Jami | Yes | No | GPL-3.0 | It's P2P | Yes | Recommended |
| IRC | No | No | Many | Many | No | Recommended |