Delta Chat

Reminder: There are no accounts in the classic sense anywhere with #chatmail or #deltachat.

It's all private profiles on end user devices which co-ordinate in a #p2p fashion. Chat profiles *use* email (relay) addresses for transporting messages through a federated e2ee-restricted SMTP network.

A chat profile or chat group has zero data on the server. It's radically different from classic email servers, Whatsapp, Signal, XMPP and Matrix servers which host and control chat identity.

We don't think any institution or state has the right to prevent families and friends from private chatting, physically or digitally. But the Cyber Authority China (CaC) seems to take offense:

• they made Apple remove #deltachat iOS for mainland china

• their great firewall appears to block some #chatmail relays

• if you ask DeepSeek directly about Delta Chat, it doesn't want to talk

It's pretty sad, really. Everybody on this planet needs, and has a human right to private communication.

Good news among the bad news!

If the recent #0day attacks against Linux kernel+servers were launched against #chatmail relays, privacy of chatting with #deltachat is preserved. Why? Because we already assume the server could be actively hostile, and still not read or see any avatar, names or messages.

Since the March 2.48 zero-metadata releases relays/servers do not see cryptographic identities, and get no chance to launch "machine-in-the-middle" (MITM) attacks.

https://delta.chat/en/2026-03-31-zero

RE: @stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe

The world-wide #chatmail relay network is growing in various wonderful ways. #freebsd joined the world-wide federated secure communication party and BSD cafe offers a public relay at https://chatmail.bsd.cafe :) Thanks @stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe @feld@friedcheese.us and @outofcreativity@exquisite.social !

next #deltachat #ios version is coming with #liquidglass 🥛 thanks Amzd for the work. though frustrating being forced by #bigtech to do things that may not be loved and feel superfluous, it's wanted by many meanwhile.

there are still some things to tweak, we created an issue at https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-ios/issues/3157 . on-point help is welcome - and already ongoing thanks to some new contributors ❤️

What do you think is unique about the #deltachat project in the realm of secure cross-platform messaging?

You tell us :)

@tael@yiff.life

we can't offer a full comparison but here are three key points:

1. Tox is not a cross-platform user offering like #deltachat, but more an infrastructure library like https://github.com/chatmail/core

2. Tox can only transfer messages between contacts who are online at the same time. complicates mobile usage.

3. Tox depends on a global distributed hash table (DHT) to find other contacts; doesn't work in highly restricted networks like during national internet shutdowns/larger failures etc.

@alienghic@timeloop.cafe yes, and yes. that's what the smtp/email relay network is used for:

1. Peers don't need to be online at the same time at all. And multiple devices are consistently synchronized.

2. Each device is equal to other devices. If your first device dies, the second device will be just fine, and you can setup a another third from it.