No phone number or email address is required to signup. Similar functionality like Element, but still in an earlier stage of development. Decentralized servers routed through Lokinet.
Reviewed by Marcus Holmberg
Session
getsession.org 4 ratings so far*
Messaging Open SourceE2E encryptedNo accountDecentralizedWindowsmacOSLinuxAndroidiOSFree Switzerland
Rate Session: No account needed
Threat level
Targeted
A targeted-tier tool. Built for a real, capable adversary. Overkill for everyone below. Threat levels
Our take
No phone number and no email at signup is the headline, and for a privacy crowd that genuinely matters. The catch is reach: almost nobody you know already uses it, and onboarding contacts onto an account ID rather than a familiar handle is real work. Pick Session if metadata resistance ranks above convenience and you accept being the one who evangelizes it; if you just want secure chats with normal friends, Signal gets you further faster.
GitHub at a glance
session-foundation/session-android
Stars
796
+ 28 this week
Last commit
11d ago
healthy
License
GPL-3.0
Latest release
1.33.4
3mo ago
Stars, last 31d
Website at a glance
getsession.org
C score 50
Basic website security headers
Graded by Mozilla HTTP Observatory, tested today
Inspect this site yourself
Measures the security configuration of the tool's own website, not the privacy of the product itself. A strong tool can still score low here.
Session alternatives
Signal Similar look and feel of WhatsApp and other commonly used messaging apps, makes switching easy. Signal requires your phone number as an personal identifier.
Delta Chat Delta Chat doesn't have their own servers but uses the most massive and diverse open messaging system ever: the existing e-mail server network. Chat with anyone if you know…
Brave Talk The person creating the call requires to use Brave Browser, but the participants can join from any browser.
Jitsi Meet Desktop version downloads can be found here .
Stoat Open source, self-hostable Discord alternative, formerly Revolt. Built for communities that want off Discord, but it is not end-to-end encrypted.
iMessage Apple's built-in messenger. End-to-end encrypted between Apple devices.
Session license, in plain English
GPL-3.0 Strong copyleft
Free to use and modify, but anything you distribute that is built on it must also be open under the same license.
Permits
- Commercial use
- Modification
- Distribution
- Patent use
- Private use
Requires
- Disclose source
- Same license
- State changes
- License and copyright notice
Does not provide
- Liability cover
- Warranty
Why it matters: Strong copyleft keeps every distributed version open. A vendor cannot fold this into a closed product and ship it without releasing their changes.
Plain-language summary of the project's license, not legal advice. Read the full text for the exact terms.
* Average ratings will show on this page once the threshold of 5 ratings is reached.