This is a private chat service I run myself, on a computer in my own home — not a company's servers. Here's what that actually means for you, in plain terms.
🚀 Getting started
Signups aren't open to the public — accounts are by personal invite only, so it stays just family and close friends. The flow is simple:
1. Read this page — you're already here.
2. Get a personal invite link — from me, or from anyone else already on here. Current members are free to invite friends of their own, as long as whoever's joining has read and agreed to this page first.
3. Open the link, pick a username, install an app from the list further down — you'll be chatting in a couple of minutes.
4. If privacy matters to you, pick an app that supports end-to-end encryption (OMEMO) — Conversations on Android, or Monal on iOS/Mac both handle it well. See the fuller list below for other options.
💬 What is this?
message.mahju.nu runs on Snikket, an open-source, privacy-focused chat app built on XMPP — a messaging standard that's been around since 2004 (older than most apps you've used) and isn't owned by any one company. I'm running my own private instance of it, at home, mainly for family and close friends who'd like an alternative to WhatsApp, Messenger, or similar.
You get text chat, group chats, voice and video calls, photo/file sharing, and it works across your phone and computer at once.
🔒 Where does my data actually go?
Everything runs on a small computer in my home — not Meta's, not Google's, not any cloud company's. Specifically:
In transit: every connection — your app to the server, and the server to anyone else's server — is encrypted (TLS), the same baseline protection your bank's website uses.
Message content: can be end-to-end encrypted (OMEMO) so that even the server itself can't read the content — I'd encourage turning this on in your app's settings for anything sensitive. When it's on, not even I can read your messages.
What I can technically see: like any server operator, some metadata passes through — who's messaging whom, roughly when, and message content for any chat where end-to-end encryption isn't turned on. I'm not looking, but I want to be upfront that it's technically possible, rather than pretend otherwise.
At rest: the underlying disk isn't currently using full-disk encryption (I'm working on this). If that matters to you, ask me for a status update any time.
🌐 What if you ran your own server instead?
You could — and you could still talk to everyone here. XMPP (what this runs on) works like email, not like WhatsApp: it's federated, not a walled garden. If you set up your own server somewhere else, you'd get your own address on it, and you could add me or anyone else here as a contact directly — no account on this server needed, same as emailing someone at a different provider than yours.
Where things end up storage-wise follows the email comparison too, and it's worth knowing: it's symmetric. For a one-on-one chat between your account and someone here, this server keeps that person's side of the conversation, and your own server would keep yours — neither of us would be storing the whole thing. (With end-to-end encryption turned on, this is mostly moot anyway, since neither server could read the content either way.) Group chats work a little differently: since any group gets created on whichever server hosts it, a group made here keeps its full history here, including messages from anyone who joins in from their own separate server.
🗑️ Can I delete my data?
Yes. Message history is automatically cleared from the server on a regular schedule — it's not kept forever. If you ever want your account and everything tied to it removed entirely, just tell me and I'll delete it directly — you don't need to figure out a settings menu to make that happen.
⚠️ A few honest differences from WhatsApp
This isn't a drop-in replacement for big-tech chat apps — some conveniences you're used to aren't there (yet), and it's worth knowing that going in rather than being surprised:
No editing or deleting sent messages in the official Snikket app right now — double-check before you hit send. (A couple of alternative apps support editing — see below.)
No phone number required — actually a plus for privacy, but it does mean people find each other by username, not by being in your contacts.
This is a hobby project I maintain myself, not a company with a 24/7 support team or a guaranteed uptime promise. I keep backups and monitor it, but the occasional hiccup is more likely than with WhatsApp.
Want message editing? Once you've created your account, you can log into it from a different app too — the same account works in multiple apps at once. Conversations (Android) supports editing sent messages; on iOS/Mac, Monal is a solid option. Neither currently supports true message deletion — that's a gap across pretty much every XMPP app right now, not just this one.
📱 Getting the app
Snikket (recommended to start)Friendliest setup, made for this exact service. Android · iOS · F-Droid
ConversationsMore features, including message editing. Android · F-Droid
MonalGood alternative for Apple devices. iOS · macOS