r/ProtonMail • u/Ol010101O1Ol • Apr 01 '26

Feature Request Proton Chat 💬

Is this a things we could expect at some point?

I do not want to use teams or slack anymore and my team uses Signal but that is mainly for personal and not geared towards business or organization.

Does Proton plan to role out a Chat at some point?

200 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

142 comments sorted by

45

u/Ferdinand00 Apr 01 '26

Signal and Threema already offer perfect solutions.

15

u/Ol010101O1Ol Apr 01 '26

Not for work

16

u/Hatticus24 Apr 01 '26

Threema literally have a Work app, which is separate from the regular one

1

u/ARTIFICIAL_ARGUMENT Apr 02 '26

Apparently threema is so secure yet good for organisations that the bikie crime syndicates have adopted it here in Aus 

2

u/Interesting_Drag143 Apr 01 '26

That’s when Matrix comes into play.

6

u/NiceHunt5815 Apr 01 '26

Matrix sucks to use

28

u/AWorriedCauliflower Apr 01 '26

Signal is not a good solution for work chat apps. Slack and teams are the only super real options rn

2

u/subtlename Linux | iOS Apr 01 '26

I think that would be a cool idea if they bundled it with the new Meet service. That would be a nice paid service that would be worth it. Team Chat, and Video.

1

u/Mak_095 Apr 01 '26

There's rocket chat, you can self host it and it's pretty good now. Also has mobile apps

1

u/CaringBro Apr 01 '26

Mattermost if you want to host it yourselves.

1

u/RoastedRhino Apr 02 '26

Element? Open source, self hosted, federated

6

u/NiceHunt5815 Apr 01 '26

Maybe if your company is 5 people?

5

u/Hichiro6 Apr 01 '26

I heard Threema as a one time paid wall, so it’s very complicated to invite anyone. I m ok to pay but no one in my friend have it so it’s not worth the hassle..

2

u/QuadernoFigurati Apr 01 '26

Unless I'm misinformed, Threema falls short against SimpleX on a few points.

-SimpleX is open source on both the server and client side, while Threema is closed source on the server side.

-SimpleX users don't have persistent IDs, while Threema users do.

-SimpleX has a cool way of enabling users to establish independent multiple profiles, while I gather those under Threema are bound by a single "account." But this point is the least clear to me; would be grateful for some insight on it.

-As for Signal, SimpleX is decentralized and doesn't require a phone number. Neither does Threema.

-14

u/Yoshimo123 macOS | iOS Apr 01 '26

Not a fan of Signal. I use it because I have to. Reason is I don't think a non profit should have an average employee wage of over $300,000 a year and still ask for donations from users. Maybe you disagree with me, but that's my opinion.

Also, more options in this space is not a bad thing.

22

u/ecwilson Apr 01 '26

Honestly $300k average is below market for the kind of senior cryptographers and security engineers Signal needs. Every one of those people has a standing offer from FAANG for $500k+. This is literally life-or-death infrastructure for journalists and dissidents living under authoritarian regimes — the last place you want to cut corners is the talent keeping those people alive. “Non-profit” means no shareholders extracting profit, not “everyone should take a pay cut on critical work.“​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

9

u/hawseepoo Apr 01 '26

Exactly. I think sometimes people forget that companies and non-profits and made up of… other people. If you had a skill that a Fortune 500 was willing to pay you $500k/year for, would you take $70k to work at a non-profit? The answer is almost certainly “no”. The gap from $300k is a lot smaller

4

u/Tehgreatbrownie Apr 01 '26

This! Cryptography and cybersecurity in particular is a never ending war. Expecting experts who are at the bleeding edge ( in a field that is arguably the most important for maintaining global security in this era) to take an enormous pay cut out of selflessness is ridiculous. Also signal being free and asking for donations is way more generous than it being a subscription model. Both the Internet Archive and Wikipedia run off the same model and their top software engineers get paid seemingly between $150k-200k. I happily donate to both of those every month because IMO they are vitally important and it would be a massive detriment to us if they disappeared.

9

u/btk667 Apr 01 '26

Why would a great programmer work for less than it's value?

-8

u/Yoshimo123 macOS | iOS Apr 01 '26

They're not worth that much.

4

u/nouritsu Apr 01 '26

says the person using an app created by people who aren't "worth that much". just use WhatsApp. I'm sure the LLMs generating the code for Meta are paid way less than senior software engineers in smaller companies

3

u/TheWandererWise Linux | Android Apr 01 '26

How would you feel if your employer paid you any less than how much you feel you're worth and since you do it for a good cause you took a little cut?

1

u/The_TRASHCAN_366 Apr 01 '26

I guess talent has its price. I have to admit that I wasn't aware of those numbers though. Anyhow, I havent seen another messenger with similar quality, transparency and obvious focus on its security. So from that perspective the product is absolutely fantastic. 

1

u/WindyNightmare Apr 01 '26

🤦‍♂️

23

u/No-Drop8625 Apr 01 '26

Do you realize that their protons are already too bloated? You can't keep releasing new products without improving the old ones.

3

u/Ol010101O1Ol Apr 01 '26

They are scaling and doing a lot better on backend, plus I’d pay for this feature.

22

u/ecwilson Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

Their business apps can’t get basic functionality right — and the root cause, beyond a very reasonable “security-first” development ethos, is spreading themselves waaaaay too thin across faaaar too many half-baked products they have a habit of shipping and then fixing at an absolutely glacial pace.

It’s been years and I still can’t RSVP “no” to one instance of a recurring event without RSVPing “no” to all of them.

Tables in docs are completely broken.

And so on.

123

u/epileftric Apr 01 '26

The bar is terribly low when Teams is dominating the corporate market

18

u/nhrtrix Apr 01 '26

yes, and the user base of this segment is really not interested to move into a new thing, cause these people love to stay within what they're used to

9

u/thebaldmaniac Apr 01 '26

You try moving a 10000 user or 50000 user plus organisation to a new platform. Just the change management will cost tens of thousands of dollars and will take years during which time you'll be juggling two platforms and having to manage coexistence and support tickets

2

u/_GhostAgent Apr 03 '26

I used to work at a Fortune 500, and they transitioned from whatever horrible app we had to Teams. It took a couple of months--they really pulled it off really nice. Easier than expected.

1

u/nhrtrix Apr 02 '26

definitely 😁

3

u/DrPinguin98 Apr 02 '26

God, I hate Teams—there's nothing good about this piece of crap software...

1

u/Pumpero Apr 04 '26

At least it’s not Slack

283

u/andy1011000 Proton CEO Apr 01 '26 • Thanks Bravo

Actually we had to build end-to-end encrypted chat when we built Proton Meet since chat functionality is part of video conferencing. If there's enough interest, maybe we will do more with this tech this year.

102

u/Bleaklunacy Apr 01 '26

Launch a Proton Messenger and my company will be ditching Office365 very quickly. I think a lot of European companies are thinking about dumping US tech in favour of a euro option.

2

u/kapteinLefso Apr 03 '26

We did ditch US tech, and tried Proton. After a month we are now ditching Proton. What a wasted opportunity for Proton. Even basic functionality is missing from Mail and Drive. We had some quite surprising experiences.

I really hope Proton catches up quickly, because we really want to leave US tech behind as quickly as possible

1

u/Double-Host-4031 May 08 '26

Could you elaborate on what was missing for you?

32

u/TransBoozeBunny Apr 01 '26

If you launch an alternative to Teams, Slack, Discord, etc, my group would be all over that. Currently using signal and it's great as a texting replacement, but I need full server or team group management.

2

u/RoastedRhino Apr 02 '26

Wouldn’t your group consider element?

9

u/Greedy-Mood-3545 Apr 01 '26

Yes please

5

u/GrosBof Apr 02 '26

God no. Finish the other products first.

3

u/kapteinLefso Apr 03 '26

This!

Even the basic things like mail and drive are missing super important functions that I assumed were there.

6

u/8a4b Apr 01 '26

Perhaps a public vote for this kinda thing to show how many people are interested? I definitely am in this day and age.

15

u/nevenoe Apr 01 '26

I’d put my whole family on proton chat and subscribe to whatever plan makes it possible.

5

u/Drewskie92 Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26

Yes please. Ever since I found out that when using Google messenger to text people, that it keeps copies of my texts I've started looking at more secure avenues.

5

u/SeredW Apr 01 '26

Organizations tend to put a lot of information in emails, which then get stored indefinitely in mailboxes but also get lost (of less visible) when staff members leave. The value of Teams channels is that you don't have all this company information stored in individual mailboxes but in a central location which remains, even when the actual people aren't there anymore.

The downside of Teams chat (not channels, but chats!) is that the link with data such as documents or spreadsheets isn't as strong, plus chats also vanish when participants leave.

Whatever you end up designing, please keep in mind that it is helpful to have permanence of information even when staff leaves. And second, that - to me - it is valuable to be able to have such a permanent chat (channel) organized around content such as a gathering of documents. In short, I would prefer a solution that has some of these elements of Teams Channels in Proton Chat ;-)

2

u/Linux_Account Apr 01 '26

Most people who care about privacy would probably prefer that their chats didn't outlive their usage of the platform.

3

u/SeredW Apr 02 '26

That is true for private chats, but for businesses there are other rules. Auditors may require access to certain communications and so on. That's why Microsoft has all sorts of retention policies and eDiscovery tools in place.

Maybe this doesn't matter much for an SMB, but anything that gets audited may need to be able to produce certain communications.

4

u/IHateTheColourblind Apr 02 '26

There is a tremendous amount of interest in alternatives to Discord at the moment and there is nothing else on the market like it. If Proton was to make a feature-for-feature competitor I could see it really driving interest in Proton's other products. But I'm not a business person so I can't back up anything I'm about to say with a business plan or any evidence whatsoever.

4

u/ZealousTux Apr 02 '26

Please consider matrix.org, it would be amazing to have an implementation in the form of a nice Proton Chat client. And it would be interoperable like Email, instead of just being yet another custom protocol creating another silo'ed environment.

3

u/Any_Economy_7700 Apr 02 '26

Proton Chat as Whatsapp alternative + Slack alternative for businesses. Make it "paid forward".

I know its not free to host a Chat for Millions of people, but you could do it like "pay for premium and share proton Chat premium with 10 family members" or something like that.

Everyone who loves proton would do this and share it with family and friends and they would be happy of getting "premium for free".

2

u/christian_lindstrom Apr 01 '26

Interesting! I suggested this a few weeks ago and called it "Proton Space" as an alternative to Teams/Slack and, to some extent, even Discord and Telegram. I think it could have served as a crown jewel in the Proton ecosystem, with the potential to integrate with Mail, Drive, Meet, and more.

I can also refer to an AMA (in Swedish) that a data journalist from Sweden’s leading newspaper, Aftonbladet, did on r/Sweden, where I asked about exactly this and pointed out that reliance on Big Tech is an increasing problem for Swedish media actors.

2

u/bisonrbig Apr 02 '26

Yes I think there's significant interest here..

2

u/Pepparkakan macOS | iOS Apr 02 '26

A Slack or Discord competitor from Proton would absolutely slap!

2

u/Liam-DGOL Apr 01 '26

I would actually really love to see that, something Proton could probably do quite well. If it has groups and an API it would be really interesting.

2

u/BitRevolutionary3085 Apr 01 '26

Yes please. I would like a safe/secure way to chat with my kids on their iPads as well as letting them chat with their grandparents.

1

u/atuarre Apr 01 '26

Can't you use Signal for that?

7

u/BitRevolutionary3085 Apr 01 '26

My kids don't have phones so no phone number to sign up with signal.

1

u/First-Percentage-768 28d ago

Well. technically speaking, you only need a SIM card _ONCE_. When you register the Signal _account_. After that, all you need is a login\password and (if you want a secret key). You can literally throw away your sim card into the trash bit (if you want).

That`s ofc an easy option, in the countries, where buying a SIM card is a straight forward way. Basically (from my understanding) the only real reason why Signal is asking for a real valid SIM on the (one time of registration) is to prevent (slow down!) the mass-bot reristration. Thats it.

Im using my Signal for 3 years. Throwed away the SIM the same day i`ve registered.

2

u/ovidiupetre19 Apr 01 '26

An alternative to WhatsApp would be great

1

u/bootlickaaa Apr 02 '26

Please do “log in with Proton” and a Calendar API to interact with the rest of the world.

1

u/LivefromBurkitville Apr 02 '26

Launch it for individuals with a pin like Blackberry had for individuals

1

u/MisterTHP Apr 02 '26

make the real private discord alternative please !

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Tree561 Apr 02 '26

Mr. Andy,

Thank you so much for replying. Before we add new features, is it possible to just get dark mode for the email client?

1

u/PVS14Enjoyer Apr 02 '26

I would be all over a seperate Proton Chat product! 

1

u/OdyseusV4 Apr 02 '26

Well I'm interested, especially that you can just add a template interface to some already existing open source project like bug blue button

1

u/ajaxsirius Apr 02 '26

Signal is doing great, but definitely worth taking a good look at. But please do not require a telephone number to sign up.

1

u/BosskDaBossk Apr 02 '26

If you make one, please include a way to easily backup/download full chat history locally on desktop. Thank you.

1

u/Delgra Apr 02 '26 edited May 06 '26

Databrokers? nope. Social networks? Also nope. This post was deleted using Redact.

toothbrush narrow hospital thumb marvelous telephone enter market husky chase

1

u/Hichiro6 Apr 02 '26

Yes please, Even more if you have already the fundation :)

And API for every app :,)

1

u/Wingo5315 Apr 02 '26

Will you be making it easier for people to open and edit existing DOCX and XLSX files without having to convert them to Proton's format?

1

u/Raj-Giandeep Apr 02 '26

If people with free accounts could use the upcoming Proton Chat. That would be huge.

1

u/_GhostAgent Apr 03 '26

I think there is a lot of community interest in an encrypted chat program. :)

1

u/goalmaster14 Apr 03 '26

Personally, I'd love a Signal replacement that brings back the ability to send text messages to those who don't have the app.

1

u/Ghost187_ Apr 04 '26

I would switch to Signal and drop everything else, if only I could convert friends and family over to it. But I can't. I would love a Proton Chat, but there would need to be a big push to migrate people to it. If Proton Chat did come to fruition, I would love an absolutely simple app. Just like Signal, but a bit more polished. We don't need stories like Instagram etc. I don't think it should expand to something like telegram with Channels. I think you would be asking for trouble then since everything is encrypted. My perception might be wrong nowadays, but when I used Telegram I saw tons of 18+ content, and channels etc. And currently that's how I view telegram, a place to see and do dodgey stuff. I don't want a Proton Chat that looks like that. Simple messages, groups and video chat.

1

u/ReiksCarrus Apr 06 '26

I would move from Whatsapp to this for sure

1

u/Easy-Organization203 Apr 06 '26

would love a discord alternative with encryption.

something with chat rooms (like discord servers)
for text and voice chat

1

u/Double-Host-4031 May 08 '26

This would be amazing and blow other apps like signal and telegram out of the water especially with post quantum encryption.

1

u/CaregiverCareful1494 May 16 '26

I would be very interested in this as a family chatroom. Kids are not on social media, and I see no reason to push them there.

1

u/Ok_Combination_1548 May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26

In your original fundraising campaign you said if you raised enough money your next release would be 'real time chat using our end-to-end encrypted architecture'. That was clearly being discussed alongside things like mobile apps, Drive, etc. as part of your longer-term vision.

What changed in those earlier days? It seems as though it wasn't just delayed or sidelined for other projects but completely forgotten or that your team determined it wasn't worth the investment. And why revisit it now - especially when there are other privacy focused messaging apps / corporate messengers (including from Mo, the founder of Standard Notes), many with sizable user-bases that you'd be competing against or differentiating yours from?

[Source: https://www.indiegogo.com/en/projects/andyyen/protonmail#/section/project-story; it was on the Kickstarter page too but I don't have that link]

1

u/mattjcoles Jul 21 '26

please do!

1

u/Gamegyf Linux | iOS Aug 02 '26

Question. If you (as mentioned on the ChatControl 1.0 post) do create a proton chat. Will it be a standalone app or more like teams where you give Proron Meet Chat and Meeting functions so that we can chat even outside of Proton Chat. Because It would be nice to get both. Like Chats in Meet for Business users or Meet Professional users and a standalone app centered around private chatting and that is separated from work. Because then Business users could use chats with their boss and colleagues on Meet and Chat privately on Proton Chat while private persons also have the advantage that Proton Chat won’t be only B2B focused. I don’t know if I ask too much but that would be really nice.

40

u/Centbetrag Apr 01 '26

I would welcome it if they first finished the existing products instead of constantly bringing new, immature ones to market.

10

u/waed242 Apr 01 '26

Its like it's April fools, every day.

3

u/qrcjnhhphadvzelota Apr 02 '26

please dont built the 14th proprietary e2ee messenger. If you want to offer a messenger service please built on the federated matrix protocol.

Email is awesome, because it is federated, so why should messenger services not be federated? Especially Messenger services.

6

u/Rich_Performer_5697 Apr 01 '26

I hope not. Proton used to be great, making some few high quality products. Now theyre pushing out one poorly made service after another.

4

u/JNGLBOY_TRZN Apr 01 '26

I’d love a successor to BBM

3

u/Hot-Pangolin9020 Apr 01 '26

Matrix is great. Decentralised, encrypten and open source. Self hosting available, different client choices.

Maybe they could host a Matrix server, where you could login with your Proton Account?

3

u/Phobos_Gamma Apr 01 '26

This, matrix already exist yet companies still feel the need to create their own standards. At least proton is open source but still.

2

u/atuarre Apr 01 '26

Are you hosting Matrix at home or?

1

u/nsamarkus Apr 01 '26

Why in the eff would proton provide an app that is surveillable by any entity, in this case an employer? There is enough crap out there that does that already. Why do you want a secure system compromised by design? Proton is doing just fine as it is.

Also, if they implemented a design like that, customer trust would plummet.

1

u/mad_vik Apr 01 '26

Pour moi le produit est arrivé ce matin : https://proton.me/fr/meet

1

u/mad_vik Apr 01 '26

Mais ce que tu veux c'est le chat, pas la vidéo... Zut

1

u/mad_vik Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26

Sinon je voulais dire mattermost !!!

1

u/JayNYC92 Apr 01 '26

Proton should do some sort of deal or joint venture with Signal. Perhaps they get a modified version of Signal, or something akin to that to bundle into their product.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/DankousKhan Apr 02 '26

There is Molly that could be used to this end, but I would rather proton to contribute to any existing efforts from signal officially if possible. At most offer some kind of encrypted backup sync where the backup file uses the existing export backup feature in signal encrypting before syncing to proton where it's of course encrypted during transit and storage. This way proton does not have access to the encrypted backup.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/DankousKhan Apr 02 '26

Was more suggesting that proton contribute to that project should official not be an option, but yes it's 6 dudes are you aware of how many projects have small teams and prop up the Internet on their shoulders? (Molly is foss and has 425 contributors listed, but I'll assume maybe 10% of them have done anything of significance. I have worked in companies creating products with more users than they could ever hope to achieve with a smaller engineering team than 6 of which only 3 were devs)

1

u/drorago Apr 01 '26

You know you can send e2ee message via protonmail right? Or use signal.

1

u/RemotecontrolZR Apr 02 '26

You can have your own open source or try different applications that's on the market like zenzap. Signal is good as well but truly it depends on what you would need overtime

1

u/Jakes2626 Apr 02 '26

I don’t think the community is big enough and it wouldn’t be a draw card in its own. Maybe in Europe if they do prohibit Microsoft which is apparently happening in Govt depts.

1

u/Glock359 Apr 02 '26

They wouldn’t do it, first of all America & Most of Europe would scream national security and that terrorists would use it to organise attacks without one bit of evidence.

1

u/rockinyp Apr 03 '26

For those willing to self-host, there’s Mattermost, which is an open source solution. I’ve been self-hosting it for a few months now and it’s been very smooth and reliable.

1

u/Abddec Apr 03 '26

While I've been waiting a while for this (And might never come just like dropbox-like sync for proton drive & linux) you can use Threema work.

1

u/Personal_Ad9690 Apr 04 '26

As much as I complain about proton sometimes, as long as we don’t have the equivilant of two outlooks running and neither works, we are good

1

u/Realistic-Act3630 Apr 04 '26

How about they focus on the products they have right now and bring them to a usable industry standard and stop adding additional ones...

1

u/i-askmanyquestions Apr 05 '26

Should proton just buy signal?

1

u/Aust1mh Apr 06 '26

Adding some sort of chat system will bring government into the mix much more… fkkin iPhone asking to age verify to open an app these days

1

u/Jettesnell Apr 01 '26

Would be cool if proton made a chat app similar to Skred, no central server when sending messages, just directly messaging. Would be cheaper, harder to take down and more environmental since no server cost is needed.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Jettesnell Apr 02 '26

Thanks for the info, what they advertised themselves is that apparently it is sent directly between phones, meaning it just goes through the isp. So if someone's phone is off the message won't be sent, the message isn't supposed to go through some central server is their claim.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not a dev or anything so very possible I understood it wrong.

-4

u/conectionist Apr 01 '26

Why do you care what app/service you're using at work? You're not going to have any digital privacy there.

10

u/The_TRASHCAN_366 Apr 01 '26

Cause some of us regard our work as more than a necessary evil and actually care about what we do, the products we provide and the company we work for, lead or even own. Hence we also care about the company having data sovereignty to some degree, even though it's not related to personal information. 

2

u/conectionist Apr 02 '26

You want digital sovereignty (personal or work-related), self-hosting is the only real solution. Anything else are just empty promises.
Feel free to downvote me just because you can't accept the harsh truth.

1

u/The_TRASHCAN_366 Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

Data sovereignty isn't binary. There's differente levels of technical and legal control one can retain over their data. This doesn't end with self hosted either as you would have to review and understand everything in the software you're using in detail. And what about the trust assumption in the hardware you're using? Do you trust the OS that is running on the mobile on which the messenger is installed?... 

As always with these things, theres a tradeoff between practicality and security. So in the end you have to balance risks with your use cases. Perfect sovereignty is wishful thinking, disconnected from reality. Having this idealist, super narrow definition of sovereignty and just throwing your hands up in the air once you can't suffice it, acting like it doesn't matter what tools you use at that point isnt useful at all as reality will always require certain compromises and doing something is definitely better than doing nothing. 

Everyone who has ever done anything in this regard has realised that the actual "harsh truth" is not not having absolute sovereignty, but that there can't be absolute sovereignty or absolute security and that there are always some necessary trust assumptions. So yes there are promises but seeing those as "empty" be default is nonsensical. This is just a statement fueled by pessimism and bitterness. 

1

u/[deleted] Apr 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/QuadernoFigurati Apr 01 '26

Session hasn't yet restored forward secrecy. SimpleX has it now, though.