Private WhatsApp communities alternatives

Questions
1

I’m looking for an alternative to WhatsApp communities. Here are my criterias :

1 - I would like the alternative to be simple / or at least pretty similar to WhatsApp so people can easily get switch and get used to it.

2 - My second criteria is that groups that you are not currenty a part of are easily discoverable. In WhatsApp communites, there is a list of “Groups you’re in” and a list of “Groups you can join”.

Now here are the options I thought of :

  • Matrix: is not simple enough, Multiple people say Discord is too complicated to use (and therefore Matrix). + matrix is not always e2e.

  • Signal: has no such group discoverability built-in. Of course, there are workarounds (for example posting group links in a main group…) but it’s not convenient. But there are chat folders to list all groups you’re in.

  • Telegram is not e2e so I don’t want to hear from it

Have you got any ideas ?
(either other platforms ideas, or tricks to use in Signal/Matrix to mimic WhatsApp communities behaviour)

2

E2EE in large groups makes no sense. But choosing privacy friendly service does. If I could choose, I would go for XMPP, but free servers are not so common.

1 Like
3

Look at Mattermost !

4

I didn’t mention, but here we are talking about 15 people (max 20), so I still think E2EE makes sense here.

I will definitely take a closer look at Mattermost!

5

For 15-20 people, I would stick to Signal

6

I hear you, but it’s still useful. There’s a reason why the privacy community is not a fan of discord. I would like to have the possibility to have my messages in some groups self-destruct after a while, and I want to be 100% sure that they have been deleted by the platform.

Even if we can’t be sure we can trust other people in a group, we should be able to trust the platform.

1 Like
7

But in large groups you can always expect someone has some unencrypted backup stored in onedrive or something, saved chat screenshots, etc

Problem with Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram… groups & communities is that providers themselves use your messages for their own purposes. But if you rent e.g. XMPP, IRC, Matrix, Mattermost server from reliable provider, you can trust them not to read your messages and all data will be deleted if you send such request. But that is not free, for group of 15-20 people, it’s probably more than €100 per year.

8

I would look at rss simply because of how ubiquitous it is.

Anyone can use anything that supports rss feeds and there is no max group number.

9

That is a reasonable expectation to have, but doesn’t mean end-to-end encryption (E2EE) is no worth implementing on large group platforms? I would say no.

Moreover, in various articles PG has pointed out that even in one on one E2EE messaging apps, you have to trust the person you are communicating with, implying that there is always risk involved. No app can fully protect you from the malice or inadvertence of a contact.

1 Like
10

Me too.
Besides that, Discord is not really complicated to use, but Signal is the better choice anyway for a couple of people only..

11

You could try Matrix with Spaces. It lets you group multiple rooms under one umbrella, similar to WhatsApp communities. Not as simple, but with a client like Cinny or Hydrogen it’s much more user friendly than Element.