How this compares
Four messengers, side by side. Two things on this table only Flamenet Messenger does: it runs on a server you control, and it never asks for your phone number. The rest is laid out plainly and sourced from each project's own documentation, so you can check every line of it.
| Flamenet | Signal | Telegram | Apple Messages | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Encrypted end to end by default | Yes An opt-in plain mode also exists, and the app shows which one a chat is in. |
Yes | No Only in Secret Chats, which are one-to-one and have to be started deliberately. |
Yes Between Apple devices, and with Android over RCS since iOS 26.5. |
| Works without a phone number | Yes A username and an email address. |
No A number is required to register. Usernames hide it from other people, but not from Signal. |
No | Partly An Apple ID, reachable by phone number or email. |
| You can run the server yourself | Yes Two containers and a config file. |
No | No | No |
| Source code published | Apps and server Under the MIT licence. |
Apps and server Under the AGPL and GPL. |
Apps only The server side is closed. |
No |
| Post-quantum key agreement | Yes ML-KEM-768, mixed into the handshake. |
Yes Using PQXDH. |
No | Yes Using PQ3. |
| Post-quantum in the ongoing ratchet | Handshake only Which is the part that stops traffic captured today being decrypted by a future computer. |
No | No | Yes The most advanced of the four on this row. |
| Keys verified automatically, not just by hand | Yes Keys go into a public append-only log, and the app refuses one that isn't in it. |
Yes | No | Yes Contact Key Verification, opt-in. |
| Independent security audit | Not yet The scope for one is written and public, and donations pay for it. Until then the code is open and heavily tested. |
Yes | Partly Its protocol has been examined externally, with mixed findings. |
Yes PQ3 was formally analysed by outside academics. |
| You can install it today | Nearly The iPhone app is in build and the Android engine has started. |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| People already using it | Early days It is new, and the people who arrive now are the ones who shape what it becomes. |
Many millions | Hundreds of millions | Built into every iPhone |
| What pays for it | Donations | Donations and grants, to a non-profit | Ads and subscriptions | Selling the hardware it runs on |
Reading the table fairly
Rows are easy to count and harder to weigh. Apple's key transparency has run for years across a billion devices; ours is new, and scale is a security property of its own. Worth saying plainly, because we would rather you trust the table than the tone of it.
All four are serious pieces of engineering, and Apple is ahead of everyone here on post-quantum. But every other messenger on this table has one thing in common: somebody else runs the server, and you are trusting them to. Flamenet Messenger is built so that you do not have to — the whole thing runs on a machine you control, under a licence that lets you keep it that way, with no phone number attached to any of it. That is the trade this project exists to remove, and nothing else here offers it.
Where these facts come from
Everything above is drawn from each project's own published documentation and from public security research, checked in August 2026. These are given as references rather than links, because this site deliberately doesn't send you anywhere else:
- Signal — Signal Support, "Phone Number Privacy and Usernames"; Signal blog, "Keep your phone number private with Signal usernames"; the PQXDH specification.
- Telegram — Telegram Core API, "End-to-End Encryption, Secret Chats", which documents that cloud chats are client–server encrypted and that Secret Chats are opt-in and one-to-one.
- Apple — Apple Security Research, "iMessage with PQ3"; Apple Support, "iCloud data security overview"; the iOS 26.5 release notes covering encrypted RCS; Stebila, "Security analysis of the iMessage PQ3 protocol", and the USENIX Security 2025 formal analysis of PQ3.
- Flamenet Messenger — the specification, the metadata page and the roadmap on this site.