Chat, without the platform.

jyve.chat is a lean, fast chat app for the people you actually talk to, with voice and video, and locked rooms that are end-to-end encrypted.

Friends, group rooms, calls and screen share. No servers to join, no channels to mute, no feed, no ads and no algorithm.

Saved rooms

Kept.

The full history, on every device you sign in from. Search. Links that unfurl. Anyone you add next year can read it all from the beginning.

The trade

The server can read these rooms. It has to, in order to do those things, and that is better said plainly than dressed up.

Locked rooms

Locked.

End-to-end encrypted with a separate key for every device. The server holds ciphertext and a delivery queue, never a key. Keys roll forward with every change in the room, and calls here carry the same lock.

The trade

History lives on your devices and nowhere else, there is nothing on the server to search, and a locked room needs the desktop app.

Plainly

Plainly.

Your password is never sent to the server, not at signup and not at login.
Photos lose their location and camera data before they are stored.
Lean on purpose: a thin, fast app, not a bundled browser with a platform inside.

Said carefully

Calls in saved rooms are encrypted in transit. Only locked rooms add the end-to-end lock.

The way in

Ask to join.

Invite-only is part of the privacy: every account was let in by a person, so no spam, no scraping, no drive-by signups. You'll get an email if you're approved.

Request access

Already in? Open jyve.chat. Desktop app on Windows today; the web covers saved rooms.

i. what this is

The whole of it, below

In plain text

The same pitch, at length, for anyone who would rather read than unfold.

What this is

Chat, without the platform.

jyve.chat is a lean, fast chat app for the people you actually talk to, with voice and video, screen share, and locked rooms that are end-to-end encrypted. Friends, direct messages, group rooms, calls. There is nothing to join, nothing to mute, no feed, no algorithm and no ads. If most of your chat app is a platform you tune out, this is the rest of it, done properly.

Every room is one of two kinds, and each kind makes a different trade. Which trade you are making is never hidden from you.

Saved rooms

Kept, and easy to live in.

A saved room keeps everything. The history follows you to every device you sign in from, it can be searched, links unfurl into previews, and someone you add a year from now can read the whole thread from the start. This is the room for the group that has been talking for years and wants to find that one message again.

The trade

The server can read a saved room. It has to, in order to do any of that. It is stated here in the same size type as the rest, because a trade you have to hunt for is not a trade you agreed to.

Locked rooms

Locked to the people in the room.

A locked room is end-to-end encrypted with MLS, holding a separate key for every device rather than one key for the room. The server stores ciphertext and a delivery queue, and never a key. The keys roll forward every time the membership changes, so a device added on Tuesday cannot read Monday. That is deliberate, not a limitation to be worked around.

Calls in a locked room are frame-encrypted with keys taken from the same group, so voice and video carry the lock as well.

The trade

The history lives on your devices and nowhere else, so there is nothing on the server to search and nothing to restore from. Locked rooms need the desktop app. Browsers are kept out on purpose, because a browser cannot hold keys the way an installed app can.

True either way

What holds in both kinds of room.

Your password never reaches the server, not even at signup. Signing in is a cryptographic exchange, the OPAQUE protocol, in which you prove you know the password without sending it. What the server keeps is a verifier it cannot reverse.
Photos are stripped of location and camera metadata before storage. In a locked room that happens on your own device, before anything is encrypted.
Calls are qualified, carefully. In saved rooms a call is encrypted in transit, the way any modern app protects one. Only in locked rooms is a call also end-to-end encrypted. That line matters, so it is drawn rather than blurred.
It is lean on purpose. A thin, fast app rather than a bundled browser with a platform inside, and heavy pieces like the call machinery load only when you use them.
The desktop app is on Windows today. The web works for the saved tier, and locked rooms wait for the app.

The way in

Ask to join.

jyve.chat is invite-only, and that is a privacy feature rather than a velvet rope: every account exists because a person let it in, so there is no spam, no scraping and no drive-by signups. Request access with your name and email, and you'll get an email if you're approved. Already have an account? Open jyve.chat.

Request access

It is free, and self-funded: built and run by one person, on their own hardware. There is no plan, no upsell, and nothing here is being sold to anyone.