Cwtch

What Cwtch is

Cwtch is a free, decentralized messaging app for Android, Linux, macOS, and Windows. For direct conversations, profiles connect anonymously peer to peer through Tor v3 onion services, and Cwtch says all communication is end-to-end encrypted. Both people must be online at the same time for a peer-to-peer chat. Conversation history is not retained between sessions by default, though it can be enabled for an individual conversation. Group chats and offline delivery rely on a third-party server designed to learn as little as possible about message contents or metadata. Group messaging is experimental: users must enable the Experiments and Group Experiment settings, and the project says metadata-resistant group communication remains an active research area. The protocol is open, allowing others to build compatible bots, services, and user interfaces; the download page links the core library, Go bindings, and interface as open-source projects. Cwtch has no global display-name registry, and its security handbook says this makes users more vulnerable to impersonation. The project recommends updating to version 1.17.2, released October 2, 2026, which fixes several security issues.