Internet fragmentation is real in many countries and regions today but did you know that this "Sometimes-Internet" was the reality of the 1980ties when #email evolved?
#chatmail relays are cheap, secure, fast, ephemeral and resilient server setups for the growing Sometimes-Internet, using cryptography for planetary-scale interop:
- E2EE-only, strict TLS+DKIM
- no spam-check magic
- delay/cut-off tolerant
- messages removed after download
- addresses removed if stale
- push notifications
#DeltaChat evolved according to needs of people under repression and continues to do so. The more ignorant and exchangeable we make #chatmail relays, the less their operators have to worry. Having metadata-less, fast and cheap instant messaging relays, that can also operate when 99% of the Internet vanishes in a region, is a key goal. Some way to go still but, already now, is there any other real-world solution that provides better service in internet-repressed regions in 2025?
@kyonshi people using classic email servers will be able to write to you, but if you really want to properly be reached in #DeltaChat with encryption which is required for people using public open-registration/anonymous #chatmail servers, you need to share your Delta Chat invite link or QR code, not only #email address
@cassidy have you tried #deltachat? Not affiliated, but has serve me pretty well. 
Uses email as the protocol for communication. And barrier to entry is relatively low. If using what they call a #chatmail server anyway. 
@fox84 it's driven by the #chatmail community, with a sizable intersection of #dletachat contributors. Around 30 operators are discussing further developments and there is a separate core relay dev team who enhances the relay setup emplate as needed and in scope of resources. Financial contributions welcome. https://chatmail.at
We'd like to remind everyone that a self-hosted #chatmail relay is best shared in some wider than family circles. In crisis situations everbody does better when helping others.
A typical 1gb RAM chatmail relay VPS for 5-10 eur per month supports 50k+ daily users.
chatmail VPSes are stateless. You can wipe all disk state, reinstall and chatting will resume. Conversely, #deltachat does not keep or depend on any server state .Operators under pressure do not need to feel bad to hand over data.
We are basically doing what #signal and in particular moxie refused to do or declares impossible: federation.
Both #email and #activitypub ecosystems are all about federation.
However, #deltachat is vertically centralized in that all UIs use the same #rust core which implements all networking, encryption, chat/group/message logic in a single centralized place. The now 40+ #chatmail mail relay network is driven from centralized code.
At each level replication and federation is built in.
Everyone returns to email in the end. We are there already. #whatsapp wants you to add your email to secure your account ... despite all the nay sayers and numerous well funded attempts and claims to kill #email not even WA can do it. #deltachat #chatmail and #webxdc are about deep collab between people, projects and operators to evolve email from within. It is not just about SMTP and IMAP and MIME and OpenPGP which are all exchangeable and can be improved ... Which we set out to do. Cheers.
@artfulrobot goodbye fellow 0.001% the other 99.999% of users have #Gmail, and other classic, ehem, "standard" providers that have crazy sending rate limits unusable for chatting and make it EXTREMELY hard to configure with 3rd party clients, since #chatmail and the new onboarding screen was introduced, A LOT more people was able to actually use #DeltaChat
I am also part of the 0.001% and I think it is ok if it is a bit harder for us but easier for the non-technical masses
@ex_06 Using delta with a variety of non-chatmail setups is just fine. It's only that #chatmail enforces end-to-end encryption and a cryptographic security baseline in server-to-server communications.
Given a dedicated small team of experienced devs, it might even be possible to re-use Delta's UIs and amend the core library to have an #XMPP backend and subsequently XMPP chat profiles.
But #Matrix? Are you seriously suggesting this?
Since June 1st there is a big sudden surge of new Delta Chat users and so far things are going pretty smooth. We are happy that our #chatmail infrastructure is holding up and that there is growing recognition that #deltachat is a ready-to-use and resilient chat solution. Some stats from the last days, a brief discussion of centralization risks and what we plan to do about it, also introducing a brand-new chatmail OpenCollective with a european fiscal host.
@methuselah indeed, centralization in practise of theoretically decentralized messengers is a known issue. With a bit of time and funding we aim to tackle necessary mechanisms and cryptography for distributing load. FWIW, there are around 30 #chatmail servers which are functionally equivalent with each other. There is no penalty or lack of functionality if using any other than the default onboarding server.
@debacle yes -- probably the difference really is that #chatmail core did not start out as a protocol implementation but was designed and evolving with the actual UI first on Android, later iOS and Desktop apps, bots etc. So it wasn't the protocol at the center but the UI was driving what we need from the protocol layers.
@debacle that's about right! As to servers/relays: there are a lot of well working alternative stacks -- #chatmail core even runs with some #Plan9 mail server stack apart from the many classic email server implementations. Replacing Rust Core is possible but considerable work. Beating its maturity and cross-platform portability would require a serious effort. Not impossible, though. FWIW most other messenger projects (#Signal, #matrix, etc.) are trying to move towards Rust.
Comparing #XMPP against #email protocols is too limited. What sets #deltachat apart is *vertical integration* and being driven by UI/UX considerations. Cross-platform Apps and Bots use the Rust core library which connects with #chatmail relays and classic email servers based on a higher level API -- abstracting over SMTP, MIME, #OpenPGP etc. See https://chatmail.at
#webxdc apps in turn use an even higher level stable API abstracting over email/xmpp/... see https://webxdc.org/docs/
@rohden Heh, you caught it :) Indeed bots running some LLM for audio transcription or image generation exist. But they are not part of the UI/UX of #deltachat itself, or of its #chatmail core Rust library. Bots and #webxdc apps are behind extension points where we intentionally don't control or even know what people use.
By design, end-to-end-encrypting #deltachat and #webxdc apps only need ephemeral transport. It's a big deal. Let's compare:
- #matrix home servers maintain a cryptographic forever-chain of cleartext social-graph metadata.
- #WhatsApp servers maintain cleartext metadata visible to Meta.
- #Signal keeps encrypted metadata, hosted at GAFAM
#chatmail relays do not persist any social graph state, also not in encrypted form. A key goal of our designs: chatmail operators can sleep well at night :)
