Good actually user friendly foss chat app?

If you can't get people to switch to Signal, you won't get them to switch to anything else.

Yeah I’m using Whatsapp Business for groups I can’t convince to move (it allows me to have an automated message to say I won’t answer on Whatsapp), Signal for people who could move but won’t pay anything and Threema for almost everyone else including my family.
I wish Signal or Threema would allow a selected opt in interoperability with Whatsapp so that I could really ditch it.
- I wish Signal or Threema would allow a selected opt in interoperability with Whatsapp so that I could really ditch it.
  Could maybe do something with the signal-matrix and whatsapp-matrix bridges? You could probably skip the matrix entirely but may have to implement it yourself

Signal

second this. afaik signal is the best option right now for most people and the one i use, and also managed to get some friends, family and even coworkers (which was nice of them, even tho i guess it was easier for them to install signal and center our workplace communication there than to get me to reinstall fucking whatsapp) to switch to, alongside my SO.

Centralised:

Signal American.

Threema Swiss.

Decentralised:

Session

Element X

simplex
Element is just one of many clients I find fluffy chat much more user friendly

Signal is the most user-friendly option so far, which is also expected, given it's also one of the oldest one of those.

Simplex is also a good-ish option, but somewhat rough around the edges; the biggest benefit is, one doesn't need a phone number or e-mail to start chatting.

Matrix is questionable: it's quite feature-rich, but lacks solid android clients (IMO, fluffychat is among the best so far, yet when I last used it, it didn't handle stickers/custom emojis all that well, for example); as for the desktop/web clients cinny is a godsend due to allowing importing/exporting encryption keys manually, which just works all the time.

I have an unfederated XMPP server (running Prosody), family's using Conversations (Android) & Dino (Linux) with it. We can chat, send images, do voice & video calls. Has been working fine & reliably for the past ~6 years or so. Took about 1.5 minutes for them to get used to the clients.

I'm slowly opening it up for friends too, so friends, neighbours, classmates, etc can chat with us too. It's going great so far, no complaints.

I've managed to screw up every self-hosted service whenever I've made an update, edit a config file or just by looking at it. But my Prosody XMPP server? It's rock solid. That thing never fails, for years and years.
i just wish there was a prosody docker that allows for all the tweaks and addons. snikket was relatively simple to get going, but they don't provide a lot of info for adjustments
- Yeah, setting the server up was a bit of an adventure. But I did that once, and it's been serving us well since. My users saw none of that.

Signal is probably your best bet but it's only mostly open source. Element/Matrix is another good option if open source is your concern.

Element can be a bit unreliable when it comes to matrix features, I recommend cinny instead
- how so? Im looking for a matrix client thst has easy onboarding for family & friends with encrypted calls and encrypted messaging by default

Signal is super user friendly. All my normie friends use it. Not super in the spirit of foss as it's not meant to be self hosted—which imo makes the server practically proprietary/source available. (ik people self host it anyway, but it's not supported and Signal don't like people self hosting or even making custom clients.) SimpleX is good too but not as polished as Signal.

I'm surprised that no one else has said this one yet: Delta Chat

I'm a paid contributor to Delta Chat, but I don't feel like I can recommended it until it includes sealed sender and PFS. Signal really changed the game with chat apps. 2.0 looks great, tho! https://delta.chat/en/help#sealedsender
Also ArcaneChat. I've taken to calling it "chatmail".
Is this like briar . ?

"Chat app" like texting/whatsapp?

Or "chat app" like Discord/Slack?

For the former, Signal is going to be the one your friends and family will actually use. For the latter there isn't anything really approaching the same level yet. Matrix/Element is making a good effort but absolutely not there yet, especially on mobile.

Conversations.im

Has an onboarding wizard, includes text, voice and video calling, OMEMO encryption, group chats etc.

But more importantly, what have you tried and why didn't they work for you?

Conversations is excellent for XMPP, but only available on android.
For iOS/MacOS Monal, for iOS Siskin, for Linux/Windows Gajim.

I would reccomend XMPP(with OMEMO), for android I reccomend the conversations client, but there are a lot of clients: https://xmpp.org/software/?platform=all-platforms I suggest you choose a client that fully supports OMEMO encryption.

by "FOSS" you mean compatible with the core values of free/libre software?

This rules out Signal because: 1/ some of its server software is proprietary 2/ they dont allow you to communicate with "their" users if you want to run the server software yourself 3/ the prevented authors of free/libre software in the past to distribute their software (find a fdroid/signal thread) 4/ in practice they channel their users through their centralized servers hosted on AWS

(and that's without evoking their questionable funding, and long lasting commitment to make all their users identifiable through phone number, 10+y after US generals declared "we kill people based on metadata"....)

Simplex seems to me like the one really ticking all the boxes.

and long lasting commitment to make all their users identifiable through phone number
They've had usernames for a good while now...
- usernames is just for users. it is just a display thing. Signal still require that you use a phone# to sign up, and that you keep owning and paying for that SIM over the years in order to be able to verify it at random intervals...
  despite being a very anti-privacy feature (esp. from a US company, funded initially bu US gov, who still forces its users to have their metadata stored on a US cloud...), it is also very much anti-user as in many cases around me, people who opened Signal accounts with some SIM card some day later traveled abroad, changed life, etc... and one day were asked to verify their account. (this is in some case what prompted their migration towards other communication networks...)

SimpleX, best anonymity. Not really what u are asking for in terms of use case. It's a great messenger app, but still needs some refining in their UX. But I still like to mention it. Probably Signal then.

Love it. Very easy to use and looks great, IMO.
- Aye but things like same account use isn't quite there yet.
  As in, you can connect your phone to a pc and use it from there. But then u can't use it on your phone, while connected with another device.... if i remember correctly.
  At one point I had a group chat with my phone, home desktop, and work laptop. Whereas whatsapp u just connect once and go.
  It's probaly to secure your privacy and technical stuff under the hood....
  It's a great app nonetheless, so I shall always shill it over Signal lol.

Signal is easy and straightforward to use

Fluffychat (matrix), Deltachat seem really good but good luck getting anyone to change. Let us know if you figure out a way to persuade people they should make any effort or try something new.

That is exactly why signal needed phone numbers. It's an easy way too onboard and grow your user base.

I would say Snikket if you want decentralised, Signal if you don't.

Revolt looks promising, but is more along the lines of Discord. It is less mature than other previously mentioned alternatives. https://revolt.chat/

While revolt is currently unable to provide all features Discord has, for chatting it is definitely a viable option and I am happy to see how quickly it develops. I am considering moving once it reaches a higher state of maturity (I use discord mainly for voice and screenshare). However, I feel like Matrix + Element is the perfect answer to the question.

check out https://soatok.blog/2025/01/14/dont-use-session-signal-fork/ and https://soatok.blog/2025/01/20/session-round-2/ . session doesn't even have PFS(perfect forward secrecy), which can be very useful, so if a key is cracked, then only a few messages can be decrypted. EDIT: that was a lot of typos!
- Thanks. Yk a secure replacement?
- I would also use Signal instead, but Session's situation is not that bad unless one needs to accommodate the CIA or Mossad as part of their threat model, in which case I think SimpleX would be a better option. This is also in the article you posted:
  
  Edit: I didn't notice that the original commenter had said they "switched from Signal" at first, which is definitely worse.

Most of the options listed are easy to use. The difficult part is getting enough users to adopt the new system initially to motivate the rest to migrate as well.

I have a self hosted nextcloud that has a web chat feature (Nextcloud Talk). It is pretty easy to use, though it is kind of ugly and slow. I'd prefer to send people to GNU Jami but I've had kind of poor luck with that.

You're asking for a literal unicorn. I haven't found one after years of searching.

What's hard about signal? It's easy to use, my friends and family aren't tech savvy and they were using it in minutes and it has stuck ever since.
- I don't consider it a "chat app" since it requires your phone number as an identifier. It has always been the equivalent of a texting app.
  I don't consider anything that's phone-first as a chat app. A chat app should be platform agnostic/available for all platforms. You can only get a desktop app for Signal by connecting it to your phone app.