Signal-Desktop VS LibreSignal

Compare Signal-Desktop vs LibreSignal and see what are their differences.

Signal-Desktop

A private messenger for Windows, macOS, and Linux. (by signalapp)

LibreSignal

LibreSignal • The truly private and Google-Free messenger for Android. (by LibreSignal)
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Signal-Desktop LibreSignal
322 49
13,999 258
0.7% 0.8%
9.9 0.0
6 days ago about 7 years ago
TypeScript C
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 GNU General Public License v3.0 only
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

Signal-Desktop

Posts with mentions or reviews of Signal-Desktop. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-11-16.

LibreSignal

Posts with mentions or reviews of LibreSignal. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-12-05.
  • Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage Client for Android
    18 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 5 Dec 2023
    >what does this mean?

    Moxie (Signal's founder) has thrown fits in the past over the existence of third-party clients using their servers: https://github.com/libresignal/libresignal/issues/37#issueco...

  • Signal: The Pqxdh Key Agreement Protocol
    2 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 22 Sep 2023
    0: https://github.com/libresignal/libresignal/issues/37

    I push back when anyone recommends Signal because they are fundamentally not an open network.

  • Hosting Signal frontend on a local server (Like Signal desktop but through website)
    2 projects | /r/selfhosted | 30 Nov 2022
    OWS has historically been hostile to third party implementations outside of their clients. There are multiple unofficial options but the only one I've been looking at is the bridge with matrix, though setting up a matrix server just for this is likely overkill.
  • After High Court Ruling, Telegram Discloses Names/Numbers/IP of Users
    2 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 29 Nov 2022
    I have to say that I find him fascinating too, but there are a few things that raise my suspicion, but of course do not convict him of anything:

    The way he is attacking this alternative Signal client and rules out interoperability:

    https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...

    Signal was a word before he decided to turn it into a brand.

    The signal server source code repo was not updated for a year. Communication intransparent.

    https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/04/06/it-looks-like-signa...

    I am not even against crypto integration, but I found the choice of MobileCoin odd. Instead of integrating an existing privacy coin or working with the community, he decided to integrate MOB and to be one of their "advisors":

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/24/mobilecoin-moxie-marlinspi...

    https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/mobilecoin

  • Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap
    14 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 3 Nov 2022
    Is that so surprising? Signal had always a hostile attitude to alternative clients. They have this weird disconnect of the new CEO saying they want to be available to as many people as possible and be a fully commited FOSS app, and then have no version on F-Droid (while Telegram has!) and actively fight alternative clients (see https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...)

    Because of this hostility Signal is not a trustworthy organization at all.

  • Signal discontinuing SMS support.
    7 projects | /r/degoogle | 28 Oct 2022
    LibreSignal existed before Moxie was like “no, don’t”: https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal
  • Combattez la censure Iranienne en hébergeant un proxy Signal
    2 projects | /r/france | 23 Sep 2022
  • Nokia 1680 phone gets new PCB, runs mainline Linux
    2 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 5 Jun 2022
    They have shut down third party clients, and resve the roght to continue that.

    https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...

  • Office 365 implementing AI to detect employees colluding, leaving and more
    7 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 2 Jun 2022
    1) You need to audit that code, which.. everyone will have to do.

    2) https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-android/

    > the Signal Android codebase includes some native shared libraries that we employ for voice calls (WebRTC, etc). At the time this native code was added, there was no Gradle NDK support yet, so the shared libraries aren’t compiled with the project build.

    a good answer in my opinion, but it means what you run from the play store is not reproducible and thus can never really be confirmed to be what the sources actually include. There are also binary blobs needed for interacting with Google Play.

    3) Signal is openly hostile to third party client implementations: https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37

  • Axolotl: First cross-plattform Signal client
    3 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 31 May 2022
    Moxie Marlinspike on May 5th 2016:

    > I'm not OK with LibreSignal using our servers, and I'm not OK with LibreSignal using the name "Signal." You're free to use our source code for whatever you would like under the terms of the license, but you're not entitled to use our name or the service that we run.

    > If you think running servers is difficult and expensive (you're right), ask yourself why you feel entitled for us to run them for your product.

    Moxie Marlinspike left Signal this January[2] 2022.

    Whose to say whether there will be any change, but it's been interesting seeing Signal as a somewhat defended property. Although various third party clients/tools/libraries do exist already.

    The claim that running servers is expensive would have been more interesting, imo, had there been any viable way to run your own. But for a long while Signal server source code wasn't being updated at all.

    [1] https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...

    [2] https://signal.org/blog/new-year-new-ceo/

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Signal-Desktop and LibreSignal you can also consider the following projects:

signal-cli - signal-cli provides an unofficial commandline, JSON-RPC and dbus interface for the Signal messenger.

mollyim-android - Enhanced and security-focused fork of Signal.

axolotl - A Signal compatible cross plattform client written in Go, Rust and Vuejs

TextSecure - A private messenger for Android.

session-desktop - Session Desktop - Onion routing based messenger

AppImageLauncher - Helper application for Linux distributions serving as a kind of "entry point" for running and integrating AppImages

calyxos-fdroid-repo

webclient - Angular webclient (with Linux, macOS and Windows desktop clients) for CTemplar's encrypted email service.

Signal-Android - Patches to Signal for Android removing dependencies on closed-source Google Mobile Services and Firebase libraries. In branches whose names include "-FOSS". Uses new "foss" or "gms" flavor dimension: build with "./gradlew assemblePlayFossProdRelease".

telegram-bot-api - Telegram Bot API server

Signal-iOS - A private messenger for iOS.