#asknostr
Thoughts on Keet vs SimpleX?
Pros/cons?
Main differences?
Thanks in advance 💜
Discussion
Also Threema thoughts welcome
I guess simplex
I like and I use both of them.
Both are peer to peer but Keet is completely peer to peer so a bit more difficult to implement for the developers and to make it work on every networks while SimpleX has some dumb servers to relay messages to users so technically not completely peer to peer.
SimpleX has the option to create a new random account every time you connect to a new person.
Keet alpha had a lot of issues when connecting with people under networks that are not P2P friendly, but the new Keet beta (v.2) works very well and I’m using it daily also for my calls on my laptop!
Privacy wise, they are both E2EE. SimpleX servers can see your IP address while the person you are chatting with on Keet, that is purely P2P, can technically see your IP. In both cases, better to use a VPN.
SimpleX has the option to be used with Tor and also has the option for disappearing messages after a certain amount of time.
Many new features are coming on Keet in the next weeks.
Finally, Keet is not yet open source but it will be on February 2024 when the developers will also present and make open source the entire Holepunch 🕳️ 🥊 platform (the one used also for Keet) to easily develop fully peer to peer applications! They have the claim that Holepunch can make everything peer to peer.
Hope this helps a bit! 💜
Let me know if you want to connect with me on Keet or SimpleX! 😉
Awesome thank you so much for this detailed response!
Curious if you know.have used/have thoughts on the file transfer option Keet has? And does SimpleX offer anything like that? I didn’t see they do but perhaps I missed it?
This is something I forgot to mention… thank you for the question.
Keet is amazing for that because, being 100% peer to peer, it does not need any servers to send information and so there is not any cap on the files size! You can send huge files to everyone directly from your computer to their computer, always E2EE! Logically it depends on your and their connection speed / reliability… and it is important that both are online so it works better. Moreover there is not any algorithmic compression so, for example, pictures are sent as they are, while on 99% of the communication apps they are compressed before sending with loss of quality.
On SimpleX, I do not remember if there is a size cap at the moment but they are working on a way to send big files easily without people been online simultaneously and without compromising too much on P2P.
Let’s say that Keet is 100% P2P without compromises and for this reason it can be a bit more clunky sometimes, while SimpleX is using some compromises on the P2P model.
I personally use both. SimpleX more for chatting especially with people I do not know and Keet more for calls, desktop sharing and file sending with people I know.
💜🧡💜