proto instant messenger
Find your people. Build your feed.
Works with Blacksky, Bluesky, or any atproto account
What it is
AIM-inspired group chat, rebuilt for the decentralized web.
Chat rooms
Public rooms where you discover people. Threaded replies, rich text, polls, GIF search, and room history that persists so you can find people even after the conversation moves on.
Video calls
Free video calls powered by WebRTC. Pure P2P for your inner circle, relayed for everyone else to keep your IP private. All self-hosted infrastructure, nothing leaked to third parties.
Instant messages
Peer-to-peer IMs via WebRTC data channels when both people are online. Device-to-device, nothing stored on the server. Trust-aware routing: pure P2P for your inner circle, relay for everyone else.
E2E encrypted DMs (thanks to Germ)
For offline messaging, proto IM links out to Germ, a separate, independent service for persistent, end-to-end encrypted DMs. Germ DMs are encrypted with MLS so you can be certain nobody can read your correspondence. Note: we don't operate Germ.
How it works
Three steps to your new community hub.
Sign in
Log in with your AT Protocol handle from any PDS. Bluesky, Blacksky, North Sky, or your own. No new account, no phone number, no email.
Find your people
Join chat rooms by interest, meet people, and add the ones you vibe with to your community list. Follow them on any ATProto client from there.
Stay connected
Chat in rooms, hop on P2P video calls, send instant messages. Set your status and see who's online. For offline friends, protoimsg links out to Germ for encrypted DMs.
Trust model
We're upfront about how your data flows.
How privacy works in protoimsg
- Public data: community lists, public chat rooms, and messages are ATProto records in your repo, visible on the network. You own them.
- Trust-aware routing: your inner circle gets pure P2P connections (STUN). Everyone else is routed through our TURN relay to keep your IP address hidden. No third-party STUN servers. All infrastructure is self-hosted.
- IMs are peer-to-peer: instant messages travel device-to-device via WebRTC data channels. Nothing is stored on the server.
- DMs via Germ (external): for persistent private messages, protoimsg links out to Germ, a separate service that provides end-to-end encryption with MLS. We don't operate Germ and never see your DMs.
- Video and voice: encrypted with DTLS-SRTP. Even when relayed, the TURN server forwards encrypted packets without decrypting them.
- Community list tiers: organize contacts into Everyone, Community, and Inner Circle. Each tier controls who sees your presence and whether connections are P2P or relayed.
- No analytics, no cookies, no tracking: this site and the app collect zero behavioral data.
See it in action
Built for community
A safe space — especially for those who need it most.
protoimsg exists to be a safe space for all people. We will aggressively ban and moderate any form of hate speech, threatening, and stalking. That's not a footnote. It's the foundation.
Every feature, moderation tool, and privacy boundary is designed with the most vulnerable users in mind first.
- Block/report, room bans, account age gates, slow mode, allowlists
- ATProto labeler integration respects your existing moderation preferences
- Community list tiers control presence visibility and P2P routing
- Relay-by-default protects IP addresses for non-inner-circle connections
- Not feed-first: the chat room is the discovery mechanism, not the algorithm
- Available in 16 languages (more coming) with self-hosted translation
Coming soon
What we're building next.
Marketplace
Buy, sell, and trade within your communities.
Mobile & desktop
Native apps via Tauri (desktop) and React Native (mobile). Both headed to the app stores.
Group video
Multi-party video calls from chat rooms.
Private rooms
End-to-end encrypted group chats via MLS.