The WhatsApp Alternative from Switzerland

In many associations, teams and families, communication runs over WhatsApp – and therefore over Meta servers in the US. Even when message contents are encrypted, who communicates with whom and when, which groups exist and how often people write are metadata that a US corporation analyses. For sensitive association, business or customer communication, that is a problem.

The alternative is your own chat server based on Matrix – the open, decentralised protocol for secure communication. Your team uses Element as an app in the browser, on iOS, Android and desktop; the interface feels like a modern messenger. The difference: every message runs over your own server in a Swiss data centre, end-to-end encrypted and nFADP-compliant. To make the switch seamless, you can connect your existing WhatsApp account via a WhatsApp bridge – so you stay reachable while your team moves over.

You reach the highest level of privacy as soon as your contacts also chat on Matrix: then you communicate entirely without American providers. Through Matrix federation, different Swiss and European servers can connect with one another – an open network of independent operators instead of a single central corporation. OpenHosting runs your server fully managed: you chat, we take care of operations, updates and backups.