Pochta

Your mail,
not their archive.

A private, end-to-end-encrypted messenger you actually own — no phone number, no email, no account on someone else's server. Run it for your family, your company, or your whole organization.

npm MIT E2E encrypted
The idea

A post office, not an archive.

Pochta (почта — Russian for post office) carries your sealed messages, delivers them, and forgets them. It never reads them, never keeps a history, and never knows who you are — because your account isn't a row in its database. It's a key on your device. Every mainstream messenger puts a company in the middle. Pochta removes it.

Why it's different

Private by design, yours by default.

Truly end-to-end

Every message is signed by you and sealed to the recipient. The server only ever sees ciphertext — it can't read your chats, even if compelled.

You own your identity

Your account is a cryptographic key created on your device, backed up by 12 words. No email, no password, nothing to leak.

Anyone can host it

The whole server is one small program you run on a spare PC, a Mac, or a NAS. Your people run their own Pochta, off the global network.

No archive

Your history lives on your devices. The server keeps sealed messages only until they're delivered, then deletes them.

Federated, not central

Different self-hosted Pochta servers reach each other — signed and origin-verified — so separate islands become a network with no central authority.

No blockchain, no tracking

Just proven public-key cryptography and a plain, honest post-office model. Nothing to mine, nothing to sell.

Everything you expect

A real messenger.

Chat, done right

Sent · delivered · read receipts, typing indicators, replies, emoji reactions, and edit / delete-for-everyone — consistent across all your devices.

Calls & media

1:1 voice and video, peer-to-peer. Share photos, voice notes, and files — encrypted on your device before they ever leave it.

Every device, in sync

Link a phone or laptop with your 12 words. Sent and received messages sync across all of them, with offline catch-up.

Presence

See who's online and who was last seen — without handing your status to a third party.

How it works

Three steps, no sign-up form.

Make an account

The app generates your key and shows you 12 backup words. That's it — no phone number, no email.

Share an invite

Send a link or QR code. Whoever opens it can message you. Discovery rides in the invite; there's no central directory.

Point at your server

The one your family or company runs. Visiting its URL just works; messages relay through it, sealed, to your devices.

Run your own

One command to host it.

One Docker image bundles the app, the relay, and its storage — no Elixir, Node, or database to install. Runs on Windows, macOS, or Linux.

Need a sealed, invite-only network for a company or organization? The same image does it with three environment variables — only enrolled people connect, and nothing leaks out.

# build once, run anywhere Docker runs
docker build -t pochta-relay .
docker run -p 4000:4000 -v pochta-data:/data \
  -e SECRET_KEY_BASE=$(openssl rand -base64 48) \
  pochta-relay

# → open http://localhost:4000
#   you're running your own messenger.
Honest about security

Trust comes from being straight about the limits.

For developers

Build on the same core.

Pochta's client is a real, reusable SDK — so you can build your own app (mobile, desktop, a bot) on the same E2E core, or put your own frontend on the backend. It ships no UI and no database; you inject those.

npm i @pochta-chat/sdk

// self-owned identity + E2E crypto + transport,
// storage and UI injected by you.
import { createIdentity, Client } from "@pochta-chat/sdk";

Your messenger. Your server. Your keys.

Free and open source. Stand one up this weekend for the people you actually trust.