Tox
Shares rank 34 of 48 messaging apps by recommenders
Free peer-to-peer messenger that people recommend as mature and trusted. Common caveat: hard to install and use.
Free peer-to-peer messenger that people recommend as mature and trusted. Common caveat: hard to install and use.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 64%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Recommended as mature, trusted best practice
“should really be replaced by tox as a best practice”
Comment from 31 Aug 2026 in “uv: Deduplicate all files in the wheel cache” “SimpleX, and especially Tox, are much more mature.”
Comment from 28 Nov 2025 in “EU Council Approves New "Chat Control" Mandate Pushing Mass Surveillance” “Personally I use and trust Tox.”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “Platforms bend over backward to help DHS censor ICE critics, advocates say”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Hard to install and use
“There’s a bit of a bootstrap problem there in that Tox (and its dependencies) have to be installed first”
Comment from 31 Aug 2026 in “uv: Deduplicate all files in the wheel cache” “unusable from UX perspective (Tox, Matrix)”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great”
Other messaging apps people recommend
The four most recommended other messaging apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 48 messaging apps, rankedWhat people said
10 of the 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I found it was a consistent source of headaches and complexity.”
“There’s a bit of a bootstrap problem there in that Tox (and its dependencies) have to be installed first”
“should really be replaced by tox as a best practice”
“Personally I use and trust Tox.”
“the problem with decentralized alternatives is that they are even less stable than matrix currently is”
“if you're addicted to phones”
“unusable from UX perspective (Tox, Matrix)”
“should fit what you describe”
“SimpleX, and especially Tox, are much more mature.”
“go open source and fully distributed peer-to-peer”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.