# 🤖 How Eleven compares

Where Eleven sits among the private messengers, honestly. Every pillar of
the Eleven model — no identifiers, end-to-end encryption, easy self-hosting,
a mainstream-grade app — already exists *somewhere* in this landscape.
Eleven's bet is the **combination**. (This page compares the *product*;
[comparison-infrastructure.md](comparison-infrastructure.md) compares the
*infrastructure* — Durable Objects, Sandstorm, Orleans, Fly — where the
same bet-on-the-combination story holds; and
[comparison-carbon.md](comparison-carbon.md) estimates what that
infrastructure costs the planet at scale.)

## At a glance

| | Signal | Matrix / Element | SimpleX | Session | **Eleven** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| End-to-end encrypted | Yes | Yes (rooms) | Yes (double ratchet) | Yes | **Yes** |
| Identifier required | Phone number | Username + account | None | Random Session ID | **None — invite link** |
| Onboarding | Install + phone verify | Pick a server, register | One-time invitation link | Generate an ID | **Click a link, you're chatting** |
| Server topology | Centralized, one operator | Federated homeservers | Relay queues | Community onion-routed nodes | **Many small instances + thin glue** |
| Self-hosting | No | Yes, but a sysadmin job | Yes (relays) | Not really | **Yes — one binary, [designed to be simple](self-hosting.md)** |
| What a hacked server exposes | Little (sealed sender) | Membership, timing, server addresses | Very little — no IDs to correlate | Little (onion routing) | **Ciphertext only** |
| Mainstream UX | Excellent | Improving, still heavy | Privacy-enthusiast | Decent | **A design goal, not a nice-to-have** |

## The nearest neighbours

**[SimpleX Chat](https://simplex.chat/)** is the nearest philosophically —
the first messaging network with
[no user identifiers of any kind](https://github.com/simplex-chat/simplex-chat):
no phone number, no username, not even a random ID. Contact happens through
one-time invitation links, encryption is the Signal double-ratchet, and
relays are self-hostable. Where we differ: SimpleX is built on
per-conversation [message queues](https://simplex.chat/docs/simplex.html)
rather than small shareable instances, and it's aimed at privacy
enthusiasts. Eleven aims at your family group chat.

**[Matrix / Element](https://matrix.org/)** is the nearest architecturally —
genuinely federated, self-hostable, encrypted, many servers forming one
network. But it keeps accounts and usernames, running a homeserver is real
operational work, and federated rooms leak metadata: participating servers
see room membership, message timing, and server addresses. That's exactly
what "if the server got hacked, nothing on the server should expose
anything" rules out.

**[Signal](https://signal.org/)** is the gold standard for audited
mainstream e2ee — and proof that a private messenger can feel like a normal
app. It's also centralized under one operator and requires a phone number,
which ties every conversation back to a government-issued identifier.

**[Session](https://getsession.org/)** drops the phone number and routes
messages over an onion network, cutting metadata exposure. But you don't run
your own piece of it, and the network's incentives are tied to its token
rather than to its members.

## What only the combination gives you

- **No sign-up and no identifier** (SimpleX has this; Signal and Matrix
  don't) — so there's nothing to subpoena, leak, or sell.
- **Self-hosting as a right, made easy** (Matrix has the right, not the
  easy) — one static binary, a €4 VPS, [ten minutes](self-hosting.md).
- **Small instances that still form one network** (Signal is one big
  instance; SimpleX has no instances) — invites and chats
  [cross servers](cross-instance-relay.md).
- **Ciphertext-only servers** (Matrix leaks metadata) — push and key backup
  run as [thin, optional, replaceable glue](push-relay.md).
- **A mainstream app** (SimpleX and Session ask you to care about privacy
  first) — groups, photos, reactions, replies, bots. Nothing to relearn.

## Sources

- [Comparison of instant messengers (Eylenburg)](https://eylenburg.github.io/im_comparison.htm)
- [Signal vs SimpleX vs Session (Cunicula, 2026)](https://cunicula.com/en/articles/encrypted-messaging-comparison)
- [Messenger showdown: Signal, Session, SimpleX, Matrix, XMPP, Briar (Simplified Privacy)](https://simplifiedprivacy.com/messengers/)
- [SimpleX platform design](https://simplex.chat/docs/simplex.html)

*Snapshot as of July 2026 — the neighbours ship fast; corrections welcome.*