Work in progress. Expect bugs and missing features
Work in progress. Expect bugs and missing features
Tensamin
Customisable, privacy-first, self-hosted messaging made in Germany
Features
1. Channels, but not just two hardcoded types
You can create custom channels with your own design and logic for anything you want, such as a channel for playing chess or viewing a Kanban board. As long as it compiles to WASM, you can use any programming language you like! It can then run on both the client and server sides. The possibilities are endless!
2. It's fast as f*ck boooiii
MTP is a custom protocol based on QUIC that provides high-speed, low-latency connections. It is so fast that there is no need to wait for a connection. It is heavily optimised and saves any bits it can.
3. Customisable down to the individual colors
The mobile app, desktop app and web app will always be consistent in terms of UI and theming options. Get creative and make changes such as injecting custom CSS or customising literally every color.
4. Selfhosted & runs great on a $5 VPS or a dusty laptop
With an Iota, you can host your own messages, ensuring they are not scattered across different devices and requiring extra time to sync. As the Iota is self-hosted, you can upload files as large as your storage allows.
5. Anonymous call invitations without the annoying 'Sign up'
Have you ever wanted to talk to someone in a video game, but hesitated because they would need to create an account? Well, now you can just enable anonymous invites and send them a link! They'll get a temporary session, so you can start talking right away and maybe make new friends!
6. There are three connection types to choose from
Funding
Business structure
This is our future goal. German law is 'complicating' things.
Methanium will be a for-profit company that builds other products and enterprise integrations for Tensamin. Tensamin will become a separate non-profit company and receive financial support from Methanium. Until we have the resources to establish it, Tensamin will remain part of Methanium.
Both projects have the same founders and mindset. In addition, Methanium depends on Tensamin remaining trustworthy and maintaining a stable user base. Tensamin is dual-licensed under MTH-1.0, a strong copyleft license, and MTH-Commercial-1.0, for commercial use. The MTH-1.0 license is based on the RPL-1.5 license.
How are we funded?
Our main costs are servers and bandwidth. Since messages are stored on your devices, we avoid the need for expensive storage infrastructure, which is great. Our operating costs are covered by generous sponsors, Tensamin Premium and Enterprise customers. We want to clarify that Tensamin Premium is simply to cover the additional bandwidth costs associated with higher screen-sharing qualities or features such as onion routing fetching. We try not to restrict such privacy features with paywalls.
Want to support us?
You can support Tensamin by buying merchandise from ourshop. It helps to fund the project and attract new users.
Comparison
| Feature | Tensamin | Signal | Stoat | Discord | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Message encryption | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | |
| Sealed sender | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Voice encryption | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Open Source | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Decentralised | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| Selfhostable | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| Hybrid Decentralisation | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Sending messages to other messengers | No | No | No | ||
| Programmable channels | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| File size limit | 500mb | 20mb | 2gb | 500mb | |
| Non-profit | Yes | No | No | No |
Do you want a specific category or have corrections? Email us at contact@methanium.net
Last updated: 21.4.2026