Franz is an open source messaging app. It’s a good alternative to Signal, combining chat and messaging services into a single application.
The software supports Slack, WhatsApp, WeChat, HipChat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, GroupMe, Skype, Discord, LinkedIn, Tweetdeck, Trello, Google Keep, Gmail, Google Calendar, and many more services.
Franz is an Electron-based application. Electron allows for the development of desktop GUI applications using front and back end components originally developed for web applications: Node.js runtime for the backend and Chromium for the frontend.
Franz moved to an open source license (Apache License 2.0) from version 5.
Key Features
- Supports a wide variety of business and private messaging & chat services like Slack, WhatsApp, WeChat, HipChat, Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, Skype, Zendesk and many more.
- Add each service many times. This makes Franz a good way to manage multiple business and private accounts all at the same time.
- Built in service synchronization.
- Invite friends.
- Secured with end-to-end encryption — text chats, conference calls, and files.
- Multi-device messaging.
- Verify each conversation partner’s device fingerprints for more security.
- Forward and backward secrecy.
- Option to enable/disable hardware acceleration.
- Extensive plugin architecture of Franz allows you add and create unlimited services. Plugins are called recipes. Create your own Franz service integration within a few minutes. A Franz recipe is basically a node module and is currently initialized on dom-ready.
- Spellchecker.
- AppImage available – 32 and 64 bit versions are available.
- Cross-platform support – available for Linux, MacOS and Windows operating systems.
- Internationalization support courtesy from the Franz community contributors: Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, Flemish, French, Gaelic, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, and Ukrainian languages.
Website: meetfranz.com
Support: Help Centre, Changelog, GitHub Code Repository, GitHub plugins repository
Developer: Stefan Malzner and many contributors
License: Apache License 2.0
Franz is written in JavaScript. Learn JavaScript with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| WhatsApp Clients | |
|---|---|
| Franz | Messaging app for WhatsApp, Slack, and others |
| WhatSie | Feature rich WhatsApp web client based on Qt WebEngine |
| nchat | Terminal-based chat client |
| ZapZap | Progressive Web Application |
| Karere | Native GTK4 application |
| Youp | WhatsApp wrapper |
| Whatsit | Native desktop client for WhatsAp |
| WasIstLos | Unofficial WhatsApp desktop application written in C++ |
| ElecWhat | Simple desktop WhatsApp client |
| WhatsApp Desktop | Wraps the official WhatsApp Web interface |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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