The differentiator
A serverless messenger with no backend to trust
Every other messenger runs servers that hold your account and your metadata. PrivaMesh holds neither - no account database, no inbox, no message store. One worker pays your network fees, and that is the whole of what we run.
When people say “messenger without servers,” they usually mean the servers are somewhere you can’t see. PrivaMesh means something narrower and checkable: there is no account database, no inbox and no message store. Encrypted messages travel over a public, decentralized transport that no single company owns. This is what a genuinely decentralized messenger looks like.
Where your data actually lives
Instead of a server, a public transport carries your messages. Every piece of your data has a concrete home, and none of them is a company’s database:
| What | Where it lives | How |
|---|---|---|
| Your messages | A public, decentralized transport | Encrypted blobs, addressed to one-time addresses |
| Your inbox | The public transport itself | Retrieved and decrypted only on your device |
| Your keys | Your iPhone Keychain only | Biometric-locked, never leave the device |
| Your contacts & history | Your iPhone only | Never synced, never uploaded anywhere |
| Your identity | An account phrase you hold | Encryption keys on your device - no phone, no email |
| The "PrivaMesh server" | Does not exist | No account server; the transport is public and swappable |
How a message travels with no server in the middle
To send, PrivaMesh encrypts your message and pads it to a fixed size on your device, then hands the sealed blob to a public, decentralized transport, addressed to a one-time address. To receive, your device retrieves messages for its one-time addresses and decrypts them locally. The only machine we run pays the network fee for the transaction. It sees an account and a timestamp - never the plaintext, never the recipient.
Why serverless equals private
A server is a single point of failure for privacy. It can be hacked, subpoenaed, or quietly instructed to log more than it should. It can go down and take your messages with it. It can be sold, and its data policy with it. Remove the server and every one of those risks shrinks to what one worker can see. There is no inbox to breach, because messages are encrypted blobs only you can read. There is no conversation to subpoena, because no company holds one. What could be compelled from us is that an account paid for a send at a given time - not the message, not the recipient, not who you talk to.
No lock-in by design
The transport is public and swappable, so no single provider sees all your traffic. The fee worker is ours and is the one dependency we do control; if it went away you would fund transactions yourself, and your identity, contacts and history would be untouched.
The honest trade-off
A decentralized transport means messages ride a public network rather than a private server you have to trust. We think never trusting an operator is worth it - and we’d rather state how it works plainly than hide it.
Frequently asked questions
How can a messenger work with no servers at all?
Your device encrypts and pads the message, then hands the sealed blob to a public, decentralized transport addressed to a one-time address. The recipient’s device retrieves messages for its own one-time addresses and decrypts them locally. No PrivaMesh machine ever handles the message, because no PrivaMesh machine exists.
If there is no server, what happens if PrivaMesh shuts down?
Nothing central switches off, because there is no central service. The transport is public and swappable, and your keys and chats already live on your device. PrivaMesh is never tied to infrastructure we control, so nobody can cut you off.
Can PrivaMesh be subpoenaed for my messages?
There is nothing to hand over. We hold no conversations, no account database and no connection logs. A subpoena can only reach data someone holds, and your messages are encrypted blobs that only you and your contact can read.
Isn’t “serverless” just servers you can’t see?
That is the usual meaning, and it is not ours. There is no PrivaMesh backend, no relay and no account database anywhere. The only network dependency is a swappable, self-hostable Solana RPC.
Primary sources
- Solana Memo ProgramThe on-chain program whose field carries PrivaMesh ciphertext.
- The Double Ratchet algorithmThe specification for the per-message ratchet that provides forward secrecy and post-compromise security.