List of instant messaging protocols
This list contains information about network protocols that describe the communication flow and connection establishment between software clients for instant messaging . Some protocols are directly linked to the software, in this case the name of the software is mentioned.
protocol | Open source | developer | use | Open standard |
End-to-end encryption possible | user account | Offline messages | Own server possible |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
E-mail ("push mail") | Yes | 1982 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
IRC | Yes | Jarkko Oikarinen | 1988 | Yes | No | not mandatory | not without further ado | Yes |
Windows Live Messenger | No | Microsoft | 1999-2013 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
PSYC | Yes | PSYC project | 1995 | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
OSCAR ( AIM , ICQ ) | No | AOL | 1996 | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
Tencent QQ | No | QQ Tencent | 1998 | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
Yahoo Messenger | No | Yahoo | 1998 | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
SILC | Yes | Pekka Riikonen | 2000 | Yes | Yes | public key | No | No |
Gadu-Gadu | No | Gadu-Gadu | 2000 | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
XMPP (formerly Jabber) | Yes | Jeremie Miller | 2000 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Pichat | No | 2002 | ? | No | ? | ? | serverless | |
Skype | No | Skype Technologies (Microsoft) | 2003 | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
RetroShare | Yes | Team retroshare | 2006 | Yes | Yes | public key | Yes | serverless |
Echo protocol | Yes | Spot-on.sf.net / goldbug.sf.net | 2013 | Yes | Yes | optional | Yes | Yes |
SIMPLE | No | SIMPLE Working Group | 2007 | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
Blackberry Messenger | No | 2005 | No | No | ? | Yes | No | |
Hike | No | BSB Innovation India Private Limited | 2012 | No | No | ? | Yes | No |
Hoccer | No | Hoccer Betriebs GmbH | 2014 | No | No | ? | Yes | No |
KakaoTalk | No | 2010 | No | No | ? | Yes | No | |
Line | No | Line Corporation | 2011 | No | No | ? | Yes | No |
myEnigma | No | 2013-2016 | No | Yes | Phone number | Yes | No | |
Signal (formerly Axolotl) | Yes | Open Whisper Systems | 2010 | Yes | Yes | Phone number | Yes | No |
Ginlo before SIMSme | No | Brabbler AG previously Deutsche Post AG | 2014 | No | Yes | Phone number | Yes | No |
Surespot | Yes | 2fours | 2012 | No | Yes | ? | Yes | No |
Telegram Messenger (MTProto) | Yes | Telegram Messenger LLP | 2013 | No | Yes | Phone number | Yes | No |
Threema | No | Threema GmbH | 2012 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Viber | No | Viber Media | 2010 | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
No | WhatsApp Inc. (Facebook) | 2009 | No | Yes | Phone number | Yes | No | |
whistle.im | No | Daniel Wirtz, Michael Bank | 2013 | No | Yes | public key | Yes | No |
Tox | Yes | 2013 | Yes | Yes | public key | No | serverless | |
Google Talk / Google Hangouts | No | Google Inc. | 2005 | No | No | yes (google account) | Yes | No |
No | 2004 | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | ||
Mumble | Yes | 2005 | Yes | No | not mandatory | No | Yes | |
TeamSpeak | No | TeamSpeak Systems GmbH | 2001 | No | No | not mandatory | No | Yes |
WebRTC | Yes | World Wide Web Consortium | 2011 | Yes | No | not mandatory | No | Yes |
matrix | Yes | Matrix.org | 2014 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
A protocol is openly standardized if there is an (open) standardization committee or an (open) standardization process that has published a protocol specification.