RetroShare/RetroShare

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_license

Adoption not part of the score

2012 stars · 323 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

RetroShare is a free, open-source, cross-platform, decentralized Friend-to-Friend (F2F) communication platform built in C++ with Qt. It provides encrypted chat, mail, forums, boards, channels, and file sharing over a secure peer-to-peer network, with optional Tor/I2P integration for anonymity.

Use cases

• share files privately with friends over a secure p2p network
• chat in decentralized censorship-resistant chat rooms
• send encrypted offline messages to friends
• read and write forum posts offline and sync later
• publish and subscribe to file channels
• hide my IP address using Tor or I2P
• build a private friend-to-friend darknet
• share large files with swarming transfers

When to choose

• you want fully decentralized, ad-free, open-source communication with no terms of service
• you need privacy and anonymity beyond direct friends via anonymous tunnels
• you want combined chat, mail, forums, and file sharing in one toolkit
• you need censorship-resistant forums and offline-capable messaging
• you want to route traffic over Tor or I2P for extra anonymity

When to avoid

• you need a large-scale public social network with global discovery
• you require centralized moderation or identity verification
• you need a lightweight mobile-first messenger (Android support is secondary)
• you want mainstream-compatible chat interoperability (e.g., with Signal or Matrix users)
• you cannot build from source or use the provided release packages for your platform

Facets

application · maturity active

cryptography chatbot email p2p gui privacy messaging-platforms social-media files censorship-circumvention cross-platform windows cross-platform friend-to-friend-network decentralized-communication tor i2p anonymous-tunnels darknet secure-messaging file-sharing decentralized-forums channels boards open-source no-ads encryption swarming bittorrent-like chat-rooms distant-chat offline-messaging censorship-resistant forum linux macos android desktop

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="RetroShare/RetroShare")