Monal — XMPP Chat

Name: Monal — XMPP Chat
Rating: 3.7 (125 reviews)
Author: Molitor und Dietzel, Inh. Thilo Molitor

Open source XMPP Messenger

Free

125 Ratings
Ages

4+
Years
Category

Social Networking
Developer

Molitor und Dietzel, Inh. Thilo Molitor
Language

EN
+ 31 More
Size

68.2
MB

There has never been a better time to get into XMPP, a free public chat network no one controls or owns. Monal is a fast and user friendly way to use XMPP. Just download the app, login or register and you are ready to chat in minutes. It looks and works the way other apps do, so there is no need to “learn XMPP” or even care what it is. Notable features: - Open Source - No Ads! Strong focus on privacy. Does not phone home and does not have software "metrics" - Does not read any personal information - With a direct connection to your server, your password and all other info are never sent to a third-party - OMEMO encrypted chat - Will work with corporate XMPP servers that require VPN - Multi user chat (MUC) support for group chats - Audio/Video calls Implements certain XMPP extensions intended to improve mobile communication: - XEP-0357: Push Notifications - XEP-0280: Message Carbons keep messages in synch between clients - XEP-0198: Stream Management to quickly reconnect - XEP-0199: XMPP Ping to maintain connections - XEP-0313: Message Archive Management to download chat history - XEP-0352: Client State Indication for dramatic reduction on power use - XEP-0363: HTTP File Upload to send images in conversations

Ratings & Reviews

3.7

out of 5

125 Ratings

I have some questions
04/03/2022

Wild Ion
I'm having problems with flashing and crashing, after sending a message at one point, monal flashed and when I opened it again nothing was displayed and it also flashed immediately. After repeating it many times I had to delete and reinstall it, now it is working fine, but I would like to know why it crashes. Overall monal is still a good XMPP client for iOS, although it still has some minor issues

Developer Response
Well, I can't tell you what happened in the retrospective, but if you ever experience problems again, you can always create a ticket on github: https://github.com/monal-im/Monal/issues or write an email to info@monal-im.org
I have some questions
04/03/2022

Wild Ion

I'm having problems with flashing and crashing, after sending a message at one point, monal flashed and when I opened it again nothing was displayed and it also flashed immediately. After repeating it many times I had to delete and reinstall it, now it is working fine, but I would like to know why it crashes. Overall monal is still a good XMPP client for iOS, although it still has some minor issues
Developer Response 05/03/2022
Well, I can't tell you what happened in the retrospective, but if you ever experience problems again, you can always create a ticket on github: https://github.com/monal-im/Monal/issues or write an email to info@monal-im.org
Great utility! Lots of development activity; high hopes!
08/18/2024

zfkdnop
It seems to me Monal has come a long way since release. Some devs just release their app and never work on it again - but not Monal! The Monal devs are reasonably active with maintenance & bugfixes. They’ve put together a very useful, feature-rich, easy-to-use XMPP client while keeping a minimalist feel.Monal crashes occasionally, but not so much as to impede my usecase. I just close/reopen the app, or ignore the crash warning, and pick up where I left off. (To devs: I’ll have to remember to send you the crash report next time. I think I tried once and it said my phone wasn’t set up to send emails? I dunno. I’ll try.)Overall, the app works great and has all the necessities. Works flawlessly with my cheap low-end VPS running ejabberd. Calls connect fast, voice is clear, no lag. OMEMO works; but I did have some issues with it early on where my recipient couldn’t read msgs (or vice versa) even though we had confirmed each other’s keys. To be fair this could have also been a user error. This was eventually resolved.I would like to see additional privacy options. OMEMO is fine. I would like to see PGP implemented (for example, I believe the Linux XMPP client “Dino” has the ability to use PGP as well as OMEMO)Perhaps even encrypted voice calls (assuming they are not already encrypted)

Developer Response
Thanks! Regarding GPG: That's on our roadmap, but currently we have a lot of other TODOs that are even more important, for example: https://monal-im.org/post/00013-nlnet-funding2/Voice and video calls are already encrypted and signed with OMEMO (in OMEMO encrypted chats and if the other client supports this. At least Conversations for Android does support OMEMO signed calls).
Great utility! Lots of development activity; high hopes!
08/18/2024

zfkdnop

It seems to me Monal has come a long way since release. Some devs just release their app and never work on it again - but not Monal! The Monal devs are reasonably active with maintenance & bugfixes. They’ve put together a very useful, feature-rich, easy-to-use XMPP client while keeping a minimalist feel.Monal crashes occasionally, but not so much as to impede my usecase. I just close/reopen the app, or ignore the crash warning, and pick up where I left off. (To devs: I’ll have to remember to send you the crash report next time. I think I tried once and it said my phone wasn’t set up to send emails? I dunno. I’ll try.)Overall, the app works great and has all the necessities. Works flawlessly with my cheap low-end VPS running ejabberd. Calls connect fast, voice is clear, no lag. OMEMO works; but I did have some issues with it early on where my recipient couldn’t read msgs (or vice versa) even though we had confirmed each other’s keys. To be fair this could have also been a user error. This was eventually resolved.I would like to see additional privacy options. OMEMO is fine. I would like to see PGP implemented (for example, I believe the Linux XMPP client “Dino” has the ability to use PGP as well as OMEMO)Perhaps even encrypted voice calls (assuming they are not already encrypted)
Developer Response 11/27/2024
Thanks! Regarding GPG: That's on our roadmap, but currently we have a lot of other TODOs that are even more important, for example: https://monal-im.org/post/00013-nlnet-funding2/Voice and video calls are already encrypted and signed with OMEMO (in OMEMO encrypted chats and if the other client supports this. At least Conversations for Android does support OMEMO signed calls).
The best iOS xmpp client again
05/15/2025

chibzly
Monal has consistently been updated throughout the years, and is currently the best client on iOS. I had been using Siskin for a while, and it was decent enough, but the lack of proper push notifications was incredibly frustrating. Monal has proper push notifications even with omemo, which is great. I was initially concerned with battery usage, and while settings reports high usage, in practice it has been a non-issue (monal has documentation discussing why this is a measurement error on iOS’s part). Overall I’m pretty pleased right now. There’s still features I’d like to see, and the UI feels a bit buggy sometimes (e.g., uploading images never seems to work the first time…), but this is actually usable right now, even with omemo. I hope it continues to improve!
The best iOS xmpp client again
05/15/2025

chibzly

Monal has consistently been updated throughout the years, and is currently the best client on iOS. I had been using Siskin for a while, and it was decent enough, but the lack of proper push notifications was incredibly frustrating. Monal has proper push notifications even with omemo, which is great. I was initially concerned with battery usage, and while settings reports high usage, in practice it has been a non-issue (monal has documentation discussing why this is a measurement error on iOS’s part). Overall I’m pretty pleased right now. There’s still features I’d like to see, and the UI feels a bit buggy sometimes (e.g., uploading images never seems to work the first time…), but this is actually usable right now, even with omemo. I hope it continues to improve!
XMPP on iOS is great
02/07/2024

bdksbdjen
I had a mistaken view that there were no good XMPP options on iOS. Perhaps that was true before, but now it’s false. Additionally, the XMPP standards have added a lot of things to make the protocol very usable on mobile devices.Monal is good, usable, and actively developed. There are some minor UI issues but they are fixable, and a small trade off for a communications channel you actually have control over. This is one app I’ll be pushing my friends to use.Monal is open source which means you can have confidence that it can continue being updated for many years. I would consider this a significant strength for any software, but even more so on iOS which breaks apps once they are too old (guessing half of the iOS apps I’ve paid for don’t work/can’t be install anymore?)
XMPP on iOS is great
02/07/2024

bdksbdjen

I had a mistaken view that there were no good XMPP options on iOS. Perhaps that was true before, but now it’s false. Additionally, the XMPP standards have added a lot of things to make the protocol very usable on mobile devices.Monal is good, usable, and actively developed. There are some minor UI issues but they are fixable, and a small trade off for a communications channel you actually have control over. This is one app I’ll be pushing my friends to use.Monal is open source which means you can have confidence that it can continue being updated for many years. I would consider this a significant strength for any software, but even more so on iOS which breaks apps once they are too old (guessing half of the iOS apps I’ve paid for don’t work/can’t be install anymore?)

- Fixed crash when receiving broken OMEMO bundles - Better fix for audio/video codec issues (aka black video stream) - Fixed broken video calls by fixing bug in Mozilla's webrtc-sdp library - Reworked complete OMEMO trust management - Fixed spurious "new OMEMO device found" notifications and status messages - Introduced some new OMEMO expert settings - Improved UI responsiveness in some rare cases - Made sure to periodically advance the OMEMO DH-ratchet even on devices only used for receiving messages, not sending - Made sure to remove old OMEMO devices not seen for more than 90 days from own devicelist