Session

Session's own headline is an instruction rather than a description — send messages, not metadata — and everything else follows from it. It calls itself the decentralised private messaging app and leads with two claims: that the network is run by its users, thousands of nodes by its own account though it publishes no figure, and that an account needs neither a phone number nor an email address. It is stewarded by a Swiss foundation, which the terms name as the Session Technology Foundation, and its home page says plainly that development cannot continue without donations, which is worth knowing before reading about the paid tier. It does not present itself as a place to meet people: the terms say it was created for individuals who need anonymity and security, and nothing on the site describes discovery or matching.

You create an account ID without giving a phone number or an email, and you hold the encryption keys yourself. Messages travel over servers run by users around the world and are routed so that no single point sees both ends at once, and the company's claim is that there is no central store to breach because there is no central store. One detail is worth knowing before trusting the word decentralised: the first time the app runs it connects to a seed node operated by the foundation, which hands it the list of servers in the network. Group chats are end-to-end encrypted, and a free account supports groups of up to 100 people and attachments of up to 10MB. The absence of metadata is the product's stated purpose rather than a feature of it, and the terms put it that way, describing an app built to facilitate private and secure communication without capturing or sharing any metadata at all.

The base app is free, and the company commits to that in a sentence unusually specific about what stays free: encrypted messaging, accounts with no phone number, onion routing, attachments up to 10MB and groups up to 100 members are free for everyone, forever. Above that sits a subscription starting at 2.99 dollars a month, which adds longer messages, unlimited pinned conversations, animated profile pictures and a badge, with larger attachments, groups of up to 300, message editing and multiple identities announced as coming. A subscription is bought inside the app and bound to the account that bought it, so it cannot be gifted or transferred, and refunds run through the app store that sold it. The company is careful about the privacy of paying: it says the design means paying does not identify you, that encryption and metadata handling are identical for subscribers and everyone else, and that the payment backend stores only your key and whether your access is active. One number is published and only one — the headline monthly price — because the plan FAQ on the same page ships a placeholder where a price should be.

The age rule is 18 and over, which is unusual in this category and is stated only in the terms: anyone at least 18, or the age of majority where that is older, may use the service, while the privacy policy says nothing about age at all. The privacy claim is the strongest in this batch and is written as a structural fact rather than a promise. Session says it never knows who you are, who you are talking to, or what your messages contain; that it does not store identifying information such as your IP address; and that its design makes it impossible for the company to analyse or monitor what you send or share. Two exceptions are stated by the company itself, and they matter more than the claim. Your IP address can be seen by the seed node that first serves you the server list, though it says the address is not recorded. And communities are public by nature and can be monitored — the foundation says it cannot monitor them all, but does make a concerted effort to moderate the ones it created. Reports go to a board whose decisions are final, and the project publishes a transparency report quarterly. The sharpest disclosure on the site concerns what the operating systems keep: Apple and Google collect telemetry about when the app is opened, how long it is used, crash logs and your device model, and that data can be linked to your store account, which no amount of onion routing affects.

People whose threat model includes their own phone: journalists, organisers, and anyone who wants an encrypted conversation without handing over a number to get it. The terms state the audience plainly as individuals who require anonymity and security, and the product is built for friends and groups rather than for meeting strangers, since nothing the site publishes describes discovery or matching. Anyone who wants the extra features can pay for them, but the free tier is the whole messenger rather than a trial of it, which is the distinction that makes the subscription a donation with perks.

The most uncompromising claim in this batch attached to the most carefully listed exceptions, and the company states both itself rather than leaving the second to be discovered. No phone number, no metadata, no central store — and then, in its own policies: an 18-and-over rule, a seed node that sees your address before anything else does, public communities that can be moderated, and operating-system telemetry that may be tied to your app store account. Reading the marketing beside the policies is the only way to see the product accurately, and the policies are unusually clear. The paid tier is modest, honestly framed, and priced in public, with the caveat that the same page's own FAQ leaves a placeholder where a second price should be. What a sceptic will not find here is evidence: no audit, no node count, and no explanation of the token the project also runs.