Session

Session is a highly secure, open-source private messaging app that you can use on every device you own. We like the anonymity that Session offers, as it requires absolutely no personal information in order to sign up. That said, slow texts, inconsistent call quality, and few community features mean Session isn't quite as appealing as Signal, our Editors' Choice winner. Signal manages to combine fun, user-friendly calling features with end-to-end encrypted messaging.

Can You Trust Session?

Security should be at the forefront of every app marketed as a "privacy solution," but that isn't always the case. Session does a lot to show it isn't playing fast and loose with user data. For one, all conversations on the app are end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) using Session Protocol, which is based on an open-source crypto library. Additionally, the app doesn't request any personal data from users to create an account; you only need to create a username, add a contact or two, and that's it. No email address, name, credit card, or phone number is required to start chatting. Even Signal requires a phone number to sign up.

Messages are pretty secure on Session because each one goes through an onion-routing network that the company says is similar to Tor. Using a process called onion requests, no single server ever holds a message's destination or origin.

Who's financing and maintaining an app matters in establishing user trust, especially when it comes to privacy products. Session is backed by not-for-profit digital privacy organization Oxen Privacy Tech Foundation, making it more appealing to privacy-conscious users than WhatsApp, which became a Meta property in 2014.

Getting Started With Session

You can use Session on Android and iOS devices, as well as Linux, macOS, and Windows computers. We tested the app using a Samsung A71 5G phone and an iPhone 13 Pro.

As mentioned, Session does not require personal data at signup, and that's unique among all the other private messaging apps we've reviewed. When you create a username, then Session generates a 64-character-long user ID or a QR code that you can share with the people you want to chat with on the app. After that, just scan your friends' QR codes or enter their user IDs and start chatting. Session gives you a recovery phrase for your account and recommends saving it somewhere safe. That way, if you need to log out or uninstall the app, you can recover your messages.

Session does not request access to your device's contact list at any time. The app also disables screenshots by default, though you can turn off this setting in the Privacy menu.

After signing up, you can choose how you want to receive message notifications from Session. Fast Mode gives you instant notifications, but they're routed through Google's servers. Slow Mode lets Session occasionally check for new messages while running in the background on your device or computer.

Session's Privacy Settings

(Credit: Session/PCMag)

Since you reveal so little about yourself at sign-up, there are few privacy settings to fiddle with in the app. As noted, you can toggle the ability to take a screenshot on and off. In testing, when an iOS user took a screenshot of the chat, the chat partner received a notification of it. When an Android user took screenshots of the same conversation, the iOS chat partner did not receive a notification, however, which is not ideal.

(Credit: Session/PCMag)

A welcome security feature we noticed in testing is that Session automatically strips EXIF data from media files. This keeps other people from being able to see where and when you took a photo.

Private Messaging on Session

We like Session's anonymous aspect for privacy and security purposes, but it makes the app less practical for discovering new people to chat with. And maybe that's the point. The current iteration of the Session app is best for chatting without leaving a digital trail behind. Session is not for cultivating an audience like Telegram or finding new friends, like WhatsApp.

You must know your friends' user ID or they need to be physically nearby for you to scan their QR code and add them to your contact list. That means you probably will use Session to talk only with people you know and trust, which, for those with privacy concerns, is for the best. The app does host communities (explained more in a moment), but even to join most of them, you need to know the Community's URL or have its QR code to participate.

(Credit: Session/PCMag)

You can chat one-on-one using Conversations, which are standard E2EE private messages. Like Signal and WhatsApp, Session places conversations in speech bubbles, and you can add GIPHY reaction gifs or your own media files to the chat window. You can also enable disappearing messages with a wide range of durations, which is helpful.

Messages can sometimes take a long time (over two minutes) to get to the other party, and media files often load slowly, too. Messaging on Signal and WhatsApp is instant, and those platforms also use E2EE for their private messaging functions.

Group Chats on Session

You can add people to a Session group chat by tapping Create a Group in the app menu and clicking on the Contacts you wish to add. Group chats are E2EE and support up to 100 participants. The group chat window is identical in functionality and appearance to the Conversation window.

(Credit: Session/PCMag)

If you're looking to interact with a larger group and possibly strangers, go to the Communities tab. Communities are self-hosted, so the messages are stored on someone's server somewhere. Here, messages are only encrypted in transit to the server, making that chat method less private.

While testing, we could only view activity in a few Session-led Community channels, which were announcement hubs for new app features. As noted earlier, if you want to find a more active Community channel on Session, you need the Community's URL or QR code. Again, the focus is on privacy and protection.

(Credit: Session/PCMag)

The app doesn't have a lot of fun stuff like the animated stickers and avatars found in Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram's chat functions. However, since Session is primarily for talking to people you already know, maybe you'll make your own fun. Session also doesn't have passive, large-scale broadcasting features like WhatsApp's statuses or Signal's stories.

Session Voice and Video Chat

You can opt into voice and video calling via the Privacy menu, but these functions are part of Session's beta program. We found the capabilities to be a bit hit-or-miss in testing. To start a call, open a conversation with a contact and press the phone icon. The video quality for both the iOS and Android apps was a little grainy but usable. However, the iOS user on the call could not hear the Android user's audio, and sometimes, it took a few minutes for a call to be received. We'd like to improvements to lag time and call quality before these features are released from beta.

(Credit: Session/PCMag)

Switching between a Session video call and another app on the device made the video freeze, and as we already noted, screenshot detection was spotty during calls and while chatting. Currently, group calling is not an option for Session users.

But again, the calling features are in beta. We hope the issues we encountered will be ironed out soon.

Verdict: Try Session for Texting IRL Friends

Session uses end-to-end encryption by default, doesn't need your personal info for signing up, and makes it super easy to chat privately without leaving a lot of data behind for snoops or criminals to use against you. That level of privacy also makes discovering new people on the platform almost impossible, which is a plus for the privacy-conscious users Session targets. Though we like Session's baked-in privacy and security measures, we still recommend Editors' Choice winner Signal more highly because it blends powerful privacy policies with helpful community-building features.