PaperPhone is an AGPL-3.0 messaging family from an independent Chinese developer. Plus combines encrypted messaging, native desktop/mobile clients, social features and 100-person meetings. Lite takes a smaller Tor-only approach with no clearnet fallback, hybrid X25519 + ML-KEM-768 key agreement, an optional local privacy password, and eight on-device text-appearance modes. Both editions are designed for straightforward self-hosting.
I built PaperPhone as two editions because privacy tools often pretend that one feature set fits every threat model. PaperPhonePlus is for people who want a complete self-hosted communication environment: native clients, private and group messaging, social posts, and LiveKit meetings. PaperPhoneLite deliberately removes calls and social modules, connects only through a Tor v3 onion service in production, and minimizes public infrastructure. Its optional Message Privacy password and eight text-appearance modes add a local layer for casually exposed screens; the visual modes are not a replacement for cryptographic encryption. Plus can be deployed with Docker Compose or Zeabur, while Lite uses Docker Compose + Tor without requiring a public domain, Nginx, or an exposed application port. Neither project has had an independent security audit, so I welcome careful review of the threat models, protocol choices, and deployment documentation. Source: https://github.com/619dev/Paperp... and https://github.com/619dev/PaperP...