PeerChat

PeerChat lets you chat with people around you, even when there is no internet or mobile signal. Phones connect directly over Bluetooth and pass messages along, forming a mesh network. No accounts, no phone numbers.

📡 WORKS WITHOUT INTERNET
• Chat with everyone in Bluetooth range in the public mesh chat
• Messages hop from phone to phone to reach people further away
• Great for festivals, travel, campuses, outages and remote places

🔒 PRIVATE BY DESIGN
• Direct messages are end-to-end encrypted
• No sign-up, no phone number, no email
• Verify contacts with a QR code
• Panic mode: triple-tap the logo to wipe everything instantly

📍 LOCATION CHATS
• Join chats for your block, neighbourhood or city
• Bookmark places to keep them in your list
• Uses the internet (Nostr relays) only for location chats and when a friend is out of Bluetooth range, with optional Tor routing

🎨 YOUR STYLE
• Home screen themes, from a classic chat list to a retro terminal
• Light and dark mode
• Pin, mute and mark chats as read
• Voice notes, photos, files and live push-to-talk

🔔 NOTIFICATIONS YOUR WAY
• Turn each kind of notification on or off: direct messages, mentions, mesh chat, location chats, people nearby
• Pick a different sound and vibration level for each

📤 SHARE WITHOUT THE INTERNET
• Send PeerChat to a friend over a local Wi-Fi hotspot or Quick Share

PERMISSIONS
• Nearby devices and location: Android requires them to find people over Bluetooth. Location is also used for location chats.
• Background location (optional): keeps the mesh working while the app is closed.

PeerChat is free and contains ads.

PeerChat is open source (GPLv3) and based on bitchat. It works with bitchat on Android and iOS, so you can chat with bitchat users too.