SHSelfHostIndex
TO

Tox

Peer-to-peer encrypted messaging protocol and core

Chat & Communication ★ 2.7k stars Medium setup GPL-3.0

Tox is a free, peer-to-peer instant messaging protocol with end-to-end encryption and no central servers. The c-toxcore library is the reference implementation that powers a range of Tox clients.

Official siteSource code

Key features

  • Fully peer-to-peer
  • End-to-end encryption
  • No central servers
  • Voice and video calls

Strengths

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Active community (2.7k GitHub stars)
  • Written in C
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM

Is Tox secure?

No known vulnerabilities affect Tox's latest release (v0.2.23). OSV.dev lists 3 past advisories for the project; none of them applies to this release. No known vulnerabilities is not proof of security: it means none have been publicly catalogued.

  • Most recent fixed advisory CVE-2021-44847, published 2021-12-13 (1766 days ago)

Source: OSV.dev, checked 2026-10-14. How this is measured.

Tox replaces

Self-hosted Skype alternativesSelf-hosted Discord alternatives

Health badge

Maintain Tox? Add its health score to your README. The badge links back to this page.

SelfHostIndex: 88 · excellent

Markdown
[![SelfHostIndex health score for Tox](https://selfhostindex.com/badge/tox-toxcore.svg)](https://selfhostindex.com/app/tox-toxcore/)
HTML
<a href="https://selfhostindex.com/app/tox-toxcore/"><img src="https://selfhostindex.com/badge/tox-toxcore.svg" alt="SelfHostIndex health score for Tox"></a>
reStructuredText
.. image:: https://selfhostindex.com/badge/tox-toxcore.svg
   :alt: SelfHostIndex health score for Tox
   :target: https://selfhostindex.com/app/tox-toxcore/

The score is recomputed on every nightly rebuild from public repository data — see how it is calculated.

Compare Tox

20 head-to-head comparisons.

Similar chat & communication apps