Papercups vs qTox
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted chat & communication options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare Papercups with
choose an app… Plane Chatwoot Focalboard Super Productivity Wekan SimpleX Chat Etherpad OpenProject Habitica Self-Hosted Planka Leantime Centrifugo Screego Typebot git-bug Kanboard Berty Mumble Kaneo The Lounge Taskwarrior Zammad WorkAdventure Soketi Remark42 Isso FreeSWITCH MiroTalk Ferdium FreeScout Telegram Bot API Server Rustpad Erxes Asterisk WeeChat Ergo irssi Quicksy Bridge Kamailio Cusdis Libredesk Tox Stoat AnyCable Chitchatter Live Helper Chat Spacebar Nextcloud Talk Indico RetroShare SIPCAPTURE Homer Peer-calls mautrix-telegram Routr GlobaLeaks openSIPS mautrix Databag Galène InspIRCd Candy Toxic Hyphanet FusionPBX soju KiwiIRC Glowing Bear Bonfire Pretalx Delta Chat Notifo SimpleX Briar Quassel IRC OTS matrix-commander Mumble Web Comentario BitlBee ngIRCd Miaou Session Nextcloud Talk Signaling Server UnrealIRCd MiroTalk C2C matrix-appservice-irc Linphone Chatmail Relay Hookshot Atheme IRC Services Maunium Sticker Picker Spectrum 2 Shhh Gamja Jami Server Bridge Mollysocket Anope PushBits Comm Tiledesk Heisenbridge Slixmpp Ferdium Server Solanum Wesh Network Draupnir baibot matrix-media-repo Charybdis IRCd Zusam Cactus Comments ircd-hybrid Scuttlebutt Room Robust IRC Flexisip SAMA Biboumi Hebbot ircu2 Libervia Jami YunoHost Mail Relay 3CX ARN-Messager Freepbx GNUnet Groupboard MailBag Mailman3 Mailing List Manager Mlmmj Web Peachpub PrivMX WebMail SIP3 TrueConf Wazo Yeti-Switch
Compare qTox with
choose an app… Chatwoot SimpleX Chat Etherpad Tinode Centrifugo Screego Typebot Berty Mumble ejabberd The Lounge Zammad WorkAdventure Soketi Remark42 Isso FreeSWITCH MiroTalk Synapse Ferdium FreeScout Telegram Bot API Server Rustpad Asterisk WeeChat Ergo irssi FluffyChat Quicksy Bridge Tox Dino Peer-calls MongooseIM Toxic Syphon Delta Chat Element X Briar CoyIM Spark IM Gajim Session Linphone Chatmail Chatmail Relay SchildiChat Jangouts Snikket Jami Server Bridge Tigase XMPP Server Wesh Network Metronome IM Jami
Feature Papercups qTox Category Chat & Communication Chat & Communication License MIT GPL-3.0 Language Elixir C++ Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 1,024 MB 128 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal, source bare-metal, binary GitHub stars ★ 6,097 ★ 4,977 First released 2020 2014 Replaces Intercom, Drift Skype, WhatsApp
Why pick each one
Choose Papercups if… Released under the MIT license First-class Docker support for quick deployment Mature project with 6.1k GitHub stars Written in Elixir Papercups details Choose qTox if… Released under the GPL-3.0 license Active community (5k GitHub stars) Written in C++ Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM qTox details
Frequently asked questions Is Papercups or qTox better? Neither is universally better. Papercups has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Papercups and qTox free and open-source? Yes. Papercups is licensed under MIT and qTox under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Papercups and qTox with Docker? Papercups: yes. qTox: check the project docs for container support.