# Knit vs the other ways to message offline

> Five other projects, one of them no longer with us, and where Knit sits among them.

Start with the people you want to reach. Compare device support, setup, messaging features and privacy choices, then pick an app your group can use together. Knit offers nearby discovery and a phone mesh, with optional radios and Internet relays to extend existing conversations.

The FireChat page looks back at a discontinued app and explains what current options offer. The other comparisons cover projects you can explore for your group today.

The table below is the short version. Each full comparison goes further, including the parts where the other app is the better pick.

*Knit compared with Briar, Bitchat, Bridgefy, FireChat and Meshtastic across the features people ask about most.*

|  | Knit | Briar | Bitchat | Meshtastic | FireChat | Bridgefy |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Works with no internet | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, after you sign in once |
| Still being developed | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No, last updated 2018 | Yes |
| iPhone app | No, coming soon | No | Yes | Yes | No, discontinued | Yes |
| Works with just the phones you already have | Yes | Yes | Yes | No, each person needs a LoRa radio | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-hop mesh — messages relay beyond your own radio | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| No account, no password | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Username only | No, Google or Apple sign-in |
| Open room with everyone nearby [1] | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Store & forward for offline peers | Yes | No | Yes | Router nodes only | Yes | Not documented |
| End-to-end encrypted direct & group chats | Yes | Yes | DMs yes; no named groups | DMs yes; channels share one key | 1:1 only, from 2015 | DMs only; public chat is open |
| Forward secrecy [2] | Yes | Yes | Live sessions only | No | Not documented | Via the Signal protocol |
| Photos, GIFs & voice notes | Yes | Images only | Text only | No, text and location | Images only | Yes |
| On-device AI moderation | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Works over the internet [3] | Yes, via optional relays | Yes, via Tor | Yes, via Nostr relays | Optional, via MQTT bridges | Yes | Only to sign in |
| Free, no ads, open source | Yes, GPLv3 | Yes | Yes, public domain | Yes, GPLv3 — radios cost extra | Was free; closed source | Free app; closed source |

1. Knit's Nearby room is an open broadcast, plaintext by design — like talking out loud in a crowd. Direct and group chats are the sealed part. Meshtastic's default channel ships with a publicly known key, which comes to the same thing, and FireChat's public chatrooms were never encrypted at all.
2. Knit rotates keys per block of messages, not per message, and a chat with someone on an older Knit build falls back to the previous static-key scheme, which has none. Spent keys are deleted, so mesh traffic recorded today can't be decrypted later. Meshtastic's own documentation states it does not implement forward secrecy; Bridgefy adopted the Signal protocol in 2020, and a 2022 paper found that adoption incorrectly implemented.
3. Knit's Internet relays are opt-in and off until you add one, and they carry only existing direct and group conversations, as sealed frames the relay can't read. No accounts, no discovery, and you can run your own. They don't hide who talks to whom; Briar's Tor does. The Nearby room stays radio-only.

## Full comparisons

- [Knit vs Briar](https://getknit.app/vs/briar/index.md): Briar syncs with contacts you trust, over Tor and offline. Knit meshes with whoever is around you, with nothing to set up first. Where each one wins, and how to choose.
- [Knit vs Bitchat](https://getknit.app/vs/bitchat/index.md): Bitchat runs on iPhone and Android; Knit gives Android a full messenger — photos, encrypted groups, history — on a Bluetooth + Wi-Fi mesh, with iPhone on the way. Where each one wins.
- [Knit vs Meshtastic](https://getknit.app/vs/meshtastic/index.md): Meshtastic gets kilometres of range from dedicated LoRa radios. Knit makes a mesh out of the phones everyone already carries, and since 2.5.0 it can pair one of those radios too. Where each one wins.
- [Knit vs FireChat](https://getknit.app/vs/firechat/index.md): FireChat carried Hong Kong's 2014 protests and has been discontinued since 2018. What it did, why people still search for it, and what to use instead.
- [Knit vs Bridgefy](https://getknit.app/vs/bridgefy/index.md): Bridgefy runs on iPhone and Android but wants a Google or Apple sign-in before it will work offline. Knit asks for no account at all. Where each one wins.

Product names on these pages are the trademarks of their respective owners and are used only to identify the apps being compared. None of those projects is affiliated with, or has endorsed, Knit.

Canonical page: https://getknit.app/vs/