On the Ruins of Instant Messaging, Digital Pirates Restore an Ancient Galleon

In early 2026, a time filled with AI-generated content, Delta Chat acts like a stubborn analog radio station, broadcasting the sound of freedom amidst the digital noise.

February 6, 2026. Another Friday flooded with news about AI Copilots and automated workflows. While you were still anxious about the dazzling AI-assisted programming tools on GitHub (GitHub Spark, Models), in a corner of the code repositories, a group of “digital pirates” quietly pushed a few critical commits.

I glanced at that inconspicuous repository, calls-webapp, last updated on February 4th; followed by a refresh of deltachat-pages yesterday (February 5th). These people are doing something that sounds insane: running modern P2P video calling and instant messaging applications on an antique protocol that has existed for over 50 years—Email.

It sounds like playing Cyberpunk 2077 on an abacus—absurd, yet strangely compelling.

Deep Insight: The Resurrection of a Zombie Protocol

Deep Insight

Why are we talking about Delta Chat at this moment?

Because we have been trapped in “walled gardens” for too long. Think about it: WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal—no matter how safe they claim to be, essentially, you are still living on a landlord’s server. If the landlord is unhappy, they can pull the plug at any time.

But Delta Chat pulls a “resurrection” move.

Its underlying logic is extremely tricky: it doesn’t have its own servers. It disguises your existing Email account as an instant messaging app.

What looks like a short message sent via WeChat is actually encapsulated in the background as a highly encrypted (Autocrypt) email. It flies to the recipient’s mailbox via SMTP/IMAP protocols, and then the recipient’s client parses this email back into a chat bubble.

This architecture diagram reveals the essence: Delta Chat didn’t reinvent the wheel; it strapped a racing engine onto the ancient email protocol.

You might ask: “Email? Isn’t that slow as a snail?”

That’s where they shine. To solve latency, they created Chatmail. You can understand it as a modified, extreme-speed mail server architecture optimized specifically for chatting. It strips away the bloated rich text rendering and complex headers of traditional email, keeping only the purest data transmission channels.

To put it plainly, this is a “parasitic” innovation. It doesn’t need to build a new social network; as long as you have an email address, you are a user. In 2026, an era where giants monopolize traffic, this “permissionless” connection method is the real moat.

Independent Perspective: Webxdc, The Operating System in a Chat Box

Independent Perspective

If Chatmail only solved the “speed” problem, then Webxdc is Delta Chat’s true killer app, and in my eyes, the most underestimated black technology.

In the references you see, webxdc: Private Apps is listed casually. But taste what this is carefully—it is a micro-application running inside the chat window.

Imagine playing chess with a friend in the chat box. Every move isn’t sent through a central game server but is packaged as a tiny data packet (Update) and sent like an email attachment. The recipient’s client updates the board state upon receipt.

What does this mean? It means “Serverless” has been redefined.

Usually, when we say Serverless, we refer to cloud giants’ servers, but Webxdc truly has no server. App state is stored in your encrypted email exchanges.

Not just games: Collaborative documents, calendar voting, or even a small e-commerce shelf can be encapsulated in this .xdc file.
Data Sovereignty: Your app data doesn’t belong to any company; it only exists between you and your chat partner.

This is an open provocation to the modern SaaS (Software as a Service) model. In an era where everything requires a subscription and an internet connection, Webxdc tells you: As long as two devices can communicate, you can own a private digital world.

Seemingly simple frame synchronization, behind which lies a crazy attempt to use email channels for application state updates.

Industry Context: The Lonely Wall-Breaker

Industry Context

If we zoom out and compare the current communication giants:

Signal / WhatsApp: High security, but you are a digital sharecropper. Your social graph is locked in their private protocols. Once the server goes down or your account is banned, you lose not only your chat history but all your contacts.
Matrix (Element): Great concept, supports Federation, but the technical architecture is too heavy. The barrier to entry for hosting a Matrix server is enough to scare off 99% of ordinary users.
Delta Chat: It is an “accidental federation.” Because it’s based on Email, and Email is inherently federated (Gmail users can email Outlook users). You don’t need to beg giants for interoperability; the Email protocol has already paved the way.

But we can’t praise it blindly. Delta Chat’s shortcomings are still obvious:

Metadata Exposure: Although the content is encrypted, the email headers are visible to mail service providers. They know who you are talking to and how frequently.
Censorship Resistance: If a mail provider identifies you as a “spam maniac” (because you send thousands of short messages a day) and bans your account, you’re done. Although Chatmail mitigates this, relying on third-party infrastructure always carries risks.

Unfinished Thoughts: Is Video Calling the Last Puzzle Piece?

Unfinished Thoughts

Back to the calls-webapp update mentioned at the start. This is actually the final piece of the puzzle Delta Chat is trying to complete—P2P Video Calling.

In 2026, if an IM software can’t do video, it’s destined to be niche. But video via Email? That sounds like a fantasy.

They obviously aren’t silly enough to stuff video streams into email attachments (that would be too hardcore). Based on WebRTC characteristics, their current approach implies: using encrypted email to exchange handshake information (SDP Offer/Answer), and once connected, transmitting directly via P2P between two devices.

This means that even during video calls, there are no middlemen taking a cut, and no servers eavesdropping.

If this step succeeds, Delta Chat will no longer be a “geek toy” but a truly usable, fully functional, decentralized communication platform. I wonder, if they can make this experience as smooth as FaceTime in the future, will those communication giants who rely on selling user privacy data feel a chill?

Reflections: A Tribute to Those Repairing Sails

Reflections

At this moment, looking at the Delta Chat codebase, I feel a sense of anachronistic emotion.

Outside, tech giants are using thousands of H100 GPUs to train large models, trying to calculate humanity’s future. But inside the Delta Chat community, this group is refurbishing a 50-year-old “sailboat” (Email protocol), trying to prove that even without nuclear power (centralized servers), we can still cross the ocean.

This isn’t necessarily the optimal solution, and it may have no commercial future.
But as the old saying goes: “When all doors are locked, the oldest key is often the most effective.”

In this calculated year of 2026, holding a rusty but functional key to freedom is, in itself, the ultimate romance.

References：

—— Lyra Celest @ Turbulence τ