A tiny European country built its own encrypted messaging app as an alternative to WhatsApp
Luxembourg’s new messaging app caters to 14,000 users
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- Luxembourg launched Luxchat to give government, citizens, and businesses a secure alternative to foreign messaging apps.
- Luxchat has 14,000 users across education, federal government, and local administrations.
- The app runs on Luxembourgish servers and uses the open-source Matrix protocol.
- Other European governments are also moving staff toward national or in-house messaging services.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Luxembourg is rolling out an encrypted instant messaging app to offer its people a secure alternative to services like WhatsApp and Signal. It joins larger European countries, including Poland, which are also testing national messaging apps.
Luxchat is intended for use by the government, citizens, and businesses and is built on the open-source Matrix protocol, developed by UK-French company Element.
Its origins trace back to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, when the country of approximately 700,000 people went remote, and civil servants moved their communications to American messaging services, according to Computer Weekly.
Relying on foreign apps raised concerns about the security and privacy of sensitive government information, especially in a country that has long championed its digital sovereignty.
As a result, the country’s Ministry for Digitalization, in collaboration with Luxembourg Internet Exchange (LU-CIX), developed a secure national instant messaging hosted on Luxembourgish servers.
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It is available on Android, iPhone, Windows, and Apple, as well as on the web.
The Luxchat app currently has 14,000 users across education, federal government, and local administrations.
Its developers hope that, in the future, citizens will use Luxchat to conduct business with government institutions, such as buying parking permits or holding online consultations with doctors.
The boom of national messaging apps
As the digital sovereignty movement gains traction, European governments and institutions are exploring national messaging apps.
Approximately 5,000 of Poland’s public sector workers are testing a special messenger app, mSzyfr, developed as a secure domestic alternative to WhatsApp and Signal, according to TVP World.
The state-funded app is fully hosted on Polish servers and is designed for Poland’s public administration and organizations related to national security.
The messaging service offers end-to-end encryption for text and voice messages, audio and video calls, and file transfers.
The European Commission is phasing out WhatsApp for internal staff communications by the end of 2026 to transition its employees to in-house built solutions.
In 2025, the French government mandated public administration employees to switch to the Tchap app, which, like Luxchat, is built on the open-source Matrix protocol.
The German armed forces switched to their own messaging app, BwMessenger, back in 2020.