I agree with avoiding Telegram and Whatsapp.

Session looks like its on its way out which I consider a good thing, it never seemed like a particularly stable project and involves some crypto trash and only ‘ultra secure’ people actually use it, no one I’d want to talk to. Not sure about its desktop client.

Signal imo is great, most people I’d want to talk to are on it, it has great features and no longer requires a phone number to talk to others ( though yeah, I know you have to in order to create an account). It also has great multi device support and they do fix things even if we have to keep at it until they do. It also has a great desktop client, even if they have to fix some security with it.

SimpleX could be good with more fun features like stickers etc, group calls and a better view on the ipad, at the moment it’s that ridiculous iphone on ipad view which they haven’t fixed for 2 years and counting. At the moment there’s nothing particularly interesting or useful about it apart from no usernames and that it functions as a basic secure messenger. Not sure about its desktop client.

Threema is very business orientated, you can tell that based on the few features it actually does have, it’s alright for calling and messaging but it has no proper multi-device using only one username support, you can make a new username for each device but that kind of defeats the purpose for me. I do enjoy that it allows you to explain each picture via text directly underneath it though. Its desktop client has no calling and is no longer on flatpak from what I can tell, locking those of us who don’t use a deb or rpm based system out of its latest client updates, sadly and it requires the device it connected to, to be on, connected at all times and have Threema open as the only app on the screen, which is ridiculous imo.