Keybase Launches Teams, a Free End-to-End Encrypted Alternative to Slack

Encryption messaging company Keybase launched a Slack-like open source team communications tool on Monday for macOS and iOS platforms.

Called Keybase Teams, the fully encrypted platform supports groups as large as 500 people, with free access to a team's message history.

Keybase is a new and free security app for mobile phones and computers. For the geeks among us: it's open source and powered by public-key cryptography. Keybase is for anyone. Imagine a Slack for the whole world, except end-to-end encrypted across all your devices. Or a Team Dropbox where the server can't leak your files or be hacked.

Like Slack, once users have created a team in Keybase they can begin generating chats and channels. It's also possible to share encrypted files with team members.

Unlike Slack accounts however, users don't have to switch at the top level of the app. Teams can be casual and small, allowing them to blend into the user's inbox, while teams with multiple chat channels are grouped under "Big teams".

Keybase Teams is a free download for Mac from the Keybase website, while the Keybase chat app is available for iPhone and iPad on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tag: Encryption

Top Rated Comments

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Sir Not Cusa

19 months ago

What's the catch? Free is never free.

According to the linked article:

How does this fit into Keybase's business model?

We think someday if teams take off, we'll charge for larger teams. Nothing we're offering for free now will flip to a pay model, so if you make a 500 person team now and start using it, you won't someday be faced with a credit card screen just to get your files or messages.

Put most simply, we eventually want to find a way for actual enterprises to pay, while keeping personal and community use free. And any use now is grandfathered in.

[…]

Also, there is no upsell on message history. It's free to get to your old messages.

Rating: 4 Votes

Scottsoapbox

19 months ago

What's the catch? Free is never free.

Rating: 3 Votes

stevemiller

19 months ago

Rating: 3 Votes

Scottsoapbox

19 months ago

Grandfathered free is great until it ends due to "business realities" and/or change in company ownership.

Or if the product doesn't "take off" "someday" it just goes away.

I prefer a sustainable model from the start.

Rating: 3 Votes

H3LL5P4WN

19 months ago

Personally, I hate Slack, but I have green bubble friends so iMessage isn't an option. :(

Rating: 1 Votes

gccumber

19 months ago

The problem I see is not necessarily that you have another option, but in the business that I work for we use slack and we have so many integrations that there’s no way in hell that we would move to a new platform. The amount of work that it would take to migrate all of those integrations not to mention the lack of windows support would be far too great no matter how fantastic an offering this is.

Rating: 1 Votes

Scottsoapbox

19 months ago

Well, duh.

Your comment have been a truism even if they had charged $1000 per user per month: "Cost of $1000 per user per month is great until it ends due to "business realities" and/or change in company ownership…" Is there in your mind any way they can be more clear about how free it actually is? Maybe you are not an entitled person, but you do sound like you are. How can Keybase make you happy when you refuse to accept their promises?

Your comment makes no sense.

You say I sound entitled because I want to PAY for a product instead of getting it for FREE? You need to check the definition of entitled.

And your comment about the "truism" of free vs paid is also bizarre. Regardless of the "hyper-scalability" of apps and 'the cloud', a product MAY cost more than $1000/month to maintain, but it will ALWAYS cost more than $0/month to maintain.

Rating: 1 Votes

fairuz

19 months ago

What's the catch? Free is never free.

Don't worry, the VCs are paying for it. If it dies or changes to something you don't like, you switch to the next free service ;)
[doublepost=1505837820][/doublepost]

Personally, I hate Slack, but I have green bubble friends so iMessage isn't an option. :(

Same. I wish we used Discord for work, even though it's targeted at video gamers. Slack fails to deliver messages and notifications occasionally, which is a non-starter, plus it's generally irritating because it's unresponsive and eats RAM. People here are gonna hate me, but Facebook Messenger is honestly pretty good for friendly chat.

Rating: 1 Votes

fairuz

19 months ago

But adding them on a social media site isn't?

For whatever reason, it's not. Everyone is just friends with everyone on Facebook as long as they're in the same school, university, etc. You don't even have to be FB friends to message someone, but messages from non-friends are easier to miss due to some weird layout. Gotta say it's pretty convenient being able to look up and message anyone I want.

Rating: 1 Votes