Helix vs Telegram
Telegram feels secure — it says "secret" and "encrypted" a lot, and it's fast and slick. But by default it is not end-to-end encrypted, your chats live on Telegram's servers, and group chats are never end-to-end. For sensitive communications, that's a dangerous illusion of privacy.
| Helix | Telegram | |
|---|---|---|
| End-to-end by default | Always — every chat, call and group | No — only opt-in 1:1 "Secret Chats" |
| Group chats end-to-end | Yes | Never |
| Where messages live | Only on your devices | Telegram's cloud servers |
| Can the company read default chats? | No — we hold nothing | Technically yes — they're not E2E |
| Discloses user data to authorities | Nothing to disclose by design | Yes — has shared data such as IPs and phone numbers under legal requests |
| Identifier required | None — closed, invite-only | Phone number |
| Strangers can contact you | No | Yes — usernames are public |
| Protocol | Our own, post-quantum, published for review | MTProto — proprietary, long criticized by cryptographers |
| Post-quantum | Yes | No |
| Metadata protection | Onion-routed; no party sees both ends | Centralized; extensive metadata |
| Plausible deniability / hidden app | Yes | No |
The "secret chat" trap
This is the part most Telegram users get wrong. When you start a normal chat — the kind you use every day, that syncs across all your devices — it is not end-to-end encrypted. It's encrypted between you and Telegram's servers, where it sits in a form Telegram can read. End-to-end encryption is an opt-in feature called "Secret Chats," and it only works one-to-one, only on mobile, and not in the groups and channels where most conversations actually happen.
That means the default experience — the one virtually everyone uses — leaves your messages on a third party's servers. Telegram has also, under sustained legal and regulatory pressure, updated its policy to hand over user data such as IP addresses and phone numbers to authorities in response to valid legal requests. None of this makes Telegram useless; it's a superb tool for big public communities and fast, casual chat. It makes it the wrong place for anything you genuinely need to keep private.
What Helix does instead
- End-to-end, always. Every message, call, video and group is encrypted on your device — no "secret mode" to remember, no exceptions for groups.
- Nothing on our servers. Your conversations live only on devices you control. There is no cloud copy to read, leak, or be compelled to produce.
- No phone number, closed network. Strangers can't find you or message you. You add your people; nobody else gets in.
- Post-quantum and metadata-protected. Content stays unreadable for the long term, and the who-talks-to-whom graph is hidden by onion routing.
- Deniability, burn, hardened hardware — the operational-security layer a mass-market social app will never ship.