RetroShare
Secured and decentralized communication system. Offers decentralized chat, forums, messaging, file transfer.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Yes: 48 commits in the last 90 days, latest release v0.6.7.2 (Nov 2023).
Comparisons in Communication - Custom Communication Systems: Slack alternatives, WhatsApp alternatives, Microsoft Teams alternatives, Discord alternatives.
At a glance
RetroShare quick facts
- Health score
- 58/100 SLOWING
- Stars
- 2,022
- Last commit
- 22 days ago (Oct 2026)
- Latest release
- v0.6.7.2, Nov 2023
- Licence
- GPL-2.0
Top alternatives to RetroShare
In its own words
The project's README opens: "RetroShare is a decentralized, private, secure, cross-platform, communication toolkit. RetroShare provides file sharing, chat, messages, forums, channels, boards and more."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
RetroShare scores 58/100, #30 of 44 in Communication - Custom Communication Systems: 48 commits in the last 90 days earn 35.0 of 35 points, the latest release (v0.6.7.2, 2.9 years ago) earns 0.0 of 25, 2,022 stars add 13.2 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and no advertised Docker image leaves the final 10 unclaimed. That places it in the slowing band (40 to 69). The biggest shortfall is release recency, worth 25.0 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity 35.0 / 35
48 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency biggest shortfall 0.0 / 25
v0.6.7.2 released 2.9 years ago
- Stars 13.2 / 20
2k stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support 0.0 / 10
No Docker support advertised
Commit activity
- 48
- Last 90 days
- 614
- Last 12 months
- 22 days ago
- Last push
Ranked #30 of 44 tools in Communication - Custom Communication Systems by health , between SAMA (#29) and Conduit (#31) .
Details
| Licence | GPL-2.0 |
| Platforms | C++ |
| Latest release | v0.6.7.2 · 2.9 years ago |
| Stars | 2,022 |
| Open issues | 260 |
| Docker | Not advertised |
| Repository | RetroShare/RetroShare ↗ |
RetroShare vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a category with RetroShare (Communication - Custom Communication Systems), scored on the same five terms.
| Tool | Health | Stars | Licence | Last commit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chatwoot | 98 | 39k | ⊘ Proprietary | today |
| Centrifugo | 96 | 11k | MIT | yesterday |
| AnyCable | 94 | 2.4k | MIT | 9 days ago |
| Tinode | 87 | 14k | GPL-3.0 | 5 days ago |
| Synapse | 85 | 4.7k | Apache-2.0 | today |
| RetroShare (this tool) | 58 | 2k | GPL-2.0 | 22 days ago |
RetroShare: common questions
Is RetroShare still maintained?
RetroShare had 48 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was 22 days ago; the latest tagged release, v0.6.7.2, is from 2.9 years ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.