Tox
Distributed, secure messenger with audio and video chat capabilities.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Yes: 37 commits in the last 90 days, latest release v0.2.23 (Jun 2026).
Comparisons in Communication - Custom Communication Systems: Slack alternatives, WhatsApp alternatives, Microsoft Teams alternatives, Discord alternatives.
At a glance
Tox quick facts
- Health score
- 84/100 GOOD
- Stars
- 2,696
- Last commit
- yesterday (Oct 2026)
- Latest release
- v0.2.23, Jun 2026
- Licence
- GPL-3.0
Top alternatives to Tox
In its own words
The project's README opens: "Website | Wiki | Blog | FAQ | Binaries/Downloads | Clients | Compiling."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
Tox scores 84/100, #23 of 44 in Communication - Custom Communication Systems: 37 commits in the last 90 days earn 35.0 of 35 points, the latest release (v0.2.23, 5 months ago) earns 25.0 of 25, 2,696 stars add 13.7 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and no advertised Docker image leaves the final 10 unclaimed. That places it in the good band (70 and above). The biggest shortfall is Docker support, worth 10.0 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity 35.0 / 35
37 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 25.0 / 25
v0.2.23 released 5 months ago
- Stars 13.7 / 20
2.7k stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support biggest shortfall 0.0 / 10
No Docker support advertised
Commit activity
- 37
- Last 90 days
- 136
- Last 12 months
- yesterday
- Last push
Ranked #23 of 44 tools in Communication - Custom Communication Systems by health , between Synapse (#22) and Live Helper Chat (#24) .
Details
| Licence | GPL-3.0 |
| Platforms | C |
| Latest release | v0.2.23 · 5 months ago |
| Stars | 2,696 |
| Open issues | 187 |
| Docker | Not advertised |
| Repository | TokTok/c-toxcore ↗ |
Tox vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a category with Tox (Communication - Custom Communication Systems), scored on the same five terms.
| Tool | Health | Stars | Licence | Last commit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rocket.Chat | 99 | 46k | MIT | today |
| Chatwoot | 98 | 39k | ⊘ Proprietary | today |
| Mattermost | 98 | 39k | ⊘ Proprietary | today |
| Novu | 98 | 40k | MIT | today |
| ntfy | 98 | 35k | Apache-2.0 | today |
| Tox (this tool) | 84 | 2.7k | GPL-3.0 | yesterday |
Tox: common questions
Is Tox still maintained?
Tox had 37 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was yesterday; the latest tagged release, v0.2.23, is from 5 months ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.