Franz
Centralize multiple chat and messaging services in one customizable interface, organize workspaces, receive synchronized notifications, manage multiple accounts per service, and easily access popular platforms on Mac, Windows, and Linux. Privacy controls included.
Cost / License
- Freemium (Subscription)
- Proprietary
Application types
EUPlatforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
Features
Properties
- Privacy focused
Features
- Support for Multiple protocols
- Unified messaging
- Multiple Account support
- Screen Sharing
- Cloud Sync
- Dark Mode
- Block Trackers
- No Tracking
- Ad-free
- No registration required
- Web application wrapper
- Multi-messenger
- Video Calling
- Workspaces
Gmail integration
Slack integration- Slack client
Franz News & Activities
Recent News
Recent activities
- adlk rated Franz
- adlk replied to a comment / review on Franz
- adlk updated Franz
backuptabletinfo added Franz as alternative to Windows Live Messenger
Nexora_Innovexa added Franz as alternative to Tempo Messaging- Maoholguin updated Franz
Featured in Lists
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What is Franz?
Franz brings messengers, email, and Signal into one desktop workspace, so the right reply doesn't get buried under forty Slack channels and a Monday inbox.
Franz supports 70+ services, including WhatsApp, Slack, Telegram, Discord, Gmail, Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and Messenger. It also ships two things no web wrapper has: a native Signal client (a proper desktop client, not a wrapped website) and Franz Mail, a built-in email client with priority sorting, smart replies, and semantic search.
Franz Assistant catches you up across all your channels and drafts the next reply with the right context already attached. You choose how AI runs: fully local on your machine, Franz Cloud (EU-hosted), or your own API key. Privacy Shield blocks trackers and fingerprinting scripts inside services.
More features: workspaces to group services by team or mode, multi-account support, split view, app lock with Touch ID, screen sharing, a download manager, automatic service hibernation to free memory, themes and accent colors, and settings sync across desktops. Available in 7 languages.
Franz has been downloaded over 1,000,000 times since 2016, built in Vienna. The core app is free; Franz Pro unlocks unlimited workspaces and advanced features, from €5/month billed annually, or as a one-time lifetime license.
The free version of Franz can be used without an account.
Franz information
Developed by
Stefan Malzner Licensing
Proprietary and Freemium product.Pricing
Subscription ranging between $6 and $10 per month + free version with limited functionality.Written in
Rating
Average rating of 2.5Alternatives
73 alternatives listedSupported Languages
- English
- German
- French
AlternativeTo Categories
Social & Communications, Office & Productivity, Remote Work & Education, AI Tools & ServicesGitHub repository
- 4,679 Stars
- 577 Forks
- 388 Open Issues
- Updated
Comments and Reviews
More polished then most of the alternatives out there (Rambox, Station, Wavebox). One inexplicably missing feature and the primary reason I'm still using Wavebox is navigational shortcuts (e.g. alt+left arrow & alt+right arrow).
The program itself is a bloated, laggy mess. If you're not familiar, basically it has a whole instance of chromium inside the program, just so it can render a webpage, where the buttons and chats are divs or whatever. You get a program hundreds of megabytes big, sucking up a bunch of memory, just to send some texts back and forth. Apparently this is how we develop GUI in 2019.
What's worse is the model. Initially it was free to use, but the author soon revealed that to be a classic bait and switch. A new update now requires you to make an account to use the program at all. To be clear: make an account means you give the owners of Franz all your chat account names and passwords and they record all of that data and probably sell it to God knows who. And, the author's main interest is to make people pay for that, hence naturally he forced everyone to use an account to cajole people into buying the subscription. He claims that this is because of the costs of infrastructure. Yes, I bet vacuuming up everyone's chats puts a big strain on the infrastructure! Meanwhile, the irony of demanding payment for something that is essentially a parasite sitting on top of another free chat service seems to be lost in translation.
I found it amusing to read the Github issues that followed the requirement for accounts, and the authors' disingenuous handwringing about "listening to the community". Shortly after, of course, he told the community to get lost, because he wants his money, see, and if you've been supporting the app from the beginning by using and giving feedback, but don't think it's fair to be cast by the wayside like this, then sucks to be you, buddy! Oh, he phrased it in a much more polite way, of course, as only a true slimeball could.
Don't fall for the bait and switch, don't waste your time with this crapware, and don't support evil developers who see their users as bags of money, not people. Let this awful client follow the fate of its namesake - an angry, vicious man at the helm of an oppressive, bureaucratic dictatorship that brought about one of the greatest tragedies in history.
I'm the developer of Franz, replying for anyone reading this years later.
The core claim here is simply false: Franz does not collect your messaging passwords or chats, and never has. At the time this was written, Franz stored nothing at all. Today, Franz 6 can store some messages locally – on your own device – so its AI assistant can work. How that assistant runs is your choice: fully local for 100% privacy, your own API key, or an optional cloud subscription if you'd rather not run models yourself. Nothing is harvested, nothing is sold. We treat privacy as a basic right, which is why running everything on your own machine is a first-class option, not an afterthought.
The rest is fair to debate. Franz 5 was built on Electron, which is genuinely heavy on memory, a real tradeoff, and a big reason Franz 6 is a ground-up rebuild. The account requirement that prompted this review is also gone: the free version of Franz 6 can be used without an account at all.
Happy to answer any honest question about how it actually works.
Three services before a demand for payment, useless if one is looking for a free something to use causally!!
Franz was my first foray into the world combining chat and messaging into one application. At that time it was free and open source, but now it has moved into a subscription tier, and the free version is very limited with ads. So I no longer carry the impression that it's truly open source. Nevertheless, I have moved on from Franz as the services are more like web page wrappers, resulting in sluggish usage.
"I paid for the annual Franz subscription a year ago. This year, they deducted money again for the annual subscription without any warning. I've tried contacting customer support multiple times, but haven't received any response. I've written several times requesting a refund, but they haven't processed it, likely because they are not responding. It seems like the application has been inactive for a while, and they are simply deducting money. It appears to be fraudulent."
It's a nice and actively developed app, but far too expensive and limited for the cheaper or free plan. Free users even get nagged with waiting time sometimes. That's not acceptable imho.
You need an account for either Franz or Rambox. I was not liking the Franz setup.. starts asking the messaging services I use. This looks like work to set up.. and I was looking for something magically integrated. Rambox allows a Google login and seems a little more unified.
Magically, wtf. The app can use whatever logins you already have one the supported networks (like you have to have a Facebook account is you want to use it within Franz). Sure it starts with setting up the existing accounts, the program is exactly for that purpose.