XMTP messaging apps and alternatives compared

An XMTP messaging app is any client that sends and receives over XMTP, the open wallet-to-wallet protocol behind Convos, Coinbase Wallet and XMTP Chat. People shop for an alternative when one of three things blocks them: rooms larger than 250 members, roles and moderation a server can enforce, or Solana identity. This page explains what XMTP gives you, then lists six options a developer can ship on in September 2026. Cherry (cherry.fun) is one of the six and we build it: a wallet-to-wallet messenger and community app where you sign in with a wallet, DM any wallet address, and join or create token-gated, NFT-gated and paid group chats.

What XMTP is

XMTP is a protocol plus SDKs, not an app you install. As of September 11 2026, xmtp.org calls itself “the secure messaging protocol” and “a messaging network no one can shut down”, and claims 55 million connected users, 4,500+ developers and 1,700+ production miniapps. It names World, Base App, Convos, Zora and XMTP Chat as the apps built on it.

XMTP implements the IETF Messaging Layer Security (MLS) standard for group chat. Its site claims quantum-resistant hybrid encryption against harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks, perfect forward secrecy and post-compromise security, and, on September 11 2026, said the MLS implementation was audited by the same firm that reviews Signal and WhatsApp.

Three constraints shape what you can build. Group size is capped: as of September 11 2026 the developer documentation states that “The maximum group chat size is 250 members.” Roles stop at three, where everyone is a member, a member can be granted admin or super admin, and only super admins change permissions or another admin’s status. Identity is EVM-first: the FAQ says XMTP “currently supports EOAs and SCWs on Ethereum and Ethereum side-chains and L2s”, and the identity page adds passkeys, World ID and social IDs such as ENS, Farcaster, Lens and Base handles, while listing “Bluesky, Nostr, BTC, Solana” under future networks.

Decentralization and pricing were still moving in September 2026. The decentralization page on September 11 2026 described Phase 1 and expected “the process of transitioning to mainnet to be complete in March 2026”, with fees “paid in USDC and initially priced at approximately $5 per 100,000 messages”. The latest decentralization update on the XMTP blog as of that date, from February 25 2026, reported the testnet migration complete, and on September 11 2026 the developer FAQ still said there are no message storage and retrieval fees today. Confirm the current stage with XMTP before you budget a fee line.

How we picked these XMTP alternatives

Three criteria: public and usable in September 2026, wallet identity with no phone number required, and something a developer can build on or move a community into. Each option is compared on identity, group size, roles, gating, paid access and developer surface. Web2 chat vendors sit outside this list and are compared in the web3 chat SDK roundup . Push Chain and Dialect are in because older roundups answer this question with them.

Convos

Convos is XMTP Labs’ own app and the closest thing to a reference client. As of September 11 2026, convos.org calls it “The agentic messenger”, published by XMTP Labs, Inc., on the App Store and Google Play, with AI safety and privacy as the pitch.

If you arrived searching for Converse, that is the same lineage under an older name. The Converse repository at github.com/xmtplabs/converse-app is archived, its description reads “ARCHIVED. For the latest info, see https://convos.org/." , and its last commit was pushed on April 11 2025, still the state of the repository on September 11 2026.

Fit: encrypted chat between wallets and agents, with the protocol’s limits inherited whole. Token gating, paid entry and public community pages are not stated.

Coinbase Wallet, the app that was Base App

Coinbase’s XMTP app changed its name again. On September 10 2026 The Block reported that Coinbase renamed Base App back to Coinbase Wallet, reversing the July 2025 rebrand and pointing the app at multichain trading, perpetual futures and prediction markets. Chat stayed in the product: the App Store copy on September 10 2026 read “DMs, group chats, and AI agents - all encrypted, private and secure”, and xmtp.org still listed Base App among its apps on September 11 2026.

Fit: reach, if your users already hold a Coinbase smart wallet, which is made with a passkey and an email. The wallet is the account, so an outside Phantom or Solflare identity does not carry into its chat, and no token-gated rooms, paid memberships or community admin roles are stated for it. The longer version is in the Base App alternatives roundup .

Towns Protocol

Towns is the other open messaging protocol a developer weighs against XMTP, and it puts group state in the opposite place: Towns describes every group as minted on Base and every membership as an NFT, carried by its own node network with Celestia for data availability. towns.com on September 11 2026 described it as “an open messaging protocol built on Base that powers private groups and decentralized finance” under the headline “Discover the best money making group chats”, and showed $31,232,500 in total earnings. The $TOWNS token launched on August 5 2025 and the company reports $46M raised.

Fit: Base-native communities that want a membership to be a tradable asset, with gating and paid entry already in the protocol. Our head-to-head is at Cherry vs Towns .

Push Chain, formerly Push Protocol

Push began as EPNS, became Push Protocol for cross-chain notifications and wallet-to-wallet chat, and now presents something else: push.org on September 11 2026 leads with Push Chain, “The Universal Blockchain for Apps”, the line “Any Chain, Any App, All Users. One Push Chain.”, and a pitch to deploy once and onboard users from any chain. Push Chat and wallet messaging do not appear on that home page.

For the “push protocol vs cherry” question people type, the honest answer is that the two sit at different layers. Push is infrastructure you deploy to, and its historical strength is reaching a wallet with a notification across chains. Cherry is a running app and a REST API that gives a set of wallets a room with roles, gating and moderation. Push belongs in a comparison of chains. Cherry belongs in a comparison of chat products.

Dialect

Dialect is the name that comes up when someone asks for an XMTP alternative on Solana. dialect.to on September 11 2026 presents “The UX Stack for Web3” with the tagline “Onchain transactions and notifications native to any digital experience”, two products called Blinks and Alerts, the line “Powering 600+ Blinks”, and Phantom, Jupiter, Backpack and Tensor named as users. Wallet-to-wallet chat is not on that page.

Fit: notifications and one-click transactions embedded in other apps. Conversation is a different purchase.

Cherry

Cherry makes the trade XMTP declines to make. Group messages pass through Cherry’s servers, which is precisely why gating, bans, roles, bots and webhooks can be enforced in one place. DMs are end-to-end encrypted with keys derived from your wallet signature. Group chats are not end-to-end encrypted, by design, and we say so on every page: XMTP’s group encryption is stronger. Cherry trades that for control a server can enforce.

What the server buys you, as of September 10 2026: seven token-gating rule types , covering token balance, NFT ownership, Metaplex Core collection, domain name, wallet balance or trading volume, the wallet app a member signs in with, and payment, combinable up to five rules with all or any logic and re-checked in the background, so a member who sells the token loses access without anyone filing a ticket. Paid entry and subscriptions run one-time in SOL from 0.0001 to 100, or recurring in USDC from 1 to 10,000 per period through the Solana Subscriptions program, split 70% to the owner and 30% to Cherry. Rooms carry owner, admin, moderator and member roles, join requests, bans, pinned messages, and a public page at chat.cherry.fun under the group’s own handle, which search engines can index.

Identity is Solana-first and multi-chain at the level a developer cares about: sign-in is a wallet signature with no phone number or email, display names come from .sol, .skr and AllDomains names, and DMs reach any wallet address whether or not the recipient has ever signed in. Token-gated chats also cover ERC-20 and NFT holders on Base, Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain and Robinhood Chain. On September 11 2026 the Cherry Announcements channel, which every signed-in wallet belongs to, showed 77,443 members, and Seeker Club, gated by a .skr domain, showed 8,637 members and 58,198 messages.

The developer surface is three pieces. The Apps API and Bot API at api.cherry.fun create and manage rooms, invite, kick, ban, set roles, post as the app, and feed bots new messages by webhook or long-poll, at 600 requests per minute and 50,000 per day per app as of September 11 2026. The Chat Embed SDK at version 0.1.7 mounts one room in an iframe with three auth modes, and every embed creates a community inside Cherry so those users stay reachable. Mini apps run inside chats on web, iOS, Android and the Solana Seeker. The step-by-step is in add chat to your dApp .

Fit: a token or NFT community that needs a verified room and a way to charge for it, or a dApp that wants chat it does not have to operate.

Side by side

Which one to pick

• Build on XMTP if end-to-end encrypted group chat is a requirement you can defend to users, your audience is EVM, and 250 members per group is enough.
• Ship Convos, or point users at Coinbase Wallet, if you want an existing XMTP client rather than a build.
• Pick Towns if the membership should be an on-chain asset on Base and you accept one chain.
• Use Push Chain or Dialect alongside a chat product, for cross-chain reach and notifications.
• Pick Cherry if the room has an owner: gating by holdings, paid access, moderation, bots, a public page, Solana identity, and an embed you can drop into a dApp.

FAQ

What is XMTP?

XMTP is an open protocol for messages between wallets, with SDKs for building chat apps and agents on it. As of September 11 2026, xmtp.org describes it as “the secure messaging protocol” and “a messaging network no one can shut down”, built on the IETF Messaging Layer Security standard, and claims 55 million connected users and 4,500+ developers.

How big can an XMTP group chat be?

As of September 11 2026, the XMTP developer documentation states that “The maximum group chat size is 250 members.” A group has members, admins and super admins, and only super admins can change permissions or another admin’s status.

Is there an XMTP alternative on Solana?

Not on XMTP itself: the xmtp.org identity page on September 11 2026 lists EVM wallets, passkeys, World ID and social IDs as supported and puts “Bluesky, Nostr, BTC, Solana” under future networks. Cherry is Solana-native, with sign-in from Phantom, Solflare, Backpack or the Seed Vault Wallet, and .sol or .skr names as display names. Dialect covers Solana notifications and one-click actions, not conversation.

What happened to the Converse app?

Converse became Convos. The Converse repository at github.com/xmtplabs/converse-app is archived, its description reads “ARCHIVED. For the latest info, see https://convos.org/." , and its last commit was pushed on April 11 2025, still the state of the repository on September 11 2026. Convos is the XMTP Labs app on iOS and Android.

Push Protocol vs Cherry: which one do I need?

They solve different jobs. Push, whose site on September 11 2026 presents Push Chain, “The Universal Blockchain for Apps”, is infrastructure you deploy to, and its history is cross-chain notifications to a wallet. Cherry is a running app and API that gives a set of wallets a room with roles, gating and moderation.

XMTP vs Cherry for a dApp chat: what is the real trade-off?

Encryption against enforcement. XMTP group chats are end-to-end encrypted under MLS, so no server can read or moderate them, and gating is your code’s problem. Cherry runs group messages through its own servers, which is why gating, bans, roles, bots and webhooks work, and Cherry says plainly that group chats are not end-to-end encrypted while DMs are.

Sources

• XMTP
• XMTP identity
• XMTP decentralization
• XMTP developer FAQ
• XMTP group permissions
• XMTP blog
• Convos
• Converse app repository on GitHub
• The Block: Coinbase rebrands Base App back to Coinbase Wallet, September 10 2026
• Coinbase Wallet, formerly Base App, on the App Store
• Towns
• Push Chain
• Dialect
• Cherry API: endpoint reference
• Cherry API: rate limits and errors
• Chat Embed SDK installation
• Cherry Announcements
• Seeker Club on Cherry