Monal Reviews

The more Monal updates, the worse it seems to get. Years ago, it looked and functioned great. The addition of OMEMO was great in theory but I have never gotten it to function usably with Openfire since the addition. Now, the new “bugfixes” just cause it to crash immediately when it gets the green connection to the server. Ironic when something is better off not being “improved”.

Monal used to work for me but now whenever I try to use it, it crashes. I’m using Monal with an Openfire server that I connect to using OpenVPN to access the network. Monal won’t crash until I connect to the VPN and then it just closes. I found that if I disable the account in Monal and then connect to the VPN, Monal won’t crash until I re-enable the chat account in Monal and then it almost instantly crashes. There is something that Monal doesn’t like about OpenVPN for some reason.

UPDATE: Thank you for your reply. I guess my feature request is for this app to be allowed to accept self-signed certificates. (Host has non globally routable IP.)

My XMPP host won’t let this app connect because it’s using an obsolete encryption protocol. I see in prosody logs other clients connecting with TLSv1.2 and TLSv1.3 but when this app tries to connect it’s rejected. Log message: “Client disconnected: sslv3 alert bad certificate.” Monal looks great and I want to try it and recommend it, so hopefully this is just a minor bump in the road.

I deleted Monal because I couldn’t find a delete conversations button.

No point in secure messaging without being able to have disappearing messages or deleting conversations

Connects to corporate Xmpp server okay, but I see two MAJOR issues that prevent me from using:
1. The list of online users is not correct. There are users who are online and available, but do not show in the list. Disconnecting and reconnecting does not help.
2. Connection drops after some time with no indication whatsoever. I’ll go back to app and all looks good with the list of users that appear online/away, but the connection has actually dropped and that list means nothing. Have to disconnect and reconnect to get back online.

Have not tested the actual ‘chat’ functionality due to the above rendering Monal unusable to me.

If I can help by providing some kind of log file, please let me know how.

iOS is sorely lacking in reliable direct connect xmpp clients and Monal shows the most promise.

Resends messages, takes forever to connect to display new messages even after receiving a push notification... it needs a major overhaul or be removed from the store.

You do get push notifications, but no new messages get displayed when you open Monal .

A loved function, making phone calls, seems to be broken on my iPhone and on my friends’ devices when using this app. When pressing the call button, the calling screen appears zoomed in way to large, so no buttons or status can be seen, only the left half pf the account’s profile photo.

Please fix this useful function

I configured this program to connect to my XMPP server. It sends the messages and the other party receives them. But there are two basic issues. First, when I start to compose a reply message, the keyboard opens and covers up the message I was replying to. Second, you can't copy the text of the messages you receive to your clipboard. These UI glitches are the reason for my rating.

I’ve tried several xmpp apps, and so far this app has given me the least issues. However, something that really bugs me is that you have to individually delete every single message, because there is no option to clear all messages or even delete a chat. Also, every time I delete a message it sends a spam message to the other user, such as “there was an error decrypting this encrypted message”. Quite annoying.

MUCs don’t properly create as it throws away the associated account; Adding MUCs have no user feedback; Online users only show up for one of my XMPP accounts; “Quick” adding an account threw out the TLD for some reason.

Second time trying it in the hopes there were fewer bugs — and, in its defense, I was able to add my personal account and my business accounts this time, but not with full functionality. Perhaps it also can actually maintain push events without silently disconnecting you from your accounts this time around, but it will remain a mystery to me.

this app is the best xmpp client for iOS by a fairly substantial margin. Unfortunately it’s still a little rough around the edges, but omemo mostly works now, and finally notifications mostly work. It looks like MUCs are starting to work now, however this currently results in a lot of notification spam with no way to mute channels. It’s still very difficult to recommend xmpp for people on iOS devices, but it is getting better and this app has made some good strides towards this over time. Unfortunately, progress is a little slow… I believe there’s only one person really working on it. Hopefully the new muc stuff gets sorted out and hopefully Monal gets a little bit of polish soon! It’s mostly fine… but having used it for a few years it still feels fragile to me.

Monal automatically creates a file folder in the phone, this might leads to leakage of files shared in conversations when phones are compromised or inspected by government authorities

Wow this app for iOS has come a long way. Years ago it wasn’t my first choice. Neither were there any viable alternatives to be honest. this app 6.4.0 performs really well for me. Kudos! Obviously apple being apple I don’t get notifications if I didn’t touch Monal for a while. This is something all third party apps have to contend with on iOS.

Monal is the most feature filled XMPP client for iOS. I’ve tried almost all of them and this app is a cut above the rest. It certainly deserves more 5-star reviews which is why I am penning this one. Aside from one minor glitch, Monal is stable , well integrated into the iOS ecosystem ie can share/send image files etc - it is a highly capable app and highly recommended.

I had a mistaken view that there were no good XMPP options on iOS. Perhaps that was true before, but now it’s false. Additionally, the XMPP standards have added a lot of things to make the protocol very usable on mobile devices.

this app is good, usable, and actively developed. There are some minor UI issues but they are fixable, and a small trade off for a communications channel you actually have control over. This is one app I’ll be pushing my friends to use.

this app is open source which means you can have confidence that it can continue being updated for many years. I would consider this a significant strength for any software, but even more so on iOS which breaks apps once they are too old (guessing half of the iOS apps I’ve paid for don’t work/can’t be install anymore?)

Pros: Active Development, cleanest iOS interface I’ve used.

Cons: No Voice Calls - yet.

Since I’ve downloaded Monal , it’s already been updated!

An encryption lock toggle notification has been added.

I think this is a very nice qol feature. I was wondering what the lock button did, I really appreciate it being more of an explicit lock now instead of having the option to accidentally disable encryption. I think this is very useful, especially for those new to xmpp and less tech savvy.

Have been using the beta version of Monal . I give Monal 5 stars, because its a solid app for iPhone. Very dependable. Messages deliver as expected! I do have one recommendation, This being a mobile app, network connectivity is expected to be unstable. It is not necessary to notify the client of sync issues as a notification. I hope the developer considers this annoyance and enables the user to disable this notification by default.

Use jabber? Have iOS? Use this app p e r i o d. Recent iOS versions probably work extremely well. iOS: 16 does have a couple quirks, I think. Haven't zeroed it in. yet. Devs: I know I am using an ancient iOS version but my contacts and I have extreme trouble getting video calls to connect sometimes and they will drop randomly. It's likely a network issue, but we notice that if we use wired or no headsets, symptoms seem to subside and dissappear or, at very least, seem to help with initial connection speed and success rate. Not sure if we will ever upgrade from 16. not a big deal.

All the ingredients to make an excellent XMPP app are here. Responsive developer using a peer reviewable open source coding process and licensing. If I had a business, I'd hire this developer to integrate more with other productivity tools and add custom alert sounds.

It seems to me this app has come a long way since release. Some devs just release their app and never work on it again - but not this app! The this app devs are reasonably active with maintenance & bugfixes. They’ve put together a very useful, feature-rich, easy-to-use XMPP client while keeping a minimalist feel.

this app crashes occasionally, but not so much as to impede my usecase. I just close/reopen Monal , or ignore the crash warning, and pick up where I left off. (To devs: I’ll have to remember to send you the crash report next time. I think I tried once and it said my phone wasn’t set up to send emails? I dunno. I’ll try.)

Overall, Monal works great and has all the necessities. Works flawlessly with my cheap low-end VPS running ejabberd. Calls connect fast, voice is clear, no lag. OMEMO works; but I did have some issues with it early on where my recipient couldn’t read msgs (or vice versa) even though we had confirmed each other’s keys. To be fair this could have also been a user error. This was eventually resolved.

I would like to see additional privacy options. OMEMO is fine. I would like to see PGP implemented (for example, I believe the Linux XMPP client “Dino” has the ability to use PGP as well as OMEMO)

Perhaps even encrypted voice calls (assuming they are not already encrypted)