twonly Public Launch
by Tobias Müller
on March 25, 2025
After about a year of development, twonly is finally ready for its public launch. It all started with a long-term relationship. To stay connected, my girlfriend and I decided to use Snapchat. However,
as a security enthusiast, every time I sent a picture or message, my heart sank a little more. As I knew that privacy and
Snapchat are no friends and that tools like
SnapLion exists. So
since I had no active side project, I decided to create a European alternative, where the signal
protocol ensures that two only (twonly) can see the data being
communicated, while maintaining the spirit of disappearing images and messages.
The initial motivation for the app was just to create a secure way to share short lived images with my girlfriend. But
during development I started to love the idea of twonly a little bit more every day. Also the radicalisation of
America, which in my opinion makes it increasingly difficult to impossible to rely on American companies like Snapchat
or AWS, on which the messenger Signal is dependent, shows that we need a real alternative in Europe and twonly is my
attempt to take a step in that direction.
Or with the words of the Former Federal Minister of Economics (Germany):
„Europe needs digital sovereignty. Instead of making ourselves dependent on authoritarian states and tech oligarchs, we need to build our own European communication platforms.“- Robert Habeck
