Alternatives
Products that do what Flux, a tiny protocol that rethinks email from the ground up does
Hi HN, I have been experimenting with a messaging protocol called FLUX. The goal is to explore what email might look like if it was designed today instead of in the 1980s. FLUX tries to simplify a few things that feel complicated in the current email stack. Identity is based on cryptographic keys instead of usernames and passwords. Messages are signed and verified automatically. The transport is real time and does not depend on the traditional SMTP relay model. The current implementation is small and meant as a prototype. The whole server is only a few hundred lines of Python so the protocol…
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Hey everyone, I made this thing: https://tryflux.ai/. Here's a demo video: https://screen.studio/share/1y2EnC26 Context: I've tried probably 15 different AI apps over the past year. ChatGPT, note-taking apps, productivity apps, all of it. But most of them are just clutter on my iphone. They live in some app I have to deliberately open. And I just... don't. But you know what I open 50 times a day without thinking? iMessage. So out of mild frustration with the "AI app graveyard" on my phone, I built Flux. What it does: - You describe a personality and what…
Jan 2026 · tryflux.ai
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Hi everyone, I recently published a small open-source project. It’s a minimal network packet analyzer written in Go — designed more like a learning toy than a replacement for Wireshark. It currently supports parsing basic protocols like TLS, DNS, and HTTP, and includes a tiny fuzzing engine to test payload responses. You can inspect raw packet content directly from the terminal. The output is colored for readability, and the code structure is kept simple and clear. The entire program is very small — just about 400 lines of Go code. I know it’s not anywhere near Wireshark’s level, and I still…
2025 · github.com
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This is a project I made to learn more about crypto. I've also written a [post](https://vaktibabat.github.io/posts/ecurvechat/) that explains all the crypto concepts and algorithms used in the project, and how I implemented them. I'd be very glad for any feedback about both the code and the post :)
2024 · github.com
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Hey HN, and happy new year! I'm Hampus Kraft [1], a 22-year-old software developer nearing completion of my BSc in Computer Engineering at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. I've been working on Fluxer on and off for about 5 years, but recently decided to work on it full-time and see how far it could take me. Fluxer is an open source [2] communication platform for friends, groups, and communities (text, voice, and video). It aims for "modern chat app" feature coverage with a familiar UX, while being developed in the open and staying FOSS (AGPLv3). The codebase is largely written in…
Jan 2026 · fluxer.app
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Yes, that Fortran.
Mar 2026 · github.com
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A fast SOCKS5 proxy that tunnels your traffic through what looks like normal SMTP email, bypassing Deep Packet Inspection firewalls. How it works: - Client runs a local SOCKS5 proxy (127.0.0.1:1080) - Traffic is sent to server disguised as SMTP (EHLO, STARTTLS, AUTH) - DPI sees legitimate email session, not a VPN/proxy Features: - One-liner install on any Linux VPS - Multi-user with per-user secrets and IP whitelists - Auto-generated client packages (just double-click to run) - Auto-reconnect on connection loss - Works with any app that supports SOCKS5 Tech: Python/asyncio, TLS…
Jan 2026 · github.com
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This is a side project of mine. Use this as your SMTP server in a test environment to guarantee that your users don't receive test emails. Looking for feedback, especially on the security side.
2024 · fakemail.stream
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I built https://stringflux.io/ to make everyday string transformations a little less painful. It’s similar to CyberChef in the sense that it supports multiple string operations, but with a cleaner, more focused UI and smart suggestions based on your input. You can also chain transformations — for example: decode base64 string which was base64 encoded from minified json → then json format (pretty-print) it — all in one flow. This is helpful when dealing with complex or nested strings, like encoded API responses or log data, where you need to apply multiple steps to make the…
2025 · stringflux.io
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I've spent the last few months working on something I wish I'd had years ago. I kept running into the same issue: CI green, production mail broken. TLS handshake failures, DKIM alignment mismatches, SPF soft-fails ... the stuff that only surfaces when real mail servers are involved. Most test tools (Mailpit, MailHog) are catch-alls. They confirm "an email was sent" but don't validate the protocol. They also aren't designed for network-exposed environments: no auth, unprotected Web UI, easy to enumerate messages. VaultSandbox is my attempt at fixing that. It's a self-hosted SMTP gateway…
Jan 2026 · vaultsandbox.com
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I am happy to announce Stalwart SMTP [1], a modern SMTP server developed in Rust with a focus on security, speed, and extensive configurability. It features built-in DMARC, DKIM, SPF and ARC support for message authentication, strong transport security through DANE, MTA-STS and SMTP TLS reporting, and offers great flexibility and customization thanks to its dynamic configuration rules and native support for Sieve scripts. The project has been recently awarded a grant from NLNet and the European Commission's Next Generation Internet program to develop a mail server in Rust. The next step in…
2023 · github.com
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Hi HN! I am developing RelayBeam, to overcome the challenges faced by existing messaging platforms. I've introduced Ports based feature for contextual communication. It organizes conversations based on context through the user-defined ports. I've explained in detail about it with some examples at https://relaybeam.com/about Do try and suggest any more features you'd like to use!
2024 · relaybeam.com
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REST, gRPC & WebSocket client. No Electron. AI-powered.
Jun 2026 · fluxapi.dev
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Hi HN, we have recently completed a research project on how to encrypt emails with post-quantum secure algorithms as well as Forward Secrecy. We'd love to hear your feedback and discuss technical issues. The paper can be found here: https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/875
2021
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I've been working on something for a while now. It's a combination of a decentralised identity system and a decentralised messaging system that makes use of the aforementioned new identity system. It's based on cryptographic keys with one major property: keys are paired with arbitrary mnemonic strings, e.g. your favourite username, so apps can send messages in a P2P fashion addressed to the strings directly without having to worry about IP addresses. These key-string pairs can be generated on-the-fly on any computer and there's no central database. When multiple people inevitably choose the…
2020
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2014 · github.com
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Hello HN. I’d like to start by saying that I am a developer who started this research project to challenge myself. I know standard protocols like MCP exist, but I wanted to explore a different path and have some fun creating a communication layer tailored specifically for desktop applications. The project is designed to handle communication between desktop apps in an agentic manner, so the focus is strictly on this IPC layer (forget about HTTP API calls). At the heart of RAIL (Remote Agent Invocation Layer) are two fundamental concepts. The names might sound scary, but remember this is a…
Feb 2026 · github.com
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2016 · github.com
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Hi, everyone. Been playing around with this recently as a sort of PGP successor. It's not all there yet, and I know it's missing some things from PGP, but I figured why not get a start and see what kind of interest/support it might get. https://stamp-protocol.github.io/ Effectively, this is a key management system that allows building and signing ("stamping") various claims about yourself and about others. The eventual goal is to create easy-to-use implementations of the protocol that allow logging in to websites or managing cryptographic keys for various…
2021
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