Introducing jellysuite

Using software for work today, whether alone or as a team, can feel really magical if you think about it. We're always connected, plan together, talk to each other with the click of a button, write in the same documents, can share things instantanly and much more.

A lot of the software we use daily is also "free" like a free Slack tier, Micorosft Teams or Google Mail. However there is a cost to this version of "free". These companies read what you write, learn from it, sell what they learn or train models on it. While using the software, it is very easy to foget all of this, also because these tools are usually a joy to work with (well not all of them).

On the other hand there are only few companies trying to offer these same experiences at affordable prices. Companies that are really on the user's side, trying to protect their privacy and data and not maximize for profit over everything else. These privacy focused tools often suffer one major drawback: they feel like homework. Too often users have to suffer for privacy to really work, because it's inherently not as simple as "the other way". Not as well designed, not as familiar in UX and UI.

I think this is broken. I believe we should strive for the combination of a modern software experience with privacy built in at every layer. So subtle but present when it counts that users almost don't notice it's there, unless they really have to take action on something. I believe there can be tools that bridge the gap between privacy and productivity without making the privacy part feeling like homework.

What we're building

• Mail, with your own domain
• Pages for docs, notes and wikis
• Sheets for spreadsheets
• Calendar, Drive, Tasks and Contacts
• Video calls, with screen sharing
• Chat and shared workspaces for teams

There's a desktop app for macOS, and an iPhone app is on the way. There will be an on-prem edition for organisations whose data can't be stored outside their own hardware and the list of planned improvements and new features is already long and growing. If you have ideas what's missing and want to chime in, just write me an email to ben@jellysuite.com.

Who it's for

For anyone who'd like their notes, mail and files to stay theirs, without becoming a security expert first. Privacy has to work for the people who'd never go looking for a privacy tool too, so that's who I design for.

For teams, too: companies, studios, practices and agencies that handle other people's information and anybody who would rather not hand their data to an ad company. Everyone keeps their own keys, and not even your admin can read someone else's account.

How we run it

jellysuite is paid for by subscriptions and nothing else. No ads, no tracking, no investors, and no free plan that someone else pays for with their data. That's what keeps the incentives honest. The only way this works is if you're happy enough to keep paying.

Your encrypted data lives on our own servers in Germany and Finland, and I run and maintain them myself, from the app to the mail sending and everything in between. You can see how they're doing at any time on our status page. If we ever close, you get at least six months' notice and a full export of your data, unlocked on your own device. Our philosophy has the whole list of promises, and why I made them.

What's under the hood

If you like the details, best check out how our encryption works and also check our transparency page. Here's a short technical overview.

• Proven building blocks. Everything is built on libsodium and OPAQUE, both widely reviewed. Nothing here is home-made cryptography.
• One key per item. Content is sealed with XChaCha20-Poly1305 and a fresh random nonce every time, so one key never unlocks more than it should.
• Sharing you can check. A shared key goes into an X25519 sealed box for the recipient, signed with your Ed25519 key, so a server can't quietly swap in someone else.
• Passwords that stay home. OPAQUE with Argon2id stretching inside it: we never see or store your password.
• Mail that plays well with others. Inside jellysuite, mail is encrypted end to end. To people outside, it's normal mail (or OpenPGP, for people who use it), and incoming mail is locked as soon as it arrives.
• Open where it matters. The code that encrypts your data is open source under the MIT licence, so you can check how your keys are made instead of taking my word for it. See open source.

Come along

If the above sounds like the kind of software you've been waiting for, pick a plan and come in. I'll use this blog for what we ship, how the encryption works and the choices behind it.

If you have questions or thoughts, write to me at ben@jellysuite.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Ben