The first version of Senden started taking shape back in 2023. It was an early prototype built on a plain MariaDB database and a straightforward backend architecture. The idea was right, but the foundation wasn't: the stack didn't scale well, and the project was put on pause while we gathered more experience building production systems.
In mid-2025, Senden's lead developer, wireway.ch, resumed work on the project. This time with years of additional experience in scalable backends, distributed systems, and privacy first infrastructure. Rather than patch the old version, Senden was rebuilt from the ground up using modern, industry standard tooling designed for global deployment, efficient caching, and real scalability.
Code quality checks are in place across every part of the stack: the backend API, the relay server, and the web client each run strict linting, type checking, and automated tests before any change ships. This keeps the codebase healthy as it grows and makes it easier for contributors to work on it confidently.
Senden is built around three principles: privacy, minimality, and efficiency. Every feature decision goes through that lens. If something would compromise user privacy, add clutter without clear value, or waste resources, it doesn't ship.
The people running Senden are privacy conscious themselves, and the platform reflects that: no tracking and no data sold to third parties. Senden comes with a simple promise: We will never sell or give away any user data to any third party unless we are legally required to by Swiss law, and even then, only what they asked for.
Fair question. If a service is free and the business model isn't selling your data, something has to give.
During the beta phase, we measured the average infrastructure cost per active user to be around €0.007 per user per month. Less than a cent. Senden is architected to be extremely efficient, which keeps that number low. For now, all of those costs are paid out of pocket by the operators. There are no investors, no analytics brokers, and no data sales funding the service.
Eventually, Senden will introduce a low-cost paid plan for users who want higher limits on things like attachment sizes, message history, customization options, and additional features. The free tier will stay (very) usable. The paid plan is there for people who want more, not to gate basic messaging behind a paywall.
Further down the line, users will be able to host their own backend nodes and voice servers. This gives privacy-minded users full control over where their data lives, and it also takes load off the central infrastructure, which helps Senden stay sustainable as it grows.
As Senden gains traction, third-party security audits will be performed by external firms, and their reports will be published in full. Privacy claims are only as trustworthy as the scrutiny behind them, and we want that scrutiny to be public.
Senden has been load-tested with 50,000 simulated concurrent active users and confirmed to handle that traffic smoothly. That's a real test of the stack under realistic load. The result confirms that the infrastructure is ready for Senden to grow without compromising on the performance or privacy guarantees the project was built around.