FAQ
Questions and answers
Short answers, including to the questions where the honest answer is “no”.
What is NeyLivo?
NeyLivo is a messenger and communication platform. You write to people directly, build servers with channels for a community, call each other with video and screen sharing, listen to music together and extend the app with plugins. It runs on Windows, Android and in a browser.
What is Нейливо?
Нейливо is the same product, spelled in Cyrillic. NeyLivo and Нейливо are two spellings of one name — one app, one account, one website.
Is NeyLivo a messenger?
Yes. Messaging is the core of it: direct messages, group conversations, and servers with channels. Calls, music and plugins are built around that, not instead of it.
Is NeyLivo free?
Yes, and completely. There are no paid tiers, no subscriptions, no in-app purchases and no advertising. There is no payment code in the app at all.
Is NeyLivo encrypted?
In transit, always: everything between the app and the server goes over HTTPS/TLS. On top of that, one-to-one direct messages can be end-to-end encrypted so the server holds ciphertext it cannot read — that part is a setting, and it is off by default.
Is NeyLivo end-to-end encrypted?
Partly, and only if you turn it on. End-to-end encryption covers direct messages between two people, their attachments and their calls — three separate switches, all off by default. Group conversations and server channels are not end-to-end encrypted: they are protected by access rules in the database instead. Calling NeyLivo “an end-to-end encrypted messenger” without those qualifications would be misleading, so we do not.
Is NeyLivo anonymous?
No. Registration requires an email address, messages have an author, and servers keep a moderation log. Encryption can hide what you wrote; it does not hide that you wrote, to whom, or when. If you need anonymity, you need a tool built for it.
What data does NeyLivo collect?
An email address and a password to register, whatever you put in your profile, and the messages and files you send so they can be delivered and shown on your devices. There is no analytics, no crash reporting service and no advertising code. The privacy page lists every kind of data item by item, including which third-party services see your IP address.
Who develops NeyLivo?
NeyLivo is an independent project developed in the open by NeyLivo on GitHub. There is no company behind it, no funding and no investors.
Where can I download NeyLivo?
From this website: the download page links straight to the installer for Windows and the APK for Android, and to the web version. You do not need a GitHub account or any account to download it.
Does NeyLivo have an Android app?
Yes. It is installed from an APK file downloaded here — NeyLivo is not on Google Play. Android will ask you to allow installing apps from that source, which is the normal prompt for any app outside the store. You should not need to disable any system protection.
Does NeyLivo have a Windows app?
Yes, a normal installed application with a tray icon, background notifications and automatic updates. It installs for the current user and does not require administrator rights.
Can I use NeyLivo in a browser?
Yes. The web version needs no installation and works in any modern browser. On a phone it can be added to the home screen and then behaves like an installed app.
What are NeyLivo plugins?
Small programs written in JavaScript that add things to the app: buttons, slash commands, panels, whole windows, games, bots. A plugin runs in an isolated Web Worker and can only do what its declared permissions allow, which you see and accept before installing.
What is a .neylivo file?
The format a NeyLivo plugin comes in: a single JavaScript file with a header comment describing the plugin’s name, author, version, permissions and the domains it may contact. You can install one from a file, or receive it in a conversation as a card with an Install button.
What is Trackoteka?
Trackoteka (Трекотека) is NeyLivo’s built-in music system: a shared library of tracks, playlists, a queue, synced lyrics and listening together in a lobby where everyone hears the same thing at the same moment.
How is NeyLivo different from Discord?
The structure is familiar — servers, channels, roles, voice. The differences are that NeyLivo can end-to-end encrypt one-to-one conversations, has no analytics or advertising, is free with no paid tier, and lets you extend the app with your own plugins that run sandboxed in the client. Discord is a large funded product with moderation, scale and reliability that an independent project does not match.
How is NeyLivo different from Telegram?
Both offer optional end-to-end encryption for one-to-one chats rather than by default. NeyLivo is organised around servers and channels rather than channels and groups, is much smaller, and is extensible with client-side plugins. Telegram has enormous reach, its own infrastructure and years of operational maturity; NeyLivo has none of that yet.
How is NeyLivo different from Signal?
Signal is an encrypted messenger first: end-to-end encryption is on by default, for everything, including group chats and calls, using a protocol reviewed by cryptographers for years. NeyLivo does not match that and does not claim to — encryption here is optional and covers one-to-one conversations only. What NeyLivo offers instead is communities, music and plugins in one app. If your priority is the strongest available message privacy, use Signal.
Is NeyLivo safe to use?
It is a young, independent project with no external security audit, so the honest answer is: it depends on what you need. For talking to friends, running a community and keeping ordinary conversations away from advertisers, yes. For anything where being read would put you in danger, use software built and audited for that. The security page lists the known weaknesses plainly, including the one about attachments.
Is NeyLivo open source?
The full source code is public and can be read, checked and built by anyone. It does not currently carry an open source licence, which technically makes it source-available rather than open source — a licence is something the author still needs to choose.
If your question is not here, the about, security and privacy pages go into much more detail.