KDE announced a new chat application NeoChat, a Matrix client for Desktop and Mobile, in its January 2021 apps update.

Matrix is an instant messaging system similar to Whatsapp or Telegram, but uses an open and decentralized network for secure and privacy-protected communications.

NeoChat is a fork of Spectral, another QML client, and uses the libQuotient library to interact with the Matrix protocol. It features an elegant and responsive user interface allows to adapt to any screen size automatically and gracefully. It works on both Desktop and Mobile, and will be installed by default on PinePhone KDE edition.

Apart from sending and responding to messages, NeoChat also features:

• upload image, audio, video files.
• room chat and private chat support.
• emoji picker integration.
• Drag and drop copying support.
• Built-in image editor with crop and rotate images support.

The chat app so far is in version 1.0 and some features are not implemented, including encryption support, video call, editing messages.

How to Install NeoChat in Ubuntu Linux:

Besides building from the source tarball, it’s so far only available as universal Linux flatpak package.

1.) Open terminal and run command to install flatpak daemon if you don’t have it.

sudo apt install flatpak

2.) And add the flathub repository which hosts the flatpak packages:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

3.) Finally install the instant messaging app via command:

flatpak install flathub org.kde.neochat

Uninstall NeoChat:

To remove the chat app, run command:

flatpak uninstall org.kde.neochat