Wire

What Is Wire?

The market for secure enterprise messaging is caught in an uncomfortable paradox. Organisations that need the highest levels of communication security — governments, defence contractors, financial institutions — are often the same organisations that require enterprise-grade features: admin controls, compliance tools, SSO integration, and audit trails. Consumer messengers like Signal provide excellent encryption but no enterprise management. Enterprise platforms like Microsoft Teams provide management tools but no meaningful end-to-end encryption for everyday conversations.

Wire, founded in 2014 and now headquartered in Berlin, Germany, occupies the intersection. It is an end-to-end encrypted messaging and collaboration platform built specifically for organisations that cannot compromise on either security or manageability. The German federal administration uses it. The Swiss government uses it. NATO has evaluated it. These are not organisations that adopt communication tools lightly.

Wire's encryption is based on the Proteus protocol, derived from the Signal Protocol, with forward secrecy and post-compromise security. Every message, call, file transfer, and screen share is end-to-end encrypted — not as an optional feature, but as the default and only operating mode. The server never has access to plaintext content. Wire has adopted the IETF's Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol, positioning it at the forefront of next-generation encrypted messaging standards.

The platform is fully open source. Client applications and server code are published on GitHub, enabling independent security audits — multiple of which have been conducted by external firms. For organisations that need to verify security claims rather than trust marketing materials, Wire's open-source approach provides the transparency required.

Wire Swiss GmbH is the legal entity, though the company has moved its operational centre to Berlin. Infrastructure is hosted in the EU (Germany), and the company offers self-hosted deployment for organisations requiring full data sovereignty.

Key Features

End-to-End Encrypted Messaging

Wire's messaging encrypts all text messages, images, files, and voice messages end-to-end. The encryption uses the Proteus protocol with prekeys, ensuring that even if a device is compromised, past messages remain secure (forward secrecy). The platform supports one-to-one conversations and group chats.

Timed messages allow you to set an expiration on messages, after which they are automatically deleted from all devices. This is useful for sensitive discussions where message persistence creates a liability.

Message formatting supports markdown (bold, italic, headings, code blocks), making Wire functional for technical teams who need to share formatted text and code snippets within conversations.

Voice and Video Calls

Wire supports end-to-end encrypted voice and video calls for one-to-one conversations and group calls. Screen sharing is available during calls, making Wire viable for remote meetings and presentations — with the critical difference that the content of these calls cannot be intercepted or recorded by the platform operator.

Video call quality is adequate for standard business meetings but does not match the performance of dedicated video conferencing tools like Zoom or Teams. For organisations where call security outweighs call quality, this is an acceptable trade-off. For organisations running large webinars or all-hands meetings, Wire is not the right tool.

Group calls support up to 12 participants with video and more with audio-only, which is sufficient for team meetings but not for large-format events.

Guest Rooms

Guest rooms are Wire's answer to a fundamental enterprise challenge: how do you communicate securely with people outside your organisation? Wire's guest rooms allow external participants to join a conversation via a link, without needing a Wire account. Guests can access the conversation through a web browser, with end-to-end encryption maintained.

This is a powerful feature for organisations that collaborate with external partners, contractors, or clients. It eliminates the need to onboard external contacts onto your messaging platform while maintaining the encryption guarantees that make Wire worth using in the first place.

Admin Console and Team Management

Wire's business and enterprise plans include an admin console for managing team members, devices, permissions, and security policies. Admins can enforce conversation retention policies, manage device access, and configure team settings.

SSO integration via SAML 2.0 (supporting Azure AD, Okta, and other identity providers) and SCIM provisioning for automated user management are available on enterprise plans. These features are essential for organisations with centralised identity management and compliance requirements around account lifecycle management.

Self-Hosted Deployment

Wire offers a self-hosted deployment option for organisations that need complete data sovereignty. The self-hosted version runs on the organisation's own infrastructure, ensuring that no data — messages, files, metadata — leaves the organisation's control. This is the deployment model used by government agencies and military organisations.

Self-hosted Wire can federate with other Wire instances, allowing cross-organisation communication while maintaining separate infrastructure. This federation capability, built on the MLS protocol, positions Wire for interoperable secure messaging across organisational boundaries.

Open Source

Wire's client applications (iOS, Android, desktop, web) and server code are published on GitHub. This transparency allows:

• Independent security audits of the encryption implementation
• Verification that the open-source code matches the distributed binaries (reproducible builds)
• Customisation and contribution by enterprise customers
• Confidence that no backdoors or undisclosed data collection exists

Multiple independent audits have been conducted, and their results are publicly available. For security-conscious organisations, the ability to audit the code they rely on for sensitive communication is a fundamental requirement.

Pricing

Wire's Free plan is available for personal use with basic messaging and calling features for up to 500 contacts. This is a genuine free offering for individuals but lacks the enterprise features that most organisations require.

The Business plan at EUR 6 per user per month provides guest rooms, admin console, team management, and priority support. For a 50-person organisation, this is EUR 300/month — a fraction of the cost of a Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace subscription, though Wire does not replace those platforms' productivity features.

The Enterprise plan is custom-priced and includes SSO/SCIM integration, self-hosted deployment options, federation support, dedicated support, and SLA commitments. Pricing is not publicly listed and requires a sales conversation.

For comparison, Microsoft Teams is included with Microsoft 365 subscriptions (from EUR 6/user/month) but does not provide end-to-end encryption for standard conversations. Slack (from EUR 7.25/user/month) does not offer end-to-end encryption at all. Wire's pricing is competitive for what it provides — the question is whether your organisation needs what it provides.

EU Compliance & Privacy

Wire is headquartered in Berlin, Germany, with all cloud infrastructure hosted in the EU. The company operates under German data protection law and GDPR. For organisations subject to German federal security standards, Wire meets BSI (Bundesamt fuer Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik) requirements.

End-to-end encryption means that Wire's servers never process plaintext message content, making the platform structurally compliant with data minimisation principles under GDPR Article 5. The company cannot produce message content in response to law enforcement requests because it does not have access to decrypted content.

Self-hosted deployment eliminates even metadata exposure to Wire's infrastructure, providing the highest level of data sovereignty available in a messaging platform.

The open-source codebase allows organisations to conduct their own security assessments, which is a requirement for many government procurement processes in Germany, Switzerland, and other European countries with formal software evaluation frameworks.

Who It's Best For

Government agencies and public sector organisations that need secure communication meeting national security standards, with self-hosted deployment options.

Enterprises in regulated industries — financial services, healthcare, legal — that must ensure communication confidentiality and demonstrate compliance during audits.

Organisations collaborating with external partners that need guest access to encrypted conversations without onboarding external users onto their platform.

Security-focused teams that require open-source, independently audited encrypted communication with enterprise management capabilities.

The Verdict

Wire is not a Slack replacement. It is not a Teams replacement. It does not have integrations with every SaaS tool your team uses, it does not have threaded conversations for project management, and its video calling will not impress anyone used to Zoom. What Wire provides is genuine, audited, open-source end-to-end encryption with the enterprise features — admin console, SSO, guest rooms, self-hosting — that allow organisations to actually deploy it. In a market where most "secure" enterprise messaging tools are secure in marketing copy but not in architecture, Wire is the real thing. The German federal government trusts it with its communications. That is not a testimonial — it is a technical validation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Wire secure enough for government use?

Yes. Wire is deployed by the German federal administration, the Swiss government, and other European public sector organisations. It meets BSI standards, uses end-to-end encryption derived from the Signal Protocol, offers self-hosted deployment for full data sovereignty, and has been independently audited multiple times with results published publicly.

How does Wire compare to Microsoft Teams?

Teams is a full collaboration platform with document editing, extensive integrations, and advanced meeting features. Wire is a secure communication platform with end-to-end encryption for all conversations. Teams does not encrypt standard messages end-to-end. Wire does not offer integrated productivity tools. They serve fundamentally different priorities — choose based on whether security or productivity integration is your primary requirement.

Can external partners join Wire conversations?

Yes. Wire's guest rooms allow external participants to join conversations via a link, without creating a Wire account. Guests access the conversation through a web browser with end-to-end encryption maintained. This is Wire's solution for cross-organisational communication without compromising security.

Is Wire really open source?

Yes. Client applications for all platforms and the server code are published on GitHub under open-source licences. This has been the case since 2016. Multiple independent security audits have been conducted based on the published source code, and their findings are publicly available.

What is the MLS protocol and why does it matter?

Messaging Layer Security (MLS) is an IETF standard for group messaging encryption. Wire is among the first platforms to implement MLS, which provides more efficient group encryption, better scalability for large groups, and a standardised foundation for interoperability between messaging platforms. MLS is expected to become the industry standard for encrypted group communication.