plaits
Democracy needs privacy
If your group makes decisions that matter, those decisions deserve protection.
We're building end-to-end encrypted infrastructure for collectives, newsrooms, unions, cooperatives and NGOs who need to coordinate at scale but can't work in the open.
Existing tools weren't made for you
They were made for people managing from the top down. For organizations that answer to shareholders, not members. For people who’ve never had to organize under surveillance or build power from the ground up.
They don't fit the work you're doing
So you adapt and make do, combining one tool for chat, another for decisions, spreadsheets for the budget, task tracking to know what people are doing, encrypted messaging for the sensitive stuff, and a database for tracking members.
All this works. Until it doesn't.
Someone forgets to toggle a privacy setting. Everyone's talking past each other in group chat. New people can't figure out where anything is. "I didn't know we were doing this" because the decision happened some place only two people saw.
They're not values aligned
On top of it all, the ideological ick stings: you're paying five different subscriptions to tech companies whose leaders would sell your data in a heartbeat while funding politicians who would undermine your livelihood in another.
You are not disorganized, but your tools are.
What we're building
An all-in-one platform for collective organising
One place where coordination doesn't descend into chaos, where you can do important work without compromising privacy or control.
- Safe communication: Encrypted chat with threaded conversations to help you think out loud, but with structure in place.
- Decisions that stick. Turn a discussion into a proposal. Notify and get input from everyone who needs to weigh in. Capture and revisit what you agreed on without scrolling through weeks of chat history.
- Tasks with context. Convert "we should do something" into "here's who's doing what by when" with the full conversation that sparked it still attached.
- Collaborate in writing: Edit documents together and share files.
- Keep track of everyone: Member management with roles, permissions, onboarding and dues collection.
Instead of combining apps, everything lives in one place: a home for your entire organization that actually works the way you do.
Built on end-to-end encryption, local-first, open source and modular. Not every organisation will need every module. A small collective might only need chat and decisions, while a union might want all of it. You use what fits.
The end goal being to run your entire organisation on infrastructure custom built for collective work.
What it looks like in practice
Your media cooperative is building a micropayments system for independent journalism. Someone posts a thread: "Our payment processor just changed their ToS and can now freeze accounts for controversial content."
The thread explodes. Developers suggest alternatives, the treasurer calculates migration costs, editors get worried about losing readers' trust mid-transition.
When the conversation settles, someone clicks "turn this into a proposal." Should we switch providers? Build our own? Everyone with a stake in it weighs in, and the decision context doesn’t disappear into chat history.
Several tasks follow — "research open-source payment methods," "draft member comms" and "legal review of new provider" — that keep the full context attached.
How you’re protected
Built with encryption from the start
For us, encryption is non-negotiable:
- End-to-end encryption with forward secrecy. We use the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol, the same IETF standard adopted by major platforms. Your messages and member data stay encrypted. We can’t read them, and we don’t store them in plaintext either.
- Local-first architecture. Your data lives on your devices in encrypted local storage. Servers just facilitate sync and message delivery; they never see decrypted content. If the server goes down, you keep working. You can use our servers, but if we disappear, you keep your data and can switch to self-hosting.
- Built in Rust for security. Memory-safe implementation of cryptographic primitives. We build on proven protocols (MLS specification, CRDT research) and audited libraries.
Open source
You don't have to trust us. Everything (server and client applications) will be open sourced under permissive licenses. You should be able to validate our claims and reproducibly build the app yourself.
Why will be? We want to ensure that the code is safe to use before releasing it to the public and internet. That's why we’re in the process of commissioning independent security audits before releasing the sources on Codeberg.
Roadmap and future plans
Where we are
We've laid the technical foundation and we're currently building the communication module.
What’s coming (2026-2027):
- Decision-making module: Proposals, voting, consensus tools
- Task coordination module: Turn decisions into action
- Security audit (grant-dependent)
- Open source release and community contributions
- Foundation establishment and governance structure
- Documents and secure file sharing
Sustainability
Our goal is for the app to be self-sustaining and governed by a foundation that ensures the people building it control it, are held accountable to the organizations using it, and there are no external ownership claims.
We’re self-funded through 2027 from our studio’s mission-aligned work and actively pursuing European grants to extend runway and build core features..
We’re considering a hybrid model: hosted service for organisations with budgets (unions, established NGOs) subsidising a free tier for smaller groups and grassroots organising.
If your organization has budget and could benefit from our platform right away, talk to us about funding development.
Join the alpha
The encrypted chat module is ready to test.
It's early. You'll hit some bugs and the interface isn't polished, but the encryption works and we need real groups using it to help us get it right before we build more.
What’s working
- End-to-end encryption with forward secrecy
- Encrypted, invite-only channels and threaded conversations
- Local-first architecture—your data stays on your devices
- Code available for verification
What’s coming
- Decision-making tools (proposals, voting)
- Task coordination that preserves context
Your feedback directly shapes what these become.
Who we're looking for
We need groups who make decisions together and will:
- Use it for real coordination alongside current tools (daily standups, planning threads, semi-casual chat but not hight stakes work yet)
- Tell us what breaks, what's missing, what's indispensable
- Help us build the decision-making and task modules that fit how you work
We’re building this with you, not for you. Ready to get involved?
Sign up for a spot
By joining the alpha, you understand is early-stage software and bugs may occur. Use it alongside your existing tools, not as a replacement for now.
Who we are
We're too Inconsistent, a software studio based in Europe, building the tools we needed and couldn’t find.
For us, this project was years in the making. We’ve seen momentum die because critical decisions got lost in threads, and spent hours explaining context over and over again. We've worked with enough groups trying to make decisions democratically, and know what it's like to wrestle with expensive tools that weren't built for this, constantly fighting against their nature.
Our promise
We know it's easy to promise things that may never materialize; we've been burnt by unfulfilled promises before too. But think of it as our intent, that we'll work to codify into our governance structure and guidelines.
- No surveillance capitalism. No engagement metrics, or features designed to keep you in the app longer. We don’t log your activity. We can't sell your data, because we simply don't have it.
- No AI. We won't add any generative AI features, as we are building software to help people, not replace them. We do not and will not use any generative AI tools to contribute to the project in any capacity and will require the same for all future contributors.
Contact us
Did we miss something? Would you like to contribute in some way? Feel free to reach out to us at: hello@plaits.eu.