Komai · γγΎγ
A native desktop Matrix client for Linux, Windows, and macOS. It started as a fork of nheko, got rebuilt on Rust, and it's named after the komainu, the lion-dogs that guard a shrine gate. Fast, quiet, and built to live on your desktop instead of a browser tab.
You already have too many browser tabs open. Chat doesn't need to be one of them.
Built in Rust, C++, and QML, which is the fancy way of saying it starts fast and stays out of your RAM. No Electron, no bundled browser, no fan spinning up because you opened a chat app.
Desktop-first, not a phone app that got stretched. Room tabs across the top, keyboard and Vim-style shortcuts under your fingers, and a layout that actually uses your monitor.
10+ themes tuned for real contrast, plus any you write yourself. It all lives in plain YAML, so set it up once and carry that file to every machine you own.
Keep the rooms you live in one click away. Open a handful across the top, pin the ones that matter, and flip between them like browser tabs. Still weirdly rare in Matrix clients, and the kind of thing you can't give up once you've had it.
Drag across a run of messages, Ctrl-click a few, or grab them from the keyboard, then copy, reply, forward, or delete the lot in one move. The clean way to tidy a channel, or lift a whole thread of quotes out of a busy room without death by right-click.
Komai speaks MCP, ships CLI commands, and answers on D-Bus, so scripts and other programs on your machine can read and send messages through it. Most chat apps are a sealed box. This one has doors. That's a real script in the screenshot, posting into a room over the API.
Element Call is wired right into Komai: end-to-end encrypted MatrixRTC calls, one-on-one or a whole room piling in, with no separate app to launch.
Calls are Linux-only for now. The Windows and macOS builds ship without voice or video, so you'll know going in, not after.
The room directory searches the wider Matrix network through matrixrooms.info, the public room index etke.cc builds and runs. Filter by name, topic, or how alive a room is, and actually find your people instead of trading room addresses in a DM.
The things you expect from a Matrix client, done properly.
Encrypted messaging on the Rust matrix-sdk. Device verification and key backup are built in.
Replies, Discord-style threads, and forwarding a message on to another room.
View images and play audio and video in the app, without bouncing out to another window.
Long-press Space to dictate straight into the composer, through any OpenAI-compatible backend you point it at.
Multi-language checking that runs on your machine and picks up your system dictionaries.
Your own emoji, with CLDR keyword search, so typing :whiskey finds π₯.
EXIF, IPTC, and XMP data is stripped from images before upload, on by default.
Keep separate accounts in separate profiles and switch between them cleanly.
Little touches like rain and thunder over a message when the moment calls for it.
10+ built-in themes tuned for WCAG AA contrast, plus themes you write yourself.
Komai speaks your language, with more added as translators reach them.
A keyboard-driven main workflow. Shortcuts come in both plain and Vim-style throughout.
Free, open source, and always the current build. Pick your platform.
The AppImage needs FUSE 2. Most distros moved on to
FUSE 3, so if it refuses to start, that's why. Grab the compat package with
sudo apt install libfuse2 on Debian or Ubuntu, or fuse2 on Arch.
komai.exeNot code-signed yet, so Windows throws a SmartScreen warning on first launch. Click More info, then Run anyway, and you're in.
No voice or video calls in this build, and no auto-update, so each new version is a fresh download.
komai.app into ApplicationsNot signed or notarized yet, so Gatekeeper gets nervous on first launch. On macOS 13 and 14, right-click the app and hit Open. On 15 and up, open it once, then approve it under System Settings, Privacy & Security, Open Anyway.
Apple Silicon only for now, and no voice or video yet.
Want an older version, a checksum to verify against, or a URL to pin in your own scripts? It's all on the GitHub releases page.
Komai is built by the team at etke.cc, on the matrix-rust-sdk, and it began as a fork of nheko by the Nheko-Reborn team (thanks, folks). The room search inside it runs on matrixrooms.info, the Matrix room index etke.cc also maintains, and when we're not building clients we run managed Matrix hosting for people who'd rather not babysit a server.
Like the client but don't want to run a homeserver? The same crew can host one for you at etke.cc.