LockChat vs Dead Drop
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
LockChat
This app provides end-to-end encrypted messaging, ensuring your conversations are private and secure. It offers advanced features for corporate clients, including server management and user control.
- End-to-end encrypted chat
- User-controlled keys
- Corporate server management
- User management
- Contact list integration
- Secure file transfer
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After successfully securing email communication and file transfer, Galaxkey is happy to secure the end-to-end messaging for users. Galaxkey uses it’s robust data protection platform to build a secure chat application. The chat application covers the missing piece of secured instant messaging from the Galaxkey’s data protection platform. It allows users to securely chat with each other with keys controlled by them. In addition to normal chat features, it will allow corporate customers to 1. Manage chat server within their infrastructure 2. Manage users using Galaxkey interface 3. Have complete control over the instant messaging app Users will be able to add any contact from their contacts list and communicate securely with them. Galaxkey will be adding many new and unique features to the application in near future.
Dead Drop
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Dead Drop is a secure, private and metadata-free communication platform, designed to work anywhere in the world. --- How it works: Your device will generate new unique cryptographic keys used to securely communicate with every different person you meet. To communicate, you will need to come face to face with another user in person and verify each other's identity, and then scan each other's aztec code to exchange public keys and add one another to your respective contact lists. This face-to-face verification prevents impersonation attacks and ensures you're communicating with who you intend to. Once added to each other's contact lists, you can securely message and call anywhere. For your privacy and security, you can only receive messages or calls from users that are in your contacts list, or from users in groups you have been added to. If you are not in possession of a public key for a particular user, you cannot receive their messages or call requests, eliminating unknown spam and/or malicious messages. Dead Drop allows you to make group chats, with the option to message anonymously with others, utilising rapidly rotating identity keys and no metadata retention. Worried if you are speaking on a private line? Dead Drop's encrypted calls will share if the other users on a call are using their speakerphone or any Bluetooth devices so you can talk in confidence! Enjoy communicating securely within your own private group of trusted contacts by exchanging keys in person! --- Cryptography and Privacy details: - The app uses X25519 keys for your own identity. - An authenticated HPKE ratchet is used to generate a unique symmetric base key after every back and forth message exchange via X25519, with SHA256 as an encapsulation mechanism and SHA512 HKDF for key derivation. - Symmetric keys are ratcheted using a SHA512 HKDF, ensuring that each message is sent with unique keys. - Every message exchange, your base public key forming your identity will update, providing ultimate anonymity between devices. - The double ratchet mechanism provides perfect forward secrecy and post compromise security to all conversations on Dead Drop. - Messages and calls are end-to-end encrypted using the ChaCha20-Poly1305 AEAD cipher. - Dead Drop has no knowledge of who you are communicating with, or what is being sent between devices. - Dead Drop's servers act as a Dead Drop location, where your encrypted messages can be left for the other device to pick up within 30 days. Once retrieved, the message or attachment is deleted from our servers, with no logs retained. If a message or attachment isn't retrieved within 30 days, it's permanently deleted with no trace. - You can be added into groups with people that are not on your contact list, but only by trusted people in your contact list. - Notifications delivered to Apple's Push Notification Servers contain no private or identifiable information regarding who your notification is from, or what it is about. - All information is stored on your device with a unique cryptographic key that is protected by your Apple Key Chain.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is iOS requirement: LockChat at 13.0 against Dead Drop's 17.6. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
LockChat ships an update every 3 weeks, Dead Drop every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 19, 2026 and September 11, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | LockChat | Dead Drop |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 17.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 250 MB | 37 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Galaxkey | Ultra Horizon Ltd |
In-app purchases
LockChat
No in-app purchases
Dead Drop
No in-app purchases









