New Delhi: Zoho’s founder and chief scientist Sridhar Vembu has revealed that Arattai, the company’s Indian-made messaging app, is now rolling out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for text chats. This move brings stronger privacy to users, ensuring that only the sender and receiver can read messages, not even Arattai itself. Voice and video calls on the app were already encrypted, but this update extends that protection to all text messages too.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Vembu shared a sneak peek of the app’s updated design and asked users to share their thoughts on how the encryption should work by default. He explained two possible approaches for the rollout and said the team is collecting feedback before finalising it.
Below is how the Arattai app design looks now. We offer a tab e2ee (for end to end encrypted) and any user can set that as the default for all personal chats. We will have end to end for group chats (up to some group size limit) later.
Now your feedback needed on:
(Option 1)… pic.twitter.com/trOo2s7bUs
— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) November 4, 2025
Arattai’s new E2EE feature explained
Vembu wrote that users will soon see a “tab e2ee” option in Arattai, which they can set as the default for all personal chats. He said group chats will also get end-to-end encryption later, though the feature may have a group size limit.
He shared two options for how the feature could function:
- Option 1: Users can choose whether to make E2EE their default setting or apply it to specific chats. Even if only one person in a chat enables it, the conversation will automatically switch to encrypted mode.
- Option 2: Arattai could make E2EE the system-wide default for all one-on-one chats, meaning no one can use unencrypted chats anymore.
Vembu added that some users prefer cloud-based chats because they don’t want messages stored locally on devices. But, he noted, the second option would be simpler to implement and “cheaper for us.”
Strengthening privacy, cutting cloud ties
The latest move shows Arattai’s growing focus on user privacy. In addition to rolling out encryption for texts, the company is also disabling cloud storage for chats, meaning messages will only live on a user’s device. This makes it harder for anyone, including the platform, to access private conversations.
The feature was in internal testing in late October 2025, and according to people familiar with Zoho’s plans, it is expected to be available to all users soon. The update also comes amid Arattai’s recent surge in downloads, as more users seek Indian alternatives to foreign messaging platforms.
Competing with WhatsApp on privacy
By adding full encryption, Arattai is positioning itself closer to WhatsApp, which already offers E2EE for personal messages. But Arattai’s local-first approach, storing data only on user devices, adds an extra layer of privacy control.