🦊 WhisperFox
How WhisperFox compares to other self-destructing message tools — honestly, including where they beat us.
The one question that separates these tools
Every service on this page lets you send a message that stops working later. The difference is what sits on their servers in the meantime. Most store your encrypted message and promise to delete it. WhisperFox never receives it — the sealed message lives inside the link itself, and expiry happens because the key material is cryptographically erased, not because a database row was deleted.
| WhisperFox | Privnote | One‑Time Secret | Yopass | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Message stored on their servers | Never — it's sealed inside the link | Yes (encrypted, until read or expiry) | Yes (encrypted server‑side) | Yes (encrypted, until read or expiry) |
| Decryption key kept off their servers | Yes — split between the link and a derived half that's refused after expiry | Yes (key rides in the link) | No — decryption keys live on their application servers | Yes (key rides in the link) |
| What makes expiry happen | Cryptographic key erasure — the material to rebuild the key stops existing | Deletion policy on their servers | Deletion policy on their servers | Deletion policy on their servers |
| Open source | Yes (MIT) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Burn after first read | Optional per message | Yes (default) | Yes (always) | Yes (optional) |
| Maximum lifetime | 24 hours | Up to ~30 days | Days (plan‑dependent) | 1 week |
| Account needed | Never | No | Optional | No |
| File attachments | No — text only, by design | No | No | Yes |
Based on each service's published documentation as of July 2026. If something here is out of date, open an issue and we'll fix it.
Where the others are better — really
Honesty cuts both ways. If you need to send a file, use Yopass. If you need a link that lives for weeks, use Privnote or One‑Time Secret. And because those services store your message, their burn‑after‑read can be enforced exactly once at the database; WhisperFox's burn option is a fast best‑effort check on top of the timer, not a database transaction. What none of them can offer: a server that has nothing of yours to lose. A breach, a subpoena, or a rogue admin at WhisperFox turns up no messages — not because of a policy, but because they were never here.
When WhisperFox is the right choice
Short-lived secrets where trust matters more than duration: a password handed to a colleague, a door code, a 2FA seed during onboarding, an API key pasted into a chat that gets archived forever. Encrypt in your browser, send the link, and within 24 hours at most the key material needed to open it no longer exists anywhere. Read the full design in how it works — every line of it is open source.