Business Instant Messaging

Wire (Messaging)

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: 3 of 4 dimensions proven

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Wire Swiss GmbH · wire.com

An AI-assisted analysis of public evidence — not a hands-on test.

Every score, rationale and verdict on this page is AI-generated. Every claim cites the source it was read from. Nothing here is a human star review — and no score can be bought. How scores are made →

Method and versions

The Team Lead v1.0 · The Security Officer v1.0 · The Works Council Advocate v1.0 · The Compliance Counsel v1.0 · The Platform Engineer v1.0 · The Skeptic v1.0 · rubric v1 · evaluated 16 Sep 2026

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Skeptic

Weighted verdict

Reads for the message-history cap, the tier where SSO appears, and what "unlimited" excludes. Has seen "end-to-end encrypted" mean direct messages only, on request, with search disabled — and wants that sentence found rather than assumed.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Skeptic

Channels, threads & search

How this is scored

The daily surface: channel model, threading, mentions, files, and whether search can find a decision made eighteen months ago.

0 — Flat group chats with no threads; search covers recent messages only, and history is capped.

3 — Channels and direct messages with basic search, but threading is awkward or absent and file handling is a plain attachment list.

5 — Public and private channels, real threads, mentions and reactions, file sharing with previews, and full-text search across the whole history.

8 — Cross-organisation or guest channels with clear boundaries, message editing history, pinned and saved items, search with filters by channel, person and date, and a documented history limit or none at all.

10 — The archive is a working knowledge base: search that ranks well across years, threads that stay readable, channel lifecycle management (archive, rename, merge) without losing history, and export of a conversation in a form a human can read.

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The Skeptic

The evidence evidences group chats up to 500 people, file sharing and self-deleting messages — and not one word about channels, threads or search; that word never appears, so a decision made eighteen months ago is retrievable by nothing this sheet shows. Worse, messages are deleted from Wire's servers 'immediately upon delivery', so there is barely an archive to search. A flat-messenger profile with ephemeral history, well below the channels-and-threads anchor. 2 1 4

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Encryption & access control

How this is scored

What is encrypted and against whom, plus who can reach which room. Judged on documented mechanism, since "encrypted" in this category usually means the vendor holds the keys.

0 — Transport encryption only, undocumented; no role model beyond admin, guests indistinguishable from members.

3 — TLS and encryption at rest with vendor-held keys, basic roles, and guest access that mostly works.

5 — The above plus configurable roles per channel, SSO, guest accounts with scoped visibility, and a clear statement of what the vendor can read.

8 — Optional end-to-end encryption for direct messages or private rooms with the trade-offs named, device verification, session management an admin can revoke, and documented key handling.

10 — End-to-end encryption as a first-class mode — documented or open cryptography, cross-device key management that ordinary users survive, identity verification, and the vendor stating plainly what it cannot decrypt.

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The Skeptic

The sentences I hunt for exist verbatim: content is 'encrypted on the sender's device and decrypted only on the recipient's device' across text, voice, video and files, and 'Wire does not have access to encryption keys and does not use backdoors' — backed by MLS, an open standard, 100% open source on GitHub, manual device verification plus automatic certificate-based ID Shield, and encrypted history backup. Docked one point because admin-revocable session management is never named and the trade-offs of E2EE for search/discovery are not spelled out. 4 3 2

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Retention, discovery & co-determination

How this is scored

The archive as a legal object: retention policies, export for discovery, audit, and the monitoring features a works council will ask to have switched off.

0 — No retention policy, no export beyond a manual copy, no audit log, and presence or activity analytics that cannot be disabled.

3 — Manual export of some data and a global history limit, but no per-channel retention, no audit log and no admin control over analytics.

5 — Configurable retention per channel or workspace, admin export in a documented format, an audit log of administrative actions, and status or presence that a user can control.

8 — Legal-hold and eDiscovery export including edits and deletions, retention executed per policy and evidenced, full admin audit trail, and activity analytics switchable off organisation-wide.

10 — Built to pass a works agreement and a subpoena on the same day: granular retention with documented deletion, discovery export a lawyer can use, complete audit, and no individual-level productivity scoring anywhere in the product.

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The Skeptic

As a legal object there is almost nothing: no configurable retention, no admin export, no audit log, no legal hold — the only retention rule on file is the server deleting messages upon delivery, which is the opposite of a discovery posture. The works-council side is genuinely clean, to be fair: consent-based self-hosted Countly analytics, a no-automated-decision-making declaration and no productivity scoring anywhere. 4 2

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Deployment & data custody

How this is scored

Whether the customer can hold their own archive: self-hosting, private cloud, open source, federation, and what an exit actually looks like.

0 — Cloud-only, proprietary, with export limited to a partial archive.

3 — Cloud-only, but with a documented full export in an open-ish format.

5 — A private-cloud or dedicated-instance option, or a self-hosted edition that lags the cloud significantly; full export documented.

8 — A genuine self-hosted edition close to feature parity, or open-source core with a documented upgrade path, plus complete export including files and metadata.

10 — Custody is the customer's: open-source or source-available server, self-hosting supported as a first-class deployment, open protocol or federation, and a migration path in and out that the vendor documents rather than resists.

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The Skeptic

Open-source code on GitHub, 'comprehensive on-premises deployment support' and federation listed at enterprise tier are real custody options, not slideware. But the evidence never documents an export or migration path out, so the exit story is assumed rather than evidenced, and on-prem sits behind a custom-priced enterprise conversation. 3 1 2

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Integrations & extensibility

How this is scored

Bots, webhooks, app framework, identity — whether the chat becomes the place work is noticed, and whether that is buildable without a partner agreement.

0 — No API, no webhooks, no bots.

3 — Incoming webhooks and a handful of native integrations; no bot framework, no documented limits.

5 — Documented REST API, incoming and outgoing webhooks, slash commands, a bot account model, and SSO.

8 — A proper app framework with interactive components, event subscriptions with retries, SCIM provisioning, documented rate limits and a sandbox.

10 — A platform: versioned API with a deprecation policy, an app directory or plugin system with permissions a customer can audit, and integrations the vendor maintains rather than lists.

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The Skeptic

Exactly one integration is named (GitHub), bot deployment appears as an admin-console line, and SSO/SCIM is evidenced — beyond that, silence: no documented REST API, no webhooks, no framework, no rate limits, no sandbox. 'MS Teams alternative' is a use-case slogan, not an integration surface. 2 1

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where the archive and its metadata live, who the contracting entity is, which subprocessors touch it. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; scored here as this buyer weighs it.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated or non-EU, subprocessors unnamed.

3 — EU data residency offered for message content while metadata, search indexes or support tooling remain non-EU, or the contracting entity sits outside the EU.

5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but parts of the chain — notifications, AI features, analytics — are non-EU without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, full subprocessor list published, any non-EU processing named with its legal basis.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: vendor, entity, hosting and every subprocessor European, certification published, and a self-hosted option that removes the question.

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The Skeptic

Servers named in Germany and Ireland and a full subprocessor table with locations and DPF/SCC legal bases — Stripe in the USA is named rather than hidden, which is better than most. But the contracting entity is Swiss, not EU, Wire Germany GmbH is only an Article 27 representative, ownership is unknown, and the self-hosted option that would remove the question is gated behind unpriced Enterprise. 3 4 1 2

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the annual invoice for their headcount — including the retention, compliance and guest features they actually need — from public pages alone.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A per-user headline exists, but the tier where retention control, SSO or compliance export begins is unstated.

5 — Per-user prices public with billing period stated, but at least one commonly needed capability (unlimited history, SSO, eDiscovery) sits in an unpriced enterprise tier.

8 — Every tier priced publicly with per-user maths, history and storage limits, feature boundaries, minimum term and VAT treatment stated; self-hosted licensing priced too where offered.

10 — Complete price computability: annual invoice derivable for a given headcount and deployment choice, including guest users, storage and any per-instance licence.

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The Skeptic

Per-user maths is public and clean up to 100 people — €7.45/person/month billed annually, €8.94 monthly, and SSO/SCIM included at that tier rather than enterprise-gated. But federation, data sovereignty, ID Shield and on-prem all sit in 'Wire for Enterprise — Custom', VAT treatment and minimum term are never stated, so the invoice for the regulated 300-person buyer this product courts is a sales conversation. 2

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European sovereignty — proven facts

3 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Legal entity	Incorporated in CH	3/3 pts	5 Report an error
Ownership	Not determined	—	uncited Report an error
Data residency	EU only ⚠ unverified	3/3 pts	3 Report an error
Subprocessors	US CLOUD Act reach ⚠ unverified	0/2 pts	4 Report an error

Where this could be wrong

Evidence ages. The oldest capture behind this page is from 15 Sep 2026. Vendors change pricing and policies without notice; every fact reflects its source as of the capture date shown in the registry.
Weak sourcing — Data residency. The claim appears only in marketing copy on the security and MLS pages, not in a DPA or subprocessor list, and the unnamed hosting providers hold US federal certifications (FedRAMP, FIPS 140-2) suggesting an American provider.
Weak sourcing — Subprocessors. Zendesk is US-headquartered and is the only provider explicitly named; the hosting providers are not named, though their FedRAMP and FIPS 140-2 certifications suggest a US provider, and the push services APN/FCM (Apple/Google) are used for notifications but Wire states no message data is shared with them.
AI can misread a source. Extraction and judgement are automated; a citation guarantees traceability, not infallibility. If something here is wrong, say so — no account needed, every report is decided within 5 business days, and accepted corrections are published.

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

18 product facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
10 compliance facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
10 legal facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
9 pricing facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
2 data facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
2 integrations facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
1 support fact could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and was left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
6 of the readings below were written against an earlier fact sheet — a fact has been corrected, added or pulled since. Until the panel next runs on this product you are reading the older judgement. Know more? Tell us

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Sources (14)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

1 Vendor homepage wire.com Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
2 Pricing wire.com Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
3 Security page wire.com Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
4 Privacy policy wire.com Checked 30 Sep 2026 Details →
5 Imprint wire.com Checked 30 Sep 2026 Details →
6 Channels, threads & search — found from sitemap wire.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
7 Channels, threads & search — found from sitemap wire.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
8 Encryption & access control — found from sitemap wire.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
9 Encryption & access control — found from sitemap wire.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
10 Retention, discovery & co-determination — found from sitemap wire.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
11 Retention, discovery & co-determination — found from sitemap wire.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
12 Deployment & data custody — found from sitemap wire.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
13 Integrations & extensibility — found from sitemap wire.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
14 Integrations & extensibility — found from sitemap wire.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →