— KAGE · BY RYUUGROUP

Speak in shadow.

An end-to-end encrypted messenger. Every word is sealed on your device and opened only on theirs. In between there is nothing to see — not for hackers, not for governments, not even for us.

Signal protocol · Zero ads · Zero tracking · iOS & Android

We can't read your messages.

Not "won't." Can't. The keys never leave your device.

Most apps offer privacy as a policy. Policies are sentences in a document, and documents get rewritten. Kage's privacy is arithmetic. Every message is encrypted on your phone with keys that exist only there; what crosses the network is ciphertext — noise without the key. If our servers were breached tomorrow, the thieves would haul away a warehouse of static.

And when the letter with a court seal arrives, our answer isn't defiance. It's an inventory: ciphertext, and a timestamp. That's the whole warehouse.

This isn't our invention — that's the point. Kage is built on the Signal protocol, the most audited and battle-tested encryption design in messaging. We didn't roll our own crypto. We built a beautiful place for the best crypto to live.

🔒 Your device
Meet me at the usual place, 9pm.
plaintext · sealed on-device
Our server
from: ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ · sealed sender
to: ▓▓▓▓ · size 1.1KB · 14:02Z
🔓 Their device
Meet me at the usual place, 9pm.
decrypted · verified sender ✓
Type anything. Watch what each layer actually sees.
◈ CAPABILITIES

What lives in the shadow.

Everything a messenger should do — and nothing watching you do it.

Encrypted by default

There is no "secret mode." Every message, call, photo, and file is end-to-end encrypted, every time. Privacy isn't a setting; it's the substrate.

Disappearing messages

Set a timer, five seconds to four weeks. When it ends, the message burns away on every device. Some conversations should leave no trace.

Sealed sender

Your name travels inside the envelope, not on it. Our servers deliver your messages without knowing who sent them.

Shadow Vault

Backups done honestly: encrypted on your device with a key only you hold, stored as ciphertext we cannot open. Lose your phone, not your past.

Every device, one shadow

Phone, tablet, desktop. Each device holds its own keys and earns its own trust; nothing ever crosses a server in plaintext.

Verified contacts

Every chat has a safety number. Scan it in person, and you have mathematical proof no one sits between you.

◈ OPEN PROTOCOL. CLOSED MESSAGES.

Kage hides your conversations, not its methods.

No magic. This is exactly how it works.

01

Keys are born on your device

Install Kage and your phone generates its own identity keypair. The private half never leaves. No key, no message — everything below follows from this.

02

X3DH — the handshake

Your device runs Extended Triple Diffie-Hellman against the recipient's published prekeys. Both sides derive the same secret, even if they're offline, and the math authenticates who's who. Hybrid post-quantum key agreement is on our roadmap.

03

The Double Ratchet — one key per message

Every message turns the ratchet: a fresh key derived, used once, destroyed. Steal a key and yesterday stays dark; keep talking and the ratchet locks you out of tomorrow.

04

Sealed sender — no return address

Your identity rides inside the encrypted payload. The server learns where to deliver, never who is speaking. The recipient's device opens the envelope and confirms it's you.

05

Shadow Vault — backups we can't open

Encrypted on-device with a key derived from your recovery phrase (Argon2id). We store noise. Without your phrase, it stays noise — for thieves, for subpoenas, for us.

Don't take our word for any of this. Compare safety numbers in person — the math will vouch for us.

◈ WHO IT'S FOR

Made for people with something to protect.

Which, if you think about it, is everyone.

The reporter and the source

A career, a case, sometimes a life — hanging on a metadata trail. Sealed sender keeps names off the envelope. Disappearing messages keep archives from becoming exhibits. Safety numbers keep impostors out of the thread.

The person who wants a door that closes

You don't need a threat model to want curtains. Your group chat, your family photos, your 2 a.m. thoughts — none of it should be raw material for an ad model. Privacy isn't suspicious. It's the default the internet forgot.

The team that works in confidence

Term sheets, case files, incident reports, unreleased research. Kage Teams gives your org structure — members, rooms, retention rules — while message content stays mathematically out of reach of everyone. Admins manage rooms, never messages.

◈ WHY TRUST A SHADOW?

Because this one has nothing to hide.

Proven, not proprietary

Built on the Signal protocol via libsignal: published, formally analyzed, attacked for a decade and still standing. We chose the crypto that survived, not the crypto that markets well.

Architecture, not policy

Promises live in documents; documents get rewritten. Our privacy lives in key material that never touches our servers. We can't betray what we can't see.

Barely any metadata

Sealed sender hides who's talking to whom. Messages are deleted from servers on delivery. Every byte we don't store is a liability we don't have.

Into the open

Client source published before 1.0, reproducible builds, independent audit with unredacted results. Until then we'll say "verify us soon" — never "just trust us."

What Kage can't do

Encryption protects the wire and the warehouse, not a stolen, unlocked phone. Disappearing messages can't stop a screenshot. Our servers still see delivery timing. We minimize metadata; we don't pretend to perform magic. A messenger honest about its limits is one you can believe about its strengths.

◈ PRICING

Pay for room. Never for privacy.

Every tier runs the same end-to-end encryption — Free included. Upgrades buy storage, groups, and resolution. They never buy safety, because safety was never for sale.

What do you keep?
A few photosEvery photoPhotos + videoEverything, 4K
~8 GB costs Kage about $0.12/mo to store. Kage+ covers it.
Kage Free
$0
The full cipher. The small footprint.
  • Same end-to-end encryption as every tier
  • 1:1 chats, calls, disappearing messages
  • 10 photos a week, standard quality
  • 2 devices · local backup export
  • No cloud vault — nothing of yours on our servers
Kage+
$2.99/mo
Your people, your vault.
  • Groups up to 10
  • Unlimited media at 1080p · 500 MB files
  • 25 GB encrypted vault
  • 4 devices
  • Add Sealed backups & extra room any time
$29.99/yr
Recommended
Kage Pro
$7.99/mo
Original quality. Real room.
  • Groups up to 100
  • 4K & original-quality media · 4 GB files
  • 200 GB encrypted vault
  • 200 GB Vault: Sealed included
  • 6 devices · priority support
$79.99/yr
Kage Teams — the org tier. Still unreadable.
Everything in Pro, per seat · Admin console · Member & device management · Org disappearing defaults & retention · 200 GB/seat pooled + team vaults · Invoice billing · 99.9% SLA · SSO on the roadmap
$9.99/seat/mo
min 3 seats · invoiced annually
More room, à la carte. Stacks on any paid tier. Same zero-knowledge. +100 GB · $1.99/mo +200 GB · $3.49/mo +2 TB · $19.99/mo
Vault: Sealed — backups, locked away.

Sealed on your device with a key only you hold. Stored dark on archive-class storage. Takes 12–48 hours to thaw — slow on purpose, cheap because it sleeps. We can't rush it, and we can't read it.

250 GB · $1.99/mo1 TB · $4.99/mo4 TB · $14.99/mo
One full restore a year included · 180-day minimum seal · Pro includes 200 GB
Why encrypted storage costs what it costs

We can't deduplicate your files against anyone else's. We can't compress what we can't see. We can't transcode your video on our servers — your device does, before it encrypts. Every byte you store with Kage is a real byte we pay for. You're not paying for storage tricks. You're paying for the absence of them.

Encryption is never the paywall — paid tiers buy room, not safety. No ads, ever.

Step into the shadow.

Encrypted in under a minute. No ads. No trackers. No trace.

影に言葉を。Give your words to the shadow.