Tag: stingle

Posted on

Stingle Photos is Back — What’s New and What’s Next

If you have been following Stingle Photos for a while, you might have noticed things went quiet. Here is the honest story — and why the silence is finally over.

The Short Version

Stingle Photos is back in active development. We have released brand new desktop apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux, updated our Android and iOS apps with major fixes, and the roadmap ahead is full of new features. If you tried Stingle before and ran into bugs or felt the project was abandoned — we hear you, and we have been working to fix it.

The Honest Story

Stingle Photos started as a side project that grew into something bigger than expected. After our initial launch, things slowed down — life got in the way, and for a stretch the project did not get the attention it deserved. We know that led to bugs going unfixed, App Store reviews going unanswered. Fair criticism.

But here is the thing: the project was never abandoned for good. We kept the servers running, we kept the encryption solid, and we never stopped believing in the mission — giving people a real, private alternative to Google Photos and iCloud.

In 2026, we got back to work.

What’s Changed

Desktop Apps (New!)

Stingle Photos now has native desktop applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Built in Rust for performance and security, the desktop app brings full end-to-end encrypted backup, sync, and gallery browsing to your computer. This was the single most requested feature — and it’s here.

Android App — Updated

The Android app has been significantly improved with bug fixes, performance optimizations, and stability improvements. The foundation is stronger than ever.

iOS App — Feature Parity & Built-in Camera

The iOS app has been completely updated to match Android’s feature set. It now includes a built-in camera that lets you take photos and record videos directly inside the app — so they never appear in your system Photos app, not even for a brief second. Your media stays encrypted and private from the moment it’s captured.

Active Development

We’re shipping updates regularly. The GitHub repos are active, the desktop app is at version 0.1.8 and climbing, and we’re adding features every month.

What’s Next

  • Web version — access your encrypted gallery from any browser
  • Share album with a link — securely share an album with anyone, even if they don’t have Stingle
  • AI-powered search — on-device AI model analyzes photo and video content, with all metadata stored end-to-end encrypted like everything else in Stingle
  • Performance improvements — faster sync, smarter background backups
  • Community — growing the open source community, accepting contributions, and being more transparent about where we’re headed

Trust & Transparency

  • Open source — always has been, always will be. Every line of code is on GitHub under GPLv3.
  • Security whitepaper — fully documented encryption model built on Libsodium (XChaCha20, X25519, Argon2).
  • No tracking, no ads, no analytics — zero. We don’t collect your data.

Try It Today

Stingle Photos is free to download and includes 1GB of encrypted cloud storage. If you want more, plans start at $2.99/month for 100GB.

  • Android: Download the APK from stingle.org/download
  • iOS: Available on the App Store
  • Desktop: Windows, macOS, and Linux — all on stingle.org/download
  • Self-host: Run your own API server with the open-source Docker setup

We’re back, we’re building, and we’re not going anywhere this time.

Questions? Feedback? Come find us on Telegram, Reddit, or open an issue on GitHub.

— Alex Amiryan, Founder, Stingle Photos

Posted on

End-to-end encryption explained simple

What is end-to-end encryption

Nowadays you are constantly hearing the term End-to-end encryption. But what kind of a beast is that and how it differs from normal type of encryption? Today we’re going to answer that question and we are going to do it using very easy to understand analogies.

So, imagine you there is a very secure safe in a bank, it’s very safe and constructed from some alien metal that is impossible to cut, melt or explode. The safe also has a lock, which is again is impossible to break, melt, explode, etc, you need a key to open it.

Now you have stored your valuable things in the safe, what would you naturally do? You will take your key with you right? You will not leave it to the bank employee or some other person right? But this is what you are actually doing when using popular backup and sync services like Google Photos or Apple iCloud. Sure they keep your data encrypted on their servers, but they also hold the keys, that are needed to decrypt your data.

Anyway let’s get back to the end-to-end encryption. So you have locked your stuff in the safe and took a key with you. Nobody except you has the key to open the safe again, EVER! That’s the idea of end-to-end encryption, it’s that simple!

Continue reading “End-to-end encryption explained simple”