WhatsApp, native and fast. ZapFast is a WhatsApp client for Linux, macOS, and Windows, written in Rust with egui and whatsapp-rust. It links to your phone as a companion device and has no browser engine. In our Linux test it opens in under a second and uses about 200 MB of idle RAM, against 1.13 GB for WhatsApp Web. See the measurements.
zapfast-launch-web.mp4
zapfast.rocks has downloads and the full guide:
- What is ZapFast?: what it does and does not do yet
- Download: Linux, macOS, and Windows
- Getting started: linking your phone, building from source
- Using ZapFast: messages, stickers, polls, shortcuts
- Settings & files: where your data lives, encryption, app lock, updates
- Making a theme
Want Spotify just as fast and native? Spotifast is ZapFast's sibling. Both are built on fastframe.
brew install --cask crmne/tap/zapfast # macOS
yay -S zapfast-bin # Arch Linux
nix profile install github:crmne/zapfastInstallers, AppImages, and archives for every platform are on the releases page. To build from source, see Getting started.
cargo run --features demo -- --demo # offline sample chats, no WhatsApp connectionCONTRIBUTING.md covers issues, pull requests, and checks; AGENTS.md the architecture; DEMO.md demo pages, screenshots, and recorded tours; PACKAGING.md releases and packages.
ZapFast is an unofficial client and is not affiliated with WhatsApp or Meta. Using an unofficial client may be against WhatsApp's terms of service and could get an account suspended. Use it at your own risk.
MIT. Inter and Noto Color Emoji are under the SIL Open Font License; the icons
and the chat wallpaper doodles are from Lucide (ISC).
The notification sounds are Pidgin's, under the GPL-2.0
(see assets/sounds/).