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David Benqué, originally from Paris, but now residing in Cork, Ireland, joined CryptPad in 2019 as a designer with the role of improving the user experience of the product. At the time, it was just him and two developers working on the product. Since joining, the team has grown, they’ve expanded CryptPad’s suite, and David now oversees the development of CryptPad – amongst many other things.

What is CryptPad?

Born as a byproduct of the OpenPaaS project at XWiki, CryptPad first became available to the public in 2016. Back then, it was much simpler: it started as an end-to-end encrypted real-time collaboration on text documents. Today, Cryptpad offers a full end-to-end encrypted and open source collaboration suite: text editor, spreadsheet, forms, diagrams, kanban boards, presentations, and markdown.

Like Tuta, CryptPad offers its users a private and secure alternative to services offered by Microsoft and Google:

“CryptPad aims to provide people with the same level of convenience and real-time collaboration that they have come to expect from online office suites. It does this with one key difference: all data is encrypted and decrypted by the web browser on your device. This means that the server and the humans that administer it never see any unencrypted data about users or their documents.”

We build this for everyone who relies on office suites in their work but doesn’t want to trade their privacy in exchange for the features that an online suite offers.”

The emergence of private tech

Before Cryptpad launched, its team was working on real-time encryption and created an algorithm that didn’t need the server to synchronise data. It was at that moment that the team realised that e2ee was usable in this way.

This discovery came at an ideal time too: it was a few years post Snowden leaks, tracking technologies were rapidly developing, and advertisements were heavily targeted.

We really felt that new tech was needed to protect people’s data, something different to disrupt Big Tech. This is what convinced us that it made sense to pursue CryptPad as an independent software from XWiki.”

This is something that we at Tuta also resonate with because the whole idea of what started as Tutanota was also born at a time when many people were not aware of just how bad data abuse and a lack thereof data privacy was. It was even before the Snowden leaks, when Arne Möhle and Matthias Pfau understood this need for a truly private email service, which, as we know, is only possible with end-to-end encryption.

Digitally sovereign solutions

While CryptPad has been on the market since 2016, in recent years it has gained more popularity as people become increasingly aware of the importance of choosing private solutions, and this was further propelled with the move in Europe to become digitally sovereign. David mentions that both on a personal user base and state level, there has been an increase in choosing European, privacy-focused tools. Surprisingly, this movement is even greater in the US right now.

While most of our subscribers came from the EU and specifically Germany at the start, we are now seeing the US catch up quickly since the start of the second Trump administration. I find it interesting that US citizens are also seemingly choosing more sovereignty from US Big Tech companies.”

Individuals are recognising their need for sovereignty over their own data as much as states or entities like the European Union are recognising the need for their sovereignty against massive corporations.”

For David, the trend of more Americans starting to use CryptPad suggests that it’s not necessarily about national sovereignty along borders, but perhaps defined more like a threat model with relations between actors of different types.

In addition to offering CryptPad to individuals globally, it is also involved in state-funded projects in both Germany (OpenDesk), and France (France 2030), where the explicit goal is to develop more sovereign alternatives to Big Tech office suites.

Transparency & data protection first

While Tuta and CryptPad offer two completely different services, there are similarities between the two: Both prioritize data privacy and security, which is why they both use end-to-end encryption and operate transparently thanks to being open source.

Our products are made more private and safe by virtue of being open source. It follows that it’s important for people to choose these products because they are the best at preserving their privacy, and that they don’t have to take our word for it.”

CryptPad has always been built around its encryption, and as David says, since CryptPad came onto the market over 10 years ago, this field has changed greatly and advances in quantum algorithms and in quantum hardware, making the quantum threat closer every year. CryptPad is planning ahead and has a cryptography expert on the team working towards making the office suite quantum-resilient.

CryptPad’s suite continues to grow

The next project which they have gladly just secured funding for is CryptPad Notes. This will be a new application that will replace its current “Rich Text” app, that relies on CKEditor 4.

”We’re looking forward to integrating Blocknote into CryptPad as this will clarify the difference with our office Document app which is more “Word like”. Blocknote will provide a great modern interface and experience for on-screen use-cases. We have also recently put a full rewrite of our server in production. Our flagship instance cryptpad.fr had reached a performance ceiling and the new server is much more scalable, potentially distributing the service across many machines. While it’s already in production, we’re looking forward to fully documenting it and releasing it as part of the open-source product. Both of these projects are funded by NLNet by the way, so our thanks and gratitude go to them!”

A better web is possible!

It was a pleasure to speak to David, and for us at Tuta, we appreciate the hard work he and the CryptPad team do. Allowing people to collaborate securely and privately, without having to rely on Big Tech is very necessary right now, and for us, it’s great to see that users are also adopting their products and supporting the mission.

It’s companies like CryptPad and us at Tuta who are paving the way forward for a safer, more secure web where people can communicate, collaborate, and join confidentially - without surveillance or third-party access.

If you’re deGoogling, or just want a more private online collaborative suite, we’d highly recommend checking out CryptPad!