No surprise pivot.
The product roadmap is the same as it was two years ago: one window for communication, refined.
Ten years building one desktop app. Same person. Same stance on your data.
Franz started in Vienna in 2016 and turns 10 this year. One window for messengers, email, and Signal, refined by the same person who built the first prototype.
Vienna · Since 2016 · 1,000,000+ downloads
Stefan Malzner
Founder of Franz
Built in Vienna, Austria
Used by people at leading companies worldwide
Over a million downloads and a decade on desk. Franz is built for recruiters, consultants, founders, and operators who move between client chat, team chat, inbox follow-through, and secure threads all day.
On the record
Ten years, six major versions, one desk.
- March 2016 After a weekend prototype, Franz launches on Product Hunt with around 2,000 upvotes.
- Late 2016 Product Hunt Golden Kitty Award. Desktop App of the Year.
- 2018 Franz 5 ships with paid plans built in from the start.
- 2020 Workspaces ship. Franz now keeps work and personal communication apart.
- 2022 Franz Todos ship. Capture follow-ups without leaving the inbox.
- 2026 Franz 6: native email, on-device AI, EU-hosted Cloud. The ten-year anniversary release.
Covered by
Why one person still runs this
Three things I said no to.
Each would have been the obvious move at the time. None of them would have made Franz better for the people who use it.
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No to a VC fundraise (2016)
Term sheets did not fit, my son was born, and months of fundraising had eaten product time. So I stopped. The result for you: the roadmap is not driven by what moves a metric next quarter.
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No to enterprise sales
Enterprise inquiries kept landing in my inbox. They did not fit how Franz is built. The result for you: pricing stays simple. Monthly, annual, or once for life. No per-seat creep. No traps.
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No to growing the team back
Franz was once a team of five, now it is one again. With a team, every decision starts to optimise for revenue per visitor and conversion per cohort. Alone, I build for myself, and trust that you will want Franz for the same reasons. The result for you: when something breaks for me, it gets fixed fast.
Along the way we have had several acquisition offers, from companies and competitors that are not around anymore. We are still here.
What that means for you
Three guarantees baked into the product.
No price creep.
Pay monthly, annually, or once for life. No per-seat creep. No usage surprises. We will email you before any subscription renewal.
No data resale.
Three AI paths: local on-device, your own provider key, or EU-hosted with zero retention.
Built in Vienna
Your work stays yours. Built in the EU, where we take this seriously.
Privacy in Franz is a default, not a feature. Your inbox lives on your machine. On-device AI handles classification, drafting, and search without anything leaving your laptop. Pick Pro Cloud and the request runs on Franz-managed infrastructure in Europe, with no training on your content and no retention beyond the answer. Bring your own provider key, and your request never touches a Franz server.
Why Franz?
A serious product with a very human name.
Part of the name was a wink at Franz Joseph. If you are running an empire, you should probably get your communication under control first.
But the name stayed for a more personal reason too: Franz was Stefan's grandfather's name. That felt like a better foundation than another cold software brand.
The honest part
Three things you should know.
- Most of what I tried in ten years never shipped. Probably eighty percent of it.
- I will not promise enterprise SLAs or a five-person account team. That is not how Franz is built.
- Franz 6 was built while I was still recovering from a serious accident in early 2025. It is the version that helped me stay coherent. That is a description, not a tagline.
Ready to take control?
Try Franz free. The product behind the story is on your machine in under two minutes.