wtf is franz?

Franz is a desktop messaging app that brings multiple chat services together into one window. Instead of switching between separate apps for WhatsApp, Slack, Telegram, Hangouts, HipChat, and others, Franz lets you run them all at once in a single application on Windows, Mac, or Linux. The app wraps each messaging service in its own tab, so each one behaves like it normally would in a browser. You can add as many services as you want through a plugin system. Each plugin, called a recipe in the project's terminology, handles the connection to one messaging platform. The plugin repository is a separate GitHub project where the community contributes support for new services. Franz is built on Electron, a framework that lets web technologies run as desktop applications. The README covers development setup: installing dependencies with a tool called Lerna, running the app locally in two parallel terminal commands, and building a packaged version. Linux users need to install some additional system dependencies first, with a separate guide covering the specifics per Linux distribution. The project accepts bug reports and feature requests through GitHub issues. Community support happens through a Slack workspace. Franz is open-source under the Apache 2.0 license. Downloads are available from the project's website, and Mac users can also install it through Homebrew.