Jami works without a smartphone.

I know it may seem unusual, but there are people who want to occasionally video chat using a laptop (which you can only do with Signal Desktop as long as you also have a smartphone).

If not for that silly requirement, I'd be using Signal.

Check out Pyre.chat and Signal-Weechat perhaps?

Regardless of what client you're running, you still need a smart phone with a sim card to create the Signal account, sadly.

Thanks for the suggestions though.

Signald allows you to make an account via pairing (which requires a smartphone) or by registering a new number. It also supports having multiple registered numbers.

Both of the programs I mention are built atop Signald

Jami uses no centralized servers at all. Even for identity management they use a blockchain.

You have to trust Signal.

I thought blockchain doesn't solve trust issues, you still need to trust the developers of the blockchain.

You have to trust any code you didn't write yourself, even if it's just the compiler and OS.

It’s certainly better than having all identities sitting on one company’s server. In that case, they can delete whoever they want and they also know your IP (look at keybase for example).

Check out the Jami developer blog.

You don't have to trust the signal backend.