An all in one messenger for Mac, and what you give up

An all in one messenger for Mac is one app that holds WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, Slack, Gmail and the rest in a single window, with one set of notifications. The well known options are Franz, Rambox, Ferdium, Wavebox and Shift, plus smaller apps such as All-in-One Messenger, One Chat and IM+, and a different kind of product, Beeper, which merges chats into one inbox. Free plans exist for almost all of them, and they stop at very different points: Ferdium has no paid tier, Franz Starter stops at three services, Rambox Basic allows unlimited apps but only two instances of each. The prices and limits below were read from each vendor's own page on 18 October 2026. This site is run by the developer of SpaceDeck, an app aggregation browser for macOS.

What follows explains the two kinds of product behind the same search term, puts the current plans side by side, and names what each approach costs in daily use.

Two kinds of product share one name

Most apps in this search are wrappers. They load the web version of each service, such as web.whatsapp.com or app.slack.com, in its own container inside one window. Nothing about the service changes. The login page is the service's own, two factor prompts behave normally, and a new feature on the website shows up in the wrapper the same day. Franz, Rambox, Ferdium, Wavebox, Shift, All-in-One Messenger, One Chat and IM+ all work this way.

Beeper is the other kind. Its home page describes one inbox for WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, Signal, Messenger, X, Google Messages, Google Chat, Google Voice, LinkedIn, Discord and Slack. Conversations from different networks appear in one list rather than in separate panes. Beeper states that most chat apps connect on-device, so messages go from the device to the network, that it runs on macOS for Apple silicon and Intel as well as iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows and Linux, and that it is free with an optional paid subscription. It also states that it has no affiliation with or endorsement from the platforms it supports.

The choice between the two is mostly about what is being merged.

• For personal chat spread across many networks, a single inbox is the closer fit, because the point is to stop checking six lists.
• For work, where the same service often appears twice with different accounts, a wrapper is the closer fit, because the thing that needs separating is the login, and each container keeps its own.

The rest of this article focuses on wrappers, since that is where nearly all of the search results point.

Current plans and prices, checked 18 October 2026

App	Free plan	Paid plans	Same service twice
Franz	Starter: 3 services, 1 workspace	Pro $60 a year, Max $120 a year, Lifetime $199 founder price	Unlimited services on Pro
Rambox	Basic: unlimited apps, 2 instances per app, 2 custom web apps, 1 active session	Pro $7 a month or $70 a year, Teams $14 per user a month from 5 users	2 on Basic, unlimited on Pro
Ferdium	Everything, no paid tier listed	None	Yes, stated on the home page
Wavebox	Basic: 2 groups with 2 apps each, 1 extension, 1 dashboard	Pro $8.33 a month paid annually, Teams $12.50 per user a month	Yes, for example 2 Gmail accounts on Basic
Shift	5 Spaces, 10 apps per Space	Advanced $199.99 a year	Not stated on the pricing page

A few details sit outside the table and change the picture.

Franz reorganised its plans around AI features. Pro is described as the equivalent of $5 a month and covers every service and workspace, with AI running on a model the user configures and pays for separately. Max adds Franz's own hosted AI with 5 million tokens a month. The Lifetime price is labelled a founder price that returns to $239 when the launch period ends. Franz also says what happens on cancelling: the account and local data stay, and the app drops back to the Starter limits of three services and one workspace.

Rambox and Wavebox start new accounts on a trial of the paid plan, 30 days and 7 days respectively, with no card required for either. Wavebox adds a 30 day money back guarantee. The first week therefore shows the paid product, not the free one.

Ferdium states that the same service can be added twice or more to sign in to multiple accounts, that it can be used without an account, and that it hibernates services to save resources.

The smaller apps publish less. All-in-One Messenger says it supports more than 40 messengers, with multiple instances, unread counts and desktop notifications, and its footer carries a 2021 copyright line. IM+ lists 18 messengers and social networks on Mac with multiple accounts per service. One Chat lists more than 25 services, multiple accounts from the same service, and a requirement of macOS 10.11 or later. Before paying for any of these, it is worth checking the date of the latest release in the App Store listing.

The limit that decides most cases is accounts

Feature lists invite counting networks. The number that actually decides which free plan works is services multiplied by accounts.

Take a freelancer with Gmail, Slack, WhatsApp and Notion, and two clients who each have their own Slack and Google Workspace. That is four services, but seven containers: two Gmail, three Slack, one WhatsApp, one Notion. Run it against the free plans above.

• Franz Starter allows three services. Out.
• Rambox Basic allows unlimited apps but two instances per app, and only one active session. Three Slacks do not fit.
• Wavebox Basic allows two groups of two apps, four in total. Out.
• Shift Free allows five Spaces of ten apps. Fits on count, although the pricing page does not say how a second account of one service is handled, so test that first.
• Ferdium has no limit. Fits.

The paid side of the same example is just as telling. Rambox Pro at $70 a year, Wavebox Pro at roughly $100 a year, Franz Pro at $60 a year and Shift Advanced at $199.99 a year all remove the container limit. The gap between the cheapest and the most expensive is more than three times, and it is explained by extras such as AI features, dashboards or team billing rather than by how many services each can hold. Deciding which extras are actually wanted narrows the field faster than comparing service catalogues.

Now take someone with WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, Instagram and Discord, one account each. Five services, five containers. Shift and Ferdium fit, Rambox Basic fits, Wavebox Basic and Franz Starter do not.

Write down the containers, not the networks, before comparing anything. It removes most candidates in one step and makes the price comparison honest, because the plan that matters is the one that holds the real list.

What gets given up

Every approach costs something. The costs are just in different places.

Memory and battery

A wrapper with ten services is running ten web applications. That is why hibernation appears on almost every feature list: Rambox includes it on Basic, and Ferdium describes hibernating services to prevent slowdowns. Hibernation saves resources by pausing services that are not in view, which is fine for a mailbox and less fine for a chat that should alert immediately. Test with the real set of services for a full working day before judging.

Features of the native apps

Slack, WhatsApp and Telegram all have native Mac apps with things a web version may lack or handle differently, such as system level calling, deeper keyboard shortcuts, or opening a conversation in its own window. A common setup keeps the one service that needs those features in its native app and moves the rest into the wrapper.

A new account, sometimes

Several wrappers ask for an account with the vendor so that settings can sync. Ferdium explicitly supports use without one. Where an account is required, the wrapper's own sign-in becomes one more credential to protect.

Time spent tuning notifications

Merging everything into one place can increase interruptions, because every badge now lands on the same icon. The useful questions are narrow. Can one service be muted without muting the window? Is the unread count shown per service? Do alerts reach the macOS notification centre so that Focus modes can filter them? Ferdium lists an option to notify without showing message content, which helps anyone who shares their screen.

The free option already on the Mac

Before installing anything, macOS can do part of this on its own. Since macOS Sonoma 14, Safari can save any page as a web app. Apple's documentation gives the steps: open the page in Safari, choose File > Add to Dock, type a name, and click Add. The web app is saved to the Applications folder in the home folder and can be opened from the Dock or Spotlight.

The same page says a web app shares no browsing history, cookies, website data or settings with Safari. For sites that send notifications, the Dock icon can show the unread count, and the web app can be set as a login item. Its settings let the name, URL and icon be changed, and the Privacy tab can clear the site's data.

That covers a surprising amount. WhatsApp, Messenger and Slack each become a separate app with their own badge, and because each web app has its own cookies, a second Slack account can live in a second web app.

The limits are also clear. A web app has a back button, a forward button, a Share button and extension buttons, but no tabs and no bookmarks. Nothing groups them, so eight services mean eight Dock icons and eight sets of notification settings. For two or three services, that is often the whole answer. Past five or six, managing them one by one is what sends people back to a single window.

Choosing in one pass

An order that tends to reach an answer quickly:

1. List containers. Services, then accounts within each. This is the number from the earlier section.
2. Decide what the window holds. If it is only chat, a messenger wrapper is enough. If it also needs mail, calendar, documents and admin dashboards, the comparison shifts toward browsers built around web apps, and the list of services each one supports matters more. Supported apps shows what that kind of list looks like.
3. Filter on the free plan that holds the list. Use the table above. If none fit, compare the paid tiers on a yearly basis, since that is how most of them are priced.
4. Run one week on real work. Keep the old apps installed. Watch memory, check that notifications arrive, and note whether the window gets opened to read something or only to check for badges.
5. Compare pairs, not rankings. When two candidates look alike, the difference is usually one limit. Direct pairings such as Compared with Rambox and Compared with Ferdium set those limits next to each other.

What to change first

Count the containers first, then install the free option that holds that count and run it for a week with notifications on. When the list includes several accounts of the same service plus non-chat tools, an app aggregation browser such as SpaceDeck is one more candidate: it gives each app its own isolated session, its free plan covers one workspace with up to three apps, Pro costs $7 a month, $60 a year or $129 once, and the 14-day trial needs no account or card.