Writing other brands' names into your own title: an anonymous Saudi chat clone, 147 ratings in one month
What it is An Arabic anonymous group-chat app where you join country- and topic-based rooms to chat and vent with strangers, monetized through a weekly VIP subscription and points.
Why it took off The Saudi anonymous venting app FadFed reached #5 on the Lifestyle top grossing chart. It stuffed FadFed's name and two other chat brands into its title and subtitle, siphoning off some search traffic, then collected money from a minority of users with a $16 weekly subscription.
CHow to follow it Don't just reskin the same keywords: the same month already has a batch of copycats. If you want into this category, go after what FadFed got wrong: listener matching, voice rants, or making content moderation the selling point. Use category keywords for store search, and drive acquisition with rant-style content on TikTok.
- Data (updated daily) · First released 2026-10-07 · Saudi rating 116 · 11-08 charted in 10 stores
iOS · best category chart rank · by store YEOmanJOData 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 12 observations). Lower rank is higher; gaps mean it wasn't charted that dayiOS · rating count · Saudi Arabia Data 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 12 observations). Apple doesn't publish download counts; rating growth is a proxy for downloads.
In Oct 7, an indie developer named Adam Dosary listed an Arabic anonymous group-chat app on the App Store under his own brand, Swlef, but packed four other companies' names into the title. A month later it was charting on the Lifestyle charts across 9 Arab countries, with people paying inside it every day. It didn't invent anything new; it rode search traffic spilling over from Saudi Arabia's big "vent to strangers" market. Anyone who wants to follow should understand what to take: the category, not this app.
"Please delete this game"
In Oct 26, a user in the Saudi store gave it one star, with the title "Very very bad, full of profanity and dirty videos" and the body: "Please delete this game, it's all ads, useless." Eleven days ago, another user left a five-star review with just one word: "حلو" (nice). By Nov 6, the only reviews visible on the store page were these two, yet the Saudi store had accumulated 108 ratings with an average of 4.4 (App Store Saudi Arabia, 11-06).
Few reviews, many ratings, and a huge gap between the extremes: that's typical of clone apps like this. Most people come in, chat a bit, tap a rating, and very few write anything.
What it is
Open it and you get country- and topic-based chat rooms where you can post about your day, ask questions, and "سوالف" (Gulf dialect for casual chatting) with strangers. The store description reads: "People from different countries make friends, chat and فضفضة (vent) here."
Money comes from two sources (App Store Saudi in-app purchase list, 11-06):
| Project | Pricing |
|---|---|
| VIP weekly subscription | SAR 59.99 (about $16) |
| VIP monthly subscription | SAR 129.99 |
| Lifetime VIP | SAR 399.99 |
| Point packs 500~10,000 points | SAR 24.99~399.99 |
A $16 weekly subscription counts as expensive. This is the typical social-app monetization: most people chat for free, while a few pay big for VIP rooms and to be seen.
The backend is Firebase's ready-made login, database and cloud functions, and the privacy policy sits on a templated developer site, appstotry.com. The developer has only this one app. Age rating 16+, flagged for "frequent adult/suggestive themes".
The four names in the title
The title is "فضفض سولف سلام هاي تي في شات". Broken down:
- فضفض (FadFed): the lead brand of the Saudi anonymous venting app category, the category leader;
- سولف: Swlef, its own name;
- سلام (Salam Chat), هاي تي في (Hi TV / Hi Chat): two other Arabic chat brands that have been around for 2023 years;
- شات: "chat".
The subtitle "فضفض شات و دردشه مع مجهول" (FadFed chat, chatting with strangers) matches the name of FadFed's Android version word for word.
People in Saudi Arabia who search these terms in the App Store sometimes tap through to it. That's its whole acquisition channel, at least as far as I can see: on X, searches for "swlef" and "فضفض" over the last 60 days turn up only 0 posts, it has no TikTok account or promo videos, and nothing shows up in the Meta ad library. The one confirmed entry point is App Store recommendations: the "You Might Also Like" section on the page of a similar app, "فضفض - تحدث", lists it.
The privacy label says it uses the device ID for third-party ad tracking, which contradicts its own privacy policy, which says "no ads · no tracking." It may have an ad SDK, or it may be running quiet ads and attribution that outsiders can't see (inference).
How big is it really?
Tiny, but growing every day.
| Date | Global rating count | Added that day | Countries charted |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-28 | 89 | — | 7 |
| 10-31 | 100 | 13 | 6 |
| 11-03 | 122 | 10 | 10 |
| 11-06 | 147 | 13 | 9 |
App Store rating, 10-28 to 11-06, with 7 new in the last 57 days. Saudi Arabia accounts for over 70% (106).
The charts look busy: it appears in the Lifestyle category charts of 9 storefronts, including Saudi Arabia, Oman, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain, Qatar, Lebanon, Algeria, and Kuwait. Its best Top Grossing finishes were #22 in Bahrain (10-31), #31 in Oman (10-28), and #54 in Saudi Arabia (11-03). But these are small storefronts and small categories, where a few sales can get you charted. Oman has only 10 ratings, and Qatar only 2. It has never charted on any overall chart.
So "charting everywhere" only tells you people are paying every day. At a 16 USD weekly subscription, a handful of paying users is enough to push it onto Bahrain's category Top Grossing chart, and the revenue won't be large (estimate).
Who is actually making money
The owner of the first word in its title. FadFed (developer Wefaaq) runs anonymous one-on-one random matching. It has an Android app, a web version at fdfd.me, and its own Instagram and TikTok. 11-06 On iOS it has 5,275 ratings, with 7 new in the last 199 days, and ranks #5 on the Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing chart, ahead of only Tinder, Bumble, AlKhattaba (matchmaking), and Wakie.
"Finding a stranger to vent to" is a business in Saudi Arabia that can crack the top five of a category's Top Grossing chart. Behind it is a long line of others:
| Product | Launched | Scale (App Store, 11-06) |
|---|---|---|
| FadFed(Wefaaq) | An older brand, now 2026-04 on iOS | 5,275 ratings, #5 on the Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing chart |
| فضفض – دردشة بخصوصية كاملة | 2025-10 | 1,330 ratings, #15 on the Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing chart |
| فضفض : فضفضه دردشه | 2026-04 | 376 rating |
| فضفض - تحدث، استمع | 2026-06 | 193 ratings, average 2.97 |
| فضفض هاي شات دردشه سريه مجهول | 2026-07 | 72 rating |
| Established stranger-chat apps like Wakie, Soudfa, and Dardashaty | 2014~2015 | Tens of thousands of ratings, ranked #4 / #10 / #55 on the Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing chart |
| Chinese-run voice rooms (Renna, Nana, DD live, woohoo, and others) | 2025~2026 | Ranked #22~#51 on the Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing chart, running promo videos on TikTok |
There's already a whole row of titles starting with "فضفض". Swlef is functionally no different from them. The only difference is the format: group chat rooms rather than one-on-one matching, a format Salam Chat and Hi Chat already offered.
Is anyone copying? A batch showed up in the same month
Several others appeared at the same time, with titles stuffed with the same set of words:
- هاي شات فضفض مجلس فضفضه سلام (Yamen Nawar, 10-05, bundle prefix com.fancyApps, domain apps4you.net)
- فضفضه موزة سلام شات(Mazen Olabi,10-12,Moza)
- زانجي فضفض ماسنجر هاي شات قريب (Wael Halabe, 10-15, com.awsomeApps, domain seethisapp.com)
- Earlier still, Khalid Nasser's com.Idoapps (meetus.now, 7-19)
All of these are individual developer accounts using neutral "apps" domains, with bundle IDs in the "xxxApps" pattern, and privacy policies that are sentence-by-sentence rewrites of each other. At least a few of them are very likely one studio opening accounts in bulk (inference). Swlef's privacy policy is more detailed than theirs. Whether it's the same group is unverified.
If it were you
The short take: don't go after Swlef. What's worth looking at is the category it's riding. If you copy its keyword stuffing, swap the skin, and sell weekly subscriptions, you'll be the sixth one this month and the tenth next month. The ceiling is a hundred-odd ratings and a small-storefront Top Grossing chart, and Apple could pull you at any time for 4.3 (duplicate app) or a trademark complaint.
Who it fits: small teams that read Arabic, especially Gulf dialects, can do content moderation, and are willing to run a community over the long term.
Who it doesn't fit: people who want to stuff keywords through ASO and cash out fast. Others are already running account farms on this path, and you can't match their costs. It's also a bad fit for anyone who can't handle sexual and harassing content. One-star reviews already say "it's all dirty stuff."
How to build it: Do the parts FadFed got wrong, not a copy of it. A few directions: first, a "listener" mode that matches people who want to vent with people willing to listen, with the listener earning points or gifts. Second, voice-based venting. The Chinese-run voice rooms show that Gulf users will pay for voice and gifts, but those apps sell entertainment, not venting. Third, make moderation the selling point. Women and users who don't want harassment will pay for a clean environment.
How to acquire users: Store search is still the first entry point, but bid on category terms (فضفض, دردشة مجهول, سوالف) rather than other brands' names. Then copy FadFed on TikTok with short anonymous venting and confession videos, a format that already draws traffic in Saudi Arabia.
Timing: There's no hard window. This is steady demand, not a passing trend. But every extra month, more apps with "فضفض" in the title appear, and it gets harder to crack the first screen of search results.
What would mean we got it wrong: If FadFed falls out of the top 10 on the Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing chart, demand is shrinking. If the Swlef batch is still around in two or three months and its ratings keep climbing, keyword riding alone can sustain an app, and the opportunity is bigger than this write-up suggests. If they're all pulled together, Apple has started cleaning up, and the keyword-stuffing route is closed for good.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one فضفض صداقات(FadFed,Wefaaq Co) iOS 2026-04-13 (this id; the brand is older, with an Android app and a web version at fdfd.me) 5,275 ratings, +7 in the last 199 days, #5 on the Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing chart The category leader, with anonymous one-on-one random matching, its own social accounts, and multiple platforms. Swlef copied its name and subtitle. فضفض – دردشة بخصوصية كاملة(Abdulrahman Alharbi/d7im) iOS 2025-10-13 1,330 ratings, Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing #15 Rode the فضفض keyword a year earlier and built real scale فضفض : فضفضه دردشه(Meshari Alamri) iOS 2026-04-30 376 rating Same keyword, same category فضفض هاي شات دردشه سريه مجهول(Khalid Nasser) iOS 2026-07-19 72 rating Used the same keyword-stuffing method earlier سلام شات / هاي شات iOS 2023 Has a brand; specific scale unverified Two brands that Swlef borrowed in its title, both of which already had group chat rooms Wakie / Soudfa / Dardashaty / Connected2.me iOS 2014-2015 Tens of thousands of ratings, Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing #4/10/55 Established stranger-chat app with a brand and real scale Chinese-run voice rooms (Renna, Nana, Weta, DD live, woohoo) iOS 2025-2026 Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing #22-51 Voice rooms plus gifts, running promo videos on TikTok - Where users come from
- Confirmed Store search: keyword stuffing in title and subtitle to ride brands: title فضفض سولف سلام هاي تي في شات, subtitle فضفض شات و دردشه مع مجهول, same as FadFed's Android title
- Confirmed Store "You Might Also Like" recommendations: on Apple, "Customers who bought this also bought" for 6778096345 lists Swlef
- Inference Paid ads: not found in metaads or TikHub; the privacy label declares device-ID third-party ad tracking, so it may have an ad SDK
- Inference TikTok/X/media: x-radar and web search return 0 results, and TikHub has no Swlef promo videos
فضفض سولف سلام هاي تي في شات (Swlef) research report
App Store id 6819684196 · Developer Adam Dosary (individual account, this is the only app) · Lifestyle · Free with in-app purchases · bundle app.swlef.ios · first released 2026-10-07 (lookup shows 10-10) · research day 2026-11-06
One line
An anonymous group-chat app in Arabic (brand Swlef, chats by room/country, points + VIP subscription), built on a Firebase template. It has no traffic source of its own. It stuffs its titles and subtitles with the biggest Gulf anonymous-chat keywords (فضفض, which is the category's leading brand FadFed; سولف; سلام شات, i.e. Salam Chat; هاي شات, i.e. Hi Chat; شات), riding category search generated by the leading apps. It then monetizes through an expensive weekly subscription. It's small, and clones using the same playbook are being listed in batches.
1. Data (source: our appstore library app_day / chart_rank, iTunes lookup 2026-11-06)
- Total ratings across all storefronts: 10-28 89 → 11-06 147, +7 in the last 57 days, 2~13 per day (data card). Saudi Arabia is the main market: 59 → 106 (app_day sa), over 70% of all ratings.
- Current rating 4.37 (108 ratings in Saudi Arabia, iTunes lookup sa).
- Charted: Lifestyle category charts in 9 Arab storefronts. Best finishes: Top Grossing #80 in Oman, Top Free #82 in Jordan, Top Free #93 in Yemen, Top Free #95 in Saudi Arabia (app_profile 11-06). Never charted on any overall chart.
- Top Grossing: 10-28 to 11-06 every day on Lifestyle Top Grossing charts in several Gulf storefronts. Best runs: Bahrain #22 (10-31), Oman #31 (10-28), Kuwait #41 (10-28), Saudi Arabia #54 (11-03) (chart_rank). These are low-barrier small storefronts and small categories. They only show that people pay every day, not that the revenue is large.
- Versions: 2.0 (10-11) → 2.1 (11-03) → 2.2 (11-04). The release notes all say "performance improvements / fixed a minor bug," which looks like routine shipping (App Store version history).
- In-app purchases (App Store sa page): weekly subscription SAR 59.99, monthly 129.99, lifetime 399.99; points 500/1000/2000/5000/10000, priced 24.99~399.99 SAR. A 60 SAR weekly subscription (about 16 USD) is expensive, the typical high-priced weekly plus points model for social apps.
- Age rating 16+, flagged for "frequent/intense mature or suggestive themes." The privacy label declares device-ID third-party ad tracking, which contradicts the "no ads · no tracking" in its own privacy policy (appstotry.com/privacy-swlef.html).
- Reviews: 2 visible in the Saudi storefront. 5-star "حلو" (10-15); 1-star "Very bad, all porn content and dirty videos, all ads" (10-25/26).
2. Competitors: this category is already crowded (iTunes search sa "فضفض", library app_profile sa 11-06)
| Product | Platform | Launched | Scale | vs Swlef |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| فضفض صداقات(FadFed,Wefaaq Co) | iOS | 2026-04-13 (this version's id; the brand is older, Play package sa.fadfed.fadfedapp, with a fdfd.me web version) | 5,275 rating, +7 in the last 199 days; #5 on Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing, sitting behind only Tinder/Bumble/AlKhattaba/Wakie in the Lifestyle category | The category leader: random anonymous one-on-one matching, with Instagram/TikTok accounts, a web version and an Android version. Swlef's title's first word and its subtitle 「فضفض شات و دردشه مع مجهول」 are nearly copied verbatim from FadFed's Android version name |
| فضفض – دردشة بخصوصية كاملة(Abdulrahman Alharbi / d7im) | iOS | 2025-10-13 | 1,330 ratings, Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing #15 | A knockoff brand that launched a year earlier and has already reached scale |
| فضفض : فضفضه دردشه(Meshari Alamri) | iOS | 2026-04-30 | 376 rating | The same keyword |
| فضفض - تحدث، استمع (AM Digital, same team as d7im) | iOS | 2026-06-18 | 193 rating, score 2.97 | The same keyword |
| فضفض هاي شات دردشه سريه مجهول(Khalid Nasser) | iOS | 2026-07-19 | 72 rating | The same keyword-stuffing approach, but earlier |
| يلا نفضفض / طفش - شات وسواليف | iOS | 2026-07 | 19–36 rating | A small sibling in the same niche |
| سلام شات (gameiplay), هاي شات (id6451108470) | iOS/Android | 2023 | Already a brand term (third-party APK sites and Softonic index it) | Two brands Swlef piggybacked on in its title |
| Wakie, Connected2.me, Soudfa, Dardashaty: established stranger-chat apps | iOS | 2014~2015 | Tens of thousands of ratings, Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing #4/10/55 | Established, with a brand and scale |
| Chinese-owned voice rooms (Renna, Nana, Weta, YoHo, DD live, woohoo) | iOS | 2025~2026 | Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing 22–51 | Voice rooms + gifts, advertised on TikTok (searching 「تطبيق سولف」 on TikHub turns up promo videos for ddlive0 and woohooliveksa) |
Bottom line: there are dozens of Gulf apps for anonymous chatting and venting. Swlef has no functional difference from the others. It's just the newest entry in a crowd of near-identical apps.
3. Growth tactics: almost entirely store search + riding the traffic of the leading brands
- Title keyword stuffing to piggyback on brands (confirmed): the title 「فضفض سولف سلام هاي تي في شات」 = FadFed + Swlef's own brand name transliterated as سولف + Salam Chat + Hi (TV) + Chat. The subtitle 「فضفض شات و دردشه مع مجهول」 is identical to FadFed's Android title. The recall notes in the data card record that it was earlier called 「سولف فضفض دردشه سريه هاي شات」 (our library starts at 10-28; the name has stayed the same since then; the rename itself is unverified).
- 「Customers also bought」 recommendations (confirmed): a Jina search found that the 「You Might Also Like」 list on Apple for 6778096345 (فضفض - تحدث) includes Swlef, Moza and Gryb, showing it has already entered the store's recommendations for the same niche.
- Paid acquisition (no evidence found): our metaads library (app_link) returns no advertiser match for Swlef or this batch of فضفض clones. TikHub searches for 「فضفض سولف」, 「سولف شات」 and 「تطبيق سولف」 turn up no Swlef promo videos (the results are FadFed's 2023-year-old videos, sawalif_app and other apps). The ad library only tracks products on its list, though, so a miss doesn't mean no spend. The privacy labels list third-party ads and device-ID tracking, so it may use an ad SDK or run attributed campaigns. Unverified.
- X / media (none): x-radar searches for 「swlef」 and 「فضفض」 return 0 posts over the last 60 days. Web searches for 「Swlef app」 also return only unrelated results.
- Its own TikTok/Instagram (none found): FadFed has @fadfed_app, and TikTok has videos tagged @فضفض. Swlef has none.
4. Why it surfaced (it has only "poked its head up")
- The demand is already there, and growing: FadFed is up +199 in rating over the last 7 days and ranks #5 on Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing. That shows 「anonymous venting with strangers」 is a large category in Saudi Arabia with real willingness to pay. Search traffic spilling over from the leading apps is big enough to feed a wave of followers.
- Keyword piggybacking: the title and subtitle pack in the brand terms فضفض, سلام شات and هاي شات together. Some users searching for these terms will tap through (basis: the copied title + the 「also bought」 recommendations, with no other channel evidence).
- Small regional sub-category charts are easy to crack, so it can look like it's charting everywhere: a few sales is enough to reach Top Grossing on the Lifestyle charts in Oman, Bahrain and Qatar. It is charting in 9 stores at once because Arabic-speaking users move between Gulf countries, not because it has real scale in each one (Oman has only 10 ratings, Qatar 2).
- High-priced weekly subscription, so a small number of paying users is enough: a SAR 59.99 weekly subscription plus credits. Just a handful of paying users can push it up the regional Top Grossing chart.
- Near-zero development cost: group chat built on Firebase (Auth + Firestore + Functions), templated privacy pages, an individual developer account, and a routine update every few days. A typical clone-farm product.
5. Differentiation
No real product differentiation. The one thing to point to is the format: Swlef runs 「group chat rooms sorted by country/topic」, while FadFed does 「random one-on-one matching」. But Hi Chat and Salam Chat already had group chat rooms. It gets noticed because of keyword piggybacking and spillover traffic from the category, not because of this difference.
6. How well known it is, and whether anyone has copied it
- How many people know about it: hardly anyone yet. Revenue isn't public, and it doesn't appear on X, in media, or on TikTok. The only people who see it are users searching 「فضفض」 in the Saudi App Store.
- Copycats: there's a batch, and they showed up almost at the same time as it did. In the same month, هاي شات فضفض مجلس فضفضه سلام (Yamen Nawar, 10-05, bundle
com.fancyApps.majlis, domain apps4you.net), فضفضه موزة سلام شات (Mazen Olabi, 10-12,app.moza.chat) and زانجي فضفض ماسنجر هاي شات قريب (Wael Halabe, 10-15,com.awsomeApps.Qareeb, domain seethisapp.com) appeared. A bit earlier, Khalid Nasser'scom.Idoapps.dardishni(meetus.now, 7-19). All of these are individual developer accounts, use neutral 「apps」 domains, and stuff the same set of brand terms into their titles. Their bundle prefixes follow the same 「xxxApps」 pattern, and their privacy pages are nearly boilerplate (the terms on apps4you.net and meetus.now are near-identical paraphrases). Inference: at least fancyApps, awsomeApps and Idoapps look like one studio running an account network. Swlef (appstotry.com, with a more detailed privacy policy than theirs) and Moza may be other teams, or the same people with a different template. Unverified.
7. What others can borrow
- On the Gulf iOS market, stuffing a category keyword, leading brand terms and competitor brand names into the title and subtitle, then adding a templated Firebase chat and a high-priced weekly subscription, can get roughly a hundred ratings in a month and land on a regional Top Grossing chart. The cost is minimal and it can be done in batches, but each one has a very low ceiling.
- The one really worth watching is FadFed (Wefaaq). Anonymous venting / stranger chat is a business that reaches the top 5 of Saudi Lifestyle Top Grossing, and it is the source of the demand. The clones that follow are living on its spillover traffic.
- Risks: piggybacking on brand terms invites removal by Apple under 4.3 (spam / duplicate apps) or trademark complaints. Review doesn't screen out sexual content, and negative reviews will drag down the rating (one 1-star review already says 「all sexual content」).
8. Still unclear
- Actual revenue and conversion rate (only regional sub-category Top Grossing ranks are visible).
- Whether it runs paid acquisition (the ad library doesn't cover it).
- Whether it's run by the same operator as the other clones from the same period.
- The rename history and the 「MWM estimates 5k+ downloads」 mentioned in the recall notes are unverified.
Sources
- iTunes lookup:itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=6819684196&country=sa (2026-11-06)
- App Store page (in-app purchases, privacy labels, version history): apps.apple.com/sa/app/id6819684196
- Privacy policy: appstotry.com/privacy-swlef.html; developer site appstotry.com
- Privacy pages of similar clones: apps4you.net/privacy.html, meetus.now/privacy.html, seethisapp.com/privacy.html, mozachat.com/privacy
- FadFed: fdfd.me/, fadfed.io/, Play sa.fadfed.fadfedapp, Uptodown
- Salam Chat / Hi Chat: apkpure com.gameiplay.salamchatAndroid, appbrain ios-6451108470, decrypt.day id6452840679
- Apple 「You Might Also Like」: apps.apple.com/sg/app/6778096345?see-all=customers-also-boug…
- Our library: appstore (app_day, chart_rank, app_profile, app_name, 2026-10-28–11-06), metaads (app_link, no match), x-radar (no match), TikHub search (no Swlef promo videos)