Some years ago, I hosted my own matrix server for a few months. I’m an experienced self-hoster, but I remeber that Matrix was paticularly hard to host, requiring weird proxy rules, DNS adjustments, federation never worked reliably and push notifications never worked at all. I ditched the project soon because I also had no real use for it. However, I recently had some ideas where a Matrix server would be useful again. Has anyone attempted to install it recently and can tell me whether the situation has improved? Also, which server do you recommend? There still is synapse but I found it paticularly complicated to host. Dendrite is now archived and the current fork seems to be tuwunel which doesn’t seem to be under very active development.
Damn. That sucks. (Edit: Referring to the comments saying Matrix is dead and dying.)
I get that IRC and XMPP are more stable and built around federation from the ground up, but… they’re not Discord replacements.
That was IMHO, the point of Matrix/Element.
Tell me if I’m wrong, but a significant part of a network’s resilience is the number of nodes and users.
Without a glowup or some kind of repackaging, IRC/XMPP are doomed to stay niche.
Xmpp supports group chat, 1:1 messaging, you’ve got webtrc support for voice/video, and its extensible.
Jingle even has screen sharing (and I think a WIP remote control function).
What is missing from xmpp?
Technically, nothing.
In practice, who do you know that’s using it and doesn’t run Arch, by the way?
My point isn’t that IRC/XMPP aren’t technically capable.
It’s that they’re not designed for non-technical users.
I want corporate social media to die. Mastodon and Piefed are far from killing the beast, but they’ve made the more progress than most projects have seen in a long time.
I want corporate messaging to die. Matrix is far from killing the beast, but for a little while, at least it was trying.
Well I mostly run Debian, but I do have arch on a machine so maybe I don’t count.
Have to agree there, it takes some effort if you’re setting it up for friends and family.
Quicksy and Prav apps allow you to easily signup via SMS verification like WhatApp etc. Super easy and the app works like Whatsapp, completely usable for non technical users (much more so than any Matrix client).
And Snikket is an super easy all in one solution for running a XMPP based small group server with invite based onboarding. Also completely non-technical user compatible.
threads and spaces as far as I am aware
I had the same experience as OP when I tried Matrix a few years ago. No hate on it but it was not easy and I gave up because I already had a simple IRC setup that’s working for me and my friends.
Some IRC clients are now web based and it’s been enough to keep a few of my friends there instead of Discord. We use The Lounge. It can keep a history, display images, videos, play mp3s, and show previews of most URLs. Like, we can simply copy/paste images into a channel and they are uploaded on the server and displayed in the chat. There’s also push notifications and it’s mobile friendly.
Convos also does something like this. Apparently it can also do video chat but I’ve never got it to work.
I’ve recently been thinking about giving Matrix another try but I’m pretty sure my friends are going to stay on “modern” IRC anyway.
Well Discord started as a replacement for IRC and TeamSpeak/Mumble, then began to add more and more things and got used as a forum replacement and everything went down the hill. Why not going back to the roots? We had fucking IRC scripts for matchmaking in Q3CTF.
I wouldn’t mind going back to IRC roots if it could be made more user friendly and integrate voice and video chat.
Good UX/UI goes a long way to make it so non-technical people can join and strengthen the network.