Question: What do people in this community recommend for self-hosted instant messanger projects? I host a VOIP service for my nerd herd and due to recent events i’m attempting to migrate out groups chats off of the major platforms (Discord, Google chats, Slack, Etc.) as well.
There are a few notes that were requested/requirements.
- Self-hosted
- Supports images
- Has a decent mobile app
- Encrypted communication
- Expected load ~25 users.
I am doing my own digging but wanted to hear the communites opinions on some of the projects that came up in searches.
- IRC/XMPP - dosent really work for the request but is a classic, so I feel had to mention it.
- Rocket.Chat - seems like the best option so far, but I was having trouble finding current reviews, and its licensing is a bit much.
- Matrix also is close to checking all the boxes, but it wasnt clear how it works on mobile (Element seemed like the mobile app that was recommended).
- Revolt was high on the SEO results but most of the discussion around it was about drama with the maintainers (that is what prompted this post, i’m fishing for more current opinions).
- Zulip seemed similar to Rocket.Chat, but more expensive if we had to get a license.
I appreciate peoples opinions and recomendations on this topic.
You must log in or # to comment.
You say XMPP doesn’t work for the request, why not?
My last expirence with XMPP is very dated, my old groups in EvE online used it and it was perfect for its role as a sort of internet pager to summon the horde of nerds. Im aware there are many new related projects, discounting it seems a bit premature now, if you have any recomendations I would love to read their docs.
My concern is that I would have to pitch what ever project we landed on to a semi-technical group of gamers with a handful of admins to run things. (Trying to avoid a platform that gen-z would complain about, and they already roll their eyes at me when I mention spaceships and spreadsheets).
Look into mattermost. Quite powerful, and free.
It is BUT you are limited to their test servers for mobile notifications and they honestly suck. It’s a coin flip whether you get them. And if you want better you have to set up your own container system like them with firebase and Apple Dev ids.
I like it still but for a Greenfield project I’d probably try matrix 2.0 on synapse with element x as the mobile app.
SimpleX is pretty good for person to person chat I’ve heard it doesn’t handle large groups very well though.
Mattermost is an easily hostable slack-like option.
You could look into prose. The interface of slack/discord/mattermost, built on XMPP, with E2EE.
Is that the same as prosody.im ?
That’s the one I’ve been looking at. It seems to be easy, but I haven’t had time to look into it fully.
It’s more comparable to Snikket. Both Snikket and Prose use Prosody as server with their own extensions.
Matrix works great. Element X is my favourite client.
+1 for matrix. Also check out schlidichat which is a nice client for matrix forked from Element
Its very fun getting a turtle notification too.
This… This is half of it haha
I host Rocket.Chat for my wife’s business. The free self-hosted version now allows up to 50 users before having to purchase a license (was 25 prior to the version 7 update). If you kick a user you simply deactivate their account and regain the user slot. Rather than deleting a user completely which would additionally delete any messages they’ve posted.
Easy to host, easy to upgrade. Mobile apps both IOS and Android work well.
I wanted to use Zulip as I felt the interface was cleaner. But the 10 user limit was a deal breaker.
It’s probably more than you are looking for but if you are already looking at self hosting things connected with NextCloud, use NextCloud Talk. We use it for the family and it is great.
deleted by creator
I’m not sure if matrix will ever be able to overcome this hurdle
I would recommend Matrix, tried all others, too. A bonus idea you could take a look at: https://github.com/balzack/databag
We host a small Matrix-server. The server is for 4 people but barely uses the 2 cores 4GB RAM.
Storage is mostly media, but stayed under 100GB in about 3 years.
We also host a web frontend and use Schildichat as app, but Element X could be better nowadays. Both also have a desktop client.
A big plus are all the bridges. My girlfriend uses WhatsApp, no problemo, there is a bridge for that. That one club only has a signal group? Use the bridge.
One of us uses Fb-Messenger via a bridge. Telegram also works and there are lots more.The server is also low maintenance. It’s an ansible playbook, that I irregularly run.
It takes around an hour twice a year due to changes in the playbook.Also matrix is feature rich beyond your requests. I don’t know much about the others, but matrix had emoji-reactions before WhatsApp and has threads inside of chatrooms and spaces which are collections of chats for common topics.
Also polls, sharing current/live location (not bridged to WA), voice messages and stickers.All that bridge stuff has me interested. I’d just like to put all of my chats in one place. Matrix seems like the solution for that. Just bridge everything lol.
Just be aware that many times the service you are bridging doesnt like that you are. As an example, I was bridging solely for Facebook marketplace messages and they constantly were locking my account.
WinPopup
