Hey guys, I recently started to play with the thought to deploy a Snikket (XMPP) server on my VPS to play around with it a bit. I already had a Matrix (Continuwuity) server running on an older VPS with Docker at one point. But besides me using some bridges (WhatsApp, Signal etc.) it didn’t see a lot of use. Originally I had set it up with the goal to replace Discord, but so far couldn’t get my small group of gamer friends to switch to something else.
What are your experiences with XMPP (doesn’t have to be Snikket) or Matrix? Would you recommend one over the other maintenance and/or usability wise?
Just curious what the community’s current sentiment is in regards to private self hosted messaging services 😊
Personally I like XMPP over Matrix because
- Matrix clients aren’t great (even element is buggy as piss on my phone and a shitty electron app on linux)
- Matrix is too difficult for “normal” people (I agree they should get good but they don’t and what good is a chat app without recipients).
- Matrix public rooms have a CP problem, and as such I can’t recommend people join it just in case, I don’t need my mom seeing that shit.
- Matrix was started as an Amdocs project before they defunded it and the lead dev went to form The Matrix Foundation. Amdocs is a Mossad affiliated company that infiltrated American telcom companies long ago. Matrix also pisses metadata to any server it federates with, including matrix [.] org, and I have no proof that Mossad is spying on that metadata but I have no trust either, nor proof that they aren’t, so I can’t trust matrix anymore.
Though XMPP also has had it’s own problems for me, so at the moment it’s my fallback and I’m trying out Delta Chat which I have been loving.
Couldn’t agree more with the first two points, especially the second one when it comes to adaptability by my non-techy friends and especially the wife-approval-factor.
I only tried out Delta Chat like two years ago linking it to a secondary Gmail account. Don’t think this really fully utilized it to its full potential. What do you like most so far about Delta Chat?
They no longer recommend using a traditional email account, instead recommending chatmail servers like these (there’s more as well, but they have this small list to choose from in the app or you can bring your own). They say if you have to use traditional email use a dedicated account for delta chat, not one that also gets traditional email.
I like how they are trying to address metadata as much as possible, the onboarding is so easy my literal mother can do it, video/audio calling is in beta and works pretty well (some glitches, but it’s in beta), the webXDC stuff is cool but I don’t really use it yet, and I’m sure I’m forgetting something.
A lot of the people reporting issues with Matrix being slow and resource heavy are reporting issues with Synapse, which is Element’s big Python implementation. My Continuwuity instance, which is a server written in Rust, uses a fraction of a CPU and a total storage in the hundreds of megabytes. A few less features, but it has most of the ones people care about.
Can’t speak for the Synapse hosting, as back when I hosted one myself I directly started with Dendrite (was not really that feature rich) and switched to Continuiwity soon after. And I have to agree, ran like a charm on my VPS and didn’t use a ton of resources. Granted, I was the only user so can’t say how the usage would have increased with more users active.
Do the voice call and video features work with continuwuity?
On desktop? Yes. On Element X? Not yet. Requires additional setup, as it’s not a core part of the homeserver
I ran Matrix for like a year, and pretty much hated every minute. It was fragile, complicated, and incredibly, bafflingly resource intensive. Matrix is an overengineered nightmare in my opinion, and it seems to be quickly distancing itself from self-hosters while pursuing enterprise usage. Neat technology, horrible implementation, misguided company.
XMPP is a breath of fresh air in comparison. Just like we still use email everywhere (even for authentication nowadays, fun!), XMPP is not obsolete simply because it’s older. It’s a solid foundation, plenty extensible, and does almost everything I can imagine needing to do without unnecessary complexity.
Matrix’s bridges are its killer feature, and it’s nice… when it works. But it’s simply not worth the headache of dealing with Matrix, in my opinion.
Incidentally, I just setup my own Snikket server earlier today. Worked like a charm 😌 I haven’t done a whole lot with it yet, but I like its clear admin interface and the concept of circles. I had some issues with video calls (frozen picture) though.
Snikket user here, too. Have used it since maybe 2024 and are very happy. The only downside is the clients even if they are very good (especially Gajim and Conversations), but also video calls.
I got so annoyed with video calls I ended up with installing Jitsi Meet. Works like a charm with no issues with video, voice, rooms, screenshare, or chat.
So whenever I want to have a voice/video call with someone these days, Jitsi Meet is the only way to go for me. If the voice call need to have an extra layer of security, my Snikket server works good.
What’s your end goal?
Simplex is easy to host for direct messaging and I had decent luck with Mattermost as a slack replacement.
Nobody has mentioned mattermost yet. I haven’t stress tested it by any means, but I found it too be decent.
I couldn’t get into matrix, but I was a huge fan of open fire. It’s interface was stupid easy for XMPP administration and for awhile I ran it no issue with my group of friends. granted we ended up just going back to discord not due to any issue with the server or protocol but because it was tedious trying to get people to switch off a platform that works for most people.
Yeah that’s the thing with a lot of these platforms, it’s dead simple for most people to download the app and create the account. You already loose two thirds (if not more) of the people as soon as the sign up process gets a bit more complicated, even more if they have to manage and secure any kind of secret (encryption keys) themselves. Not that it would be so difficult to save this stuff in a password manager, but I guess that’s already where a lot of people still fall short… What a uphill battle that was (still is) with some of my friends and family to get them to use a password manager for a start.
There is also some that you just don’t want to put that type of responsibility onto either. I moved my grandfather to a password manager 5 or 6 years back. I reiterated at least 8 times do not forget this password if you do you will lose all passwords and need to do everything over again.
He lasted 3 or 4 weeks then suddenly called me saying he couldn’t remember his password period. Like he tried for a good 40 minutes to guess what he may have done and was in a pretty intense panic because he didn’t want to have to change every service he had.
Thankfully it had not been long enough for his file history backup to have deleted the file, so i just restored the last backup of his passwords.docx file and put it back where he was used to it. He lost those few weeks of new passwords but that was a lot better than losing every password.
I’m not about to try and have him use a password manager again, he has decent enough password management skills since he doesn’t reuse passwords period, but like, it was far too risky putting him on a password manager again.
By desktop do you mean the jitsi call widget thing? Instead of the native call support that I believe element x uses?
I am considering using ???.
Will get to it someday.Only heard great things about it
