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Do you prefer XMPP or Matrix powered apps as a discord alternative?
(lemmy.fedioasis.cc)
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this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2026
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Privacy
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When me and my mates set this up, Signal was only available on phones, not desktops. It also required providing a phone number to a central authority, which some of us were not comfortable doing. With XMPP we got the choice of a large number of clients to pick from. Both the server and the clients were lightweight.
I just had a search maybe you can self host a Signal server, but I did not know that at the time. I wanted to self-host. So that was a reason too, but maybe (?) a false reason. The Signal self hosting situation may be murky. My brief search found some claims that the official app does not support using other servers, and you need a customized app to do it. It might be more self host-able in theory than in practice. XMPP had multiple servers to pick from, and lots of clients.
All those things could balance more toward Signal if your priorities are different, tho.
Yeah the self-hosting thing is new, its really clunky and they dont encourage you not to use it. I think (?) they may have even discontinued it.
Its odd to me that Signal is supposedly the gold standard yet it breaks all these privacy 101 rules. Such as requiring you hand over your phone number to a central authority, not really allowing you to self host, and not posting an official app on fdroid. I’ve heard that portions of its official repo are not even open source (though I haven't verified this for myself). XMPP sounds like the better choice to be honest.