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Signal
Yeah, for chat I've tried a few systems but honestly I already had signal, they understand that signal chats aren't texting, the privacy is important to me, and most of all... why rock the boat?
It's not self-hosted yeah yeah but not everything needs to be. Password management, todo lists, calendar and contacts, grocery lists... sure yeah. But nothing for chat really struck me. And I don't want to teach everyone how it works just to test a 'maybe' alternative.
I use a self hosted XMPP stack with ejabberd as server and conversations.im for mobile apps. I have audio and video calls and tons of features built into xmpp. There is a huge selection of apps for all platforms.
XMPP is a battle tested protocol that all major messaging apps use underneath.
I used Matrix a few years ago for a full year. I dropped it and never came back. It is a bloated solution to a problem that was already solved by xmpp.
I programmed a bot that is shared with a private room that provides commands such as archiving websites with archiveit or yt videos with TubeArchivist
I am planning however to migrate from Ejabberd to Prosody as I would like to easilly hack on the source code or extensions and Ejabberd is Erlang with a very rigid stack.
Doesn't xmpp require a constant connection?
I think they have push notifications in XMPP these days. At least Prosody has modules like mod_unified_push and mod_cloud_notify and that seems to be supported for example by Conversations.im
To be honest, I didn't have lots of battery drain, back when I used XMPP. And other old-school protocols like e-mail and sip voip don't seem to be very bad either with whatever mechanisms they use. Or my phone isn't reporting battery drain correctly.... And with Matrix I also had to set up push notifications manually, or it'd just receive messages with a random delay per default.
IMAP has push before push. It's called IMAP IDLE. Came out in 1997.
Not at all, message archive management and Push Notifications are some of the core XMPP extensions that almost any XMPP app supports.
Let me tell you an other huge advantage of XMPP for those who care about privacy: it's called Omemo, which is essentially the same protocol used by signal. Given the current push by govs to undermine encryption and private messaging providers, it is probably a good idea to look into self hosting anything remotely related to privacy. Even if they manage to (and they will) to pass their spyware everywhere, if more people self-host it would be much more costly for them and we would see many more secure protocols popup.
I never really understood why people here push XMPP so hard. It is fragmented as a protocol and lacks mainstream apps and servers.
I think something like Nextcloud Talk or Simplex Chat would be much better
Because it's an open and decentralized protocol in the same vein as email. It is the most likely to survive in the longterm as it's not tied to a single entity.
Fragmentation is inevitable in a decentralized protocol. Look at email or http servers, there is no standard mainstream app but a standard extensible protocol, that's how the internet was originally designed to grow. Now that corporations are pushing their own protocols, they have an incentive to lock users in their ecosystem.
How many people know the ends and outs of the https protocol?
I think that is generally pretty bad for a messaging app
Matrix is a well-known self-hosted messenger. I use it for years now.
Family is happy with Matrix (Synapse) and Element as clients. Have members with iOS and Android, smooth experience for all users. But, to be fair, I do have easy users: they basically just send texts, emojis and an occasional picture.
I did not like the admin side of things too much so far, but I recently migrated to a Docker setup, which seems easier to maintain.
Matrix, with the Element app on phones.
Matrix. I could do without the DIscord-like space/rooms bullshit, but I've learned to ignore it. At least we're not on Skype anymore. Adding users is a commandline thing, but that happens seldom enough that it's not a big deal, though that means I have to find the documentation every time. I've worked in some of the bridges for people that aren't on Matrix directly and that seems to do the job.
You could just create a Ansible playbook to do it
@a @selfhosted @selfhostedchat Prosody (xmpp). The kids use Dino on their linux laptops, and Conversations on their android phones. The biggest problem we have is that the kids want to invite non-family members into the family chat, and I'm just not set up for that.
@Andres4NY @selfhosted @selfhostedchat any ios client recommendation?
Snikket seems to be the "best" XMPP client for iOS. It's worked well for me, and I found from a recommendation by my XMPP host.
i spun up a snikket instance, with a domain and caddy, all that jazz.
the chat is really just about perfect.
we use the conversations xmpp app, and the only issue is that our phones don't really see that app as a respectable calling app. the phones let other sounds play over the call, like GPS voices, or if a regular call comes in while we're on a call, it hijacks the audio system until we decline or answer.
Otherwise it's been pretty sweet!
Nextcloud chat, Matrix or Simplex Chat
What are their complaints about Mattermost? That might help.
@breakingcups @selfhosted honestly? That is not WhatsApp so I’m trying to find some way to appeal to them
If selfhosting the family chat is not a goal in itself and it's about privacy or being independent from big tech, just take the loss and go to Signal. Much smoother experience than any self-hosted messenger can provide for now.
Many governments want to decrypt chats. You better learn how to selfhost.
Tried and cannot prise them from facebook messenger....
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2025
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