I’m looking into hosting one of these for the first time. From my limited research, XMPP seems to win in every way, which makes me think I must be missing something. Matrix is almost always mentioned as the de-facto standard, but I rarely saw arguments why it is better than XMPP?

Xmpp seems way easier to host, requiring less resources, has many more options for clients, and is simpler and thus easier to manage and reason about when something goes wrong.

So what’s the deal?

  • onlinepersona@programming.devEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Matrix clients are simple, easy, and nice to look at. The matrix server might need more resources, but it comes with everything out of the box. There’s no need to fiddle with extensions and their weird naming, and hope that the other server/client also supports the extension. Also, are there bridges to other protocols?

    I remember trying to get encryption working on Pidgin and it was all around a bad experience.

    XMPP might be as powerful or more powerful than matrix, but nothing about it screams modern. It’s like IRC for Gen X’ers.

    Anti Commercial-AI license

    • poVoq@slrpnk.netEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      You are basing your experience on Pidgin, which is the worst possible choice for an XMPP client that hasn’t been updated in over a decade. Other XMPP clients are relatively modern looking and easy to use, including encryption (probably easier than Matrix for most users).