I will be upfront with this, and say that I’ve never been a huge fan. But I did reinstall a Matrix server, and some clients to see if it’d gotten better in the year or so since I’ve last used it.
This just… Kind of feels like a more centralized XMPP with group chat folders that sort of function? The spaces feature is neat, but I’ve tried 4-5 clients, and every single one of those throws all of them into the same screen as the DMs by default, and I can’t find a way to change that.
Am I missing something here? Like. I want to at least see what people like here, I just can’t.


Matrix is adequate, IMO. Some people have a really low tolerance for software that isn’t very polished. I, personally, don’t care much how polished an app is, but have known a person that cared so much they left a group over how much they disliked the UX of Element/Matrix. I’m fine with TUIs, old GTK UIs, Java Swing UIs, as long as it works, lol.
I’m fine with a lot, but there comes a point where it just feels… Less good than what I’m already using, and I don’t see why switching is worth it, which is where I was with XMPP and Matrix. Cinny seems promising, though
Yeah, it is probably worse in terms of UX. I’ve been intentionally using “worse” software, developed mostly by volunteers, that’s free (gratis and libre), and doesn’t spy on its users for a long time now though. For instance, FreeCAD and GIMP is pretty bad on the UX side, and FreeCAD is even pretty buggy; but I don’t feel like I’m being exploited by using them. Cinny does look nice.