Hi all,

I want to host my own matrix server, so that i can run bridges to all the other (stupid) messaging apps.

I am looking for any advice or experience in choosing which server to run, and if you know of any good tutorials, run throughs, etc. i typically would like a lighter instance, as i expect about 3 users, with 2 of us needing bridging.

  • dendrite
  • synapse
  • conduit
  • construct

and then the addition of bridges, (Signal, WA, Messenger and hopefully SMS).

I am fairly self sufficient when it comes to self hosting, and i run everything on linux, in docker, proxied by Nginx proxy manager. but typically prefer stuff that works more or less out of the box.

Thanks all!

  • @[email protected]English
    2•1 year ago

    Do you need/like matrix so much that you want to self-host it in place of more admin-friendly alternatives? The client/user side of matrix is okayish, but everything else is terrible. The protocol is inefficient by design and that’s not something faster languages will solve so expect your available resources to sink, all implementations suck in different ways, are highly incompatible, constantly changing and have you in a permanent stressful state of chasing the latest/breaking/testing stuff. The team in charge is in denial about a great many things, and lacks the deeply needed amount of focus and reality check to get things done (which I imagine has been a large contributor to more and more “institutional actors” dropping them recently, like France several months ago).

    I could go on and on, but in short, I was at your place some time ago and the mess, disappointment and overall stress I found with matrix only compelled me to give XMPP a close look. Now I (and my users) are super happy with ejabberd and modern clients like Conversation/dino/movim make the while thing a very pleasant experience. Not all features of matrix are there, but I take reliability/predictability and simplicity over them any single day.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      Ultimately, i want something that is able to work outside of its own walls. I dont want 10 messenger apps, and i dont want to limit the messenging app that i host to just us (ie, it would be good if my account can talk to others, by my sons can only talk with us).

      XMPP i have heard nothing but good things about - i will do some reading on it.

      Do you have any links for the french dropping matrix?

      • @[email protected]English
        2•1 year ago

        Ultimately, i want something that is able to work outside of its own walls. I dont want 10 messenger apps, and i dont want to limit the messenging app that i host to just us (ie, it would be good if my account can talk to others, by my sons can only talk with us).

        The funny thing about XMPP is that this is exactly where it started at, when AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo and co. were all the rage in the late 90’s, the geeks became annoyed of needing as many clients as there were protocols, and XMPP was meant to bridge over to all of them. Fast forward, we since learned that bridging to other protocols generally sucks (or isn’t to be recommended to the average folks), and just to make sure, Matrix tried again 15 years later with the same outcome. But if you need it, the capability is still very much there and some still pursue the effort to this day.

        Do you have any links for the french dropping matrix?

        I only have a (private) IRC chatlog which I’m not sure it is ethical to post in the open, so I sent it to you by private message instead. I don’t think it is a secret at this point so there might be other sources out there to corroborate this.