Matrix is amazing.
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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Matrix and clients for it like Element have always been my go to for federated chat like discord/teams/mattersmost. The main missing feature is voice channels imho.
Which is coming. Eventually. At some point.
Oh hey I remember you from my reddit post :D
Hello! Welcome to greener pastures.
This interaction made my day, love this place
The lack of voice channels is huge for something that looks like it is trying to be a discord alternative. I really can’t believe it still isn’t really implemented.
Honestly though even setting aside the lack of voice channels there is a bigger issue. Getting people to switch to something like matrix. I have so much trouble trying to get my group to switch to ANYTHING new. Tried to get them to switch from iMessage to telegram or signal. They tried it for a day and then went back. Getting them to switch from razer comms to discord was even a removed back in the day. People just don’t like trying new things.
Sorry for the rant I just find this endlessly frustrating. Lol.
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To be fair, Matrix is not exactly trying to be a "discord alternative" so much as an "all messaging platforms alternative", but it's still embarrassing that this feature is not present yet. It's been heavily requested by the discord crowd for years, and should have been a higher priority.
As for friends switching, at least Matrix has bridges and puppeting/double-puppeting support. Unfortunately, I don't think discord voice channel bridging/puppeting will ever work, so it's really not that useful in this instance. I know ripcord has voice channel interop so it is technically possible, but it's probably too hacky/abusive to put in officially, and it would probably only work with puppeting.
Calling other people's work embarrassing is easy when you're not the one building or contributing to the codebase. Implementing voice chat is no easy task, and it's all done voluntarily in people's free time.
it’s all done voluntarily in people’s free time.
Firstly, Matrix has plenty of paid developers that work on it - this is not even close to a passion project made by volunteers in their free time.
Secondly, I'm not saying the work is embarrassing (the work is nothing short of incredible), I'm saying the priority to leave this feature on the backburner for years is. They likely ended up with more important priorities and didn't have enough resources to dedicate, but on a practical level the lack of hotjoin voice channels sticks out like a sore thumb to new users.
I've been championing Matrix for about 4-5 years now, and it's been so long since this feature was requested/promised that it's at the point where I'm too "embarrassed" to try to convince people to switch anymore. People just expect this feature in a messaging platform nowadays, and if it's not there they're going to leave immediately. When this makes it into stable with a good UX, I'll be back on the new user pipeline.
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I hear everyone talk about element but when i go to check it out i see it is minimum 50 users. Am i missing the smaller tier?
Self hosting might make sense on that small of a scale.
Element is kinda janky and crashes all the time for me. And also the UI is very confusing to use.
I hear a lot about Matrix, but the instructions for self hosting seem very complicated. If anyone has a simpler method, or script I’d be happy to use it.
This repo does a great job of simplifying it. The deployment process is completely automated with ansible, has the best documentation you could ask for https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
I am self hosting matrix synapse, it's actually much easier than XMPP with SSL certs generated by Caddy. Ejabberd doesn't play well with them.
EDIT: with docker.
Revolt had us all intrigued, but without federation, it's like a pizza without the cheese.
Enter, Matrix and Element - FOSS, decentralized, and yes, federated.
Element, built on Matrix, provides real-time communication with end-to-end encryption. But voice channels, alas, still our Achilles heel.
Yet, remember, we're the pioneers of this brave new digital world. A federated voice solution may not exist now, but give it time. We've got some amazing and selfless coders chomping at the bit!
Modern IRC combined with a Mumble server works pretty well.
For smaller groups XMPP is also fine, but group calls are not widely implemented yet.
Jitsi-meet also works ok for voice chat.
Matrix is federated and pretty good. It’s not ActivityPub though…
You're looking for Matrix, a federated, encrypted communication protocol used by clients like Element, fluffychat, etc.
I just wish element was in the official Debian repos. It sucks having to add another repo
Matrix is your best bet.
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