9 ms·

I always liked XMPP and SIP as messaging protocols. So easy to read and understand and implement. Both are extensible and can be made secure.

rootnod3 8mo ago
Yes. Unfortunately it seems that Matrix is the winner, but I think Matrix is over-engineered. XMPP was nice. Especially in the old times when Google Hangouts and Facebook Chat were also XMPP based. Being able to talk to people on another service without needing an account there was a nice thing to have for a few months.
- ge0rg 8mo ago
  The interop was a nice feature implemented by their engineers, but it violated the lock-in operational principles of the gatekeeper services, so it had to be abandoned. Let's see if the EU Digital Markets Act will bring back XMPP interfaces to the big ones... ;)
- tcfhgj 8mo ago
  So far it looks more like walled gardens are the real winners. What you maybe see as overengineering, I see as a prerequisite for wider adoption. These days aren't the old days any more, when you only ever used a native app without e2ee on a computer.
- syhol 8mo ago
  My main problem with matrix is that it feels sluggish. I'm told the experience can be improved by running your own homeserver so I'll be trying that sometime this year.
  - jszymborski 8mo ago
    In my limited experience, running a homeserver sucked. Really hard to do on limited resources. Then again, that was a long time ago so maybe things have improved and perhaps Dendrite has come along. But Synapse sucked to run IME.
    - Arathorn 8mo ago
      Synapse has improved; Dendrite has stagnated due to lack of funding; meanwhile there are also rust-native homeservers like Conduit which are beta but smaller footprint. The plan on the Element side is to keep optimising Synapse - the main win to be had is https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pKtLl4vCV3-8xz8crvxWL1GLAZtpeQovGBpakqAiugI https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pKtLl4vCV3-8xz8crvxW...
      - jszymborski 8mo ago
        Those slides were interesting! And I use Claude similarly... kinda like Rubber Duck debugging except it's like Rubber Human debugging.
  - ekjhgkejhgk 8mo ago
    LOL if using a chat app requires running a server maybe better just use something that doesn't suck like XMPP?
    - nosrepa 8mo ago
      I am vaguely reminded of running my own irc bouncer...
- Lammy 8mo ago
  Pardon my pedantry, but Facebook Chat was never XMPP-based. They ran an XMPP gateway into their proprietary messaging system, but there was no S2S.
- RadiozRadioz 8mo ago
  What are the reasons Matrix is the winner? Are they inherent to the protocol itself or something else?
  - rootnod3 8mo ago
    Just by what people seem to use.
  - Arathorn 8mo ago
    Matrix has a pretty comprehensive featureset with clients across a broad range of platforms. The accusations of it being overengineered come typically due to the Synapse server implementation being slow. This is basically an artefact of Matrix being quite complicated to provide a byzantine fault tolerant decentralised equivalent to WhatsApp or Slack etc - and time has gone into fixing stability and usability rather than performance. Meanwhile performance is getting better, but progress is slow due to tragedy-of-the-commons related funding challenges. We will get there in the end, though.
    - RadiozRadioz 8mo ago
      Thanks for the response Matthew! But please go to sleep! Yes it's unfortunate how much Synapse's unperformant implementation has decreased general confidence in the protocol itself. I'm confident it will get better
  - leetnewb 8mo ago
    Funding and centralization. Matrix has a for-profit, venture funded company (Element) that is effectively behind the reference/flagship server and client implementations. xmpp is far less centralized. Virtually all of the modern clients are single developer projects that live off day jobs and grants. There are different ways to look at it. Matrix has done a great job at organizing resources to push the platform forward. xmpp has an impressive ecosystem and some incredible client implementations on a shoe string budget, that would probably look/function better and have lots more features given funding parity. I think as we've seen with other projects like Immich, organizing and recruiting resources is an important part of delivering the modern experiences that users expect today from open source projects. Open source and self-hostable can't be an excuse for missing features.

rootnod3 8mo ago

Yes. Unfortunately it seems that Matrix is the winner, but I think Matrix is over-engineered. XMPP was nice. Especially in the old times when Google Hangouts and Facebook Chat were also XMPP based. Being able to talk to people on another service without needing an account there was a nice thing to have for a few months.

ge0rg 8mo ago
The interop was a nice feature implemented by their engineers, but it violated the lock-in operational principles of the gatekeeper services, so it had to be abandoned. Let's see if the EU Digital Markets Act will bring back XMPP interfaces to the big ones... ;)
tcfhgj 8mo ago
So far it looks more like walled gardens are the real winners. What you maybe see as overengineering, I see as a prerequisite for wider adoption. These days aren't the old days any more, when you only ever used a native app without e2ee on a computer.
syhol 8mo ago
My main problem with matrix is that it feels sluggish. I'm told the experience can be improved by running your own homeserver so I'll be trying that sometime this year.
- jszymborski 8mo ago
  In my limited experience, running a homeserver sucked. Really hard to do on limited resources. Then again, that was a long time ago so maybe things have improved and perhaps Dendrite has come along. But Synapse sucked to run IME.
  - Arathorn 8mo ago
    Synapse has improved; Dendrite has stagnated due to lack of funding; meanwhile there are also rust-native homeservers like Conduit which are beta but smaller footprint. The plan on the Element side is to keep optimising Synapse - the main win to be had is https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pKtLl4vCV3-8xz8crvxWL1GLAZtpeQovGBpakqAiugI https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pKtLl4vCV3-8xz8crvxW...
    - jszymborski 8mo ago
      Those slides were interesting! And I use Claude similarly... kinda like Rubber Duck debugging except it's like Rubber Human debugging.
- ekjhgkejhgk 8mo ago
  LOL if using a chat app requires running a server maybe better just use something that doesn't suck like XMPP?
  - nosrepa 8mo ago
    I am vaguely reminded of running my own irc bouncer...
Lammy 8mo ago
Pardon my pedantry, but Facebook Chat was never XMPP-based. They ran an XMPP gateway into their proprietary messaging system, but there was no S2S.
RadiozRadioz 8mo ago
What are the reasons Matrix is the winner? Are they inherent to the protocol itself or something else?
- rootnod3 8mo ago
  Just by what people seem to use.
- Arathorn 8mo ago
  Matrix has a pretty comprehensive featureset with clients across a broad range of platforms. The accusations of it being overengineered come typically due to the Synapse server implementation being slow. This is basically an artefact of Matrix being quite complicated to provide a byzantine fault tolerant decentralised equivalent to WhatsApp or Slack etc - and time has gone into fixing stability and usability rather than performance. Meanwhile performance is getting better, but progress is slow due to tragedy-of-the-commons related funding challenges. We will get there in the end, though.
  - RadiozRadioz 8mo ago
    Thanks for the response Matthew! But please go to sleep! Yes it's unfortunate how much Synapse's unperformant implementation has decreased general confidence in the protocol itself. I'm confident it will get better
- leetnewb 8mo ago
  Funding and centralization. Matrix has a for-profit, venture funded company (Element) that is effectively behind the reference/flagship server and client implementations. xmpp is far less centralized. Virtually all of the modern clients are single developer projects that live off day jobs and grants. There are different ways to look at it. Matrix has done a great job at organizing resources to push the platform forward. xmpp has an impressive ecosystem and some incredible client implementations on a shoe string budget, that would probably look/function better and have lots more features given funding parity. I think as we've seen with other projects like Immich, organizing and recruiting resources is an important part of delivering the modern experiences that users expect today from open source projects. Open source and self-hostable can't be an excuse for missing features.