I’m not sure if this is the right place but me and my friend group have lately become privacy conscious and wanted to stop using discord and other types of social media, and only log onto self hosted options that only we can access.
we’ve eliminated something like Revolt (now named Stoat due to it missing ideal features and the developers being anti-decentralized (as well as being extremely hostile to the userbase noticably…)
Does anyone have any idea what would be an ideal service to use?
You could use Matrix but it is very finicky and complicated.
You could use XMPP but they don’t have any nice clients.
You could use Zulip but it’s confusing as fuck to navigate.
You could use Mattermost but it’s tied to a corporation that seems intent on removing features from the open source version to convince you to buy a license.
You could use Quiet (not self-hosted but p2p) but it’s very new and very Alpha.
You can use NextCloud Talk but that’s probably more than you need, and it seems to be very difficult to maintain for many.
I won’t engage in any arguments, these are just my opinions, and options for OP.
You could use XMPP but they don’t have any nice clients
[citation needed]
There’s at least three good clients for Desktop (multiplatform) and two for Android.
Plus, XMPP is the best thing to run service-wise. Relatively cheap, runs on a potato, not a nu-protocol that requires a server cluster and friggin’ npm.
conversations, dino for xmpp
I appreciate your take. Thanks for the contribution!
I wish Rocket Chat got more attention
I bailed on rocketchat a few years ago for Mattermost and never looked back. Rocketchats update cycle was insane, sometimes two releases in a week but often several a month. A few pdates required full database dumps and manual tweaking. It just wasn’t for me.
I have run it for years, and I wish they weren’t so limiting and heavy-handed in trying to force people into a paid subscription.
I’ve had a little snikket (prosody docker, xmpp) sever running for a year. monacles or cheogram are just fine, playing games with the fam in the chats is really cool.
dino or gajim on desktop.
calls work well, but android doesn’t treat it as an actual phone call (home assistant automations based on phone state won’t work)
and I’ve just now gotten direct messaging tied into home assistant, so i can use it for general notifications. it’d be awesome to get encryption though.
omemo is a bit of a pain, but they’ve all caught on.
but yeah i mean, very little hassle
Irc with convos or the lounge as a web interface.
And yes, that’s what I am running.
You could use matrix and host your own instance.
we’ve thought about this but the documentation isn’t user friendly for self hosting. we’re generally worried about undesirable people finding it which would not be good.
Continuwuity.org has reasonable documentation, and you can (and should) disable signups or require a token to sign up.
you can make your instance invite only
Not quite sure what kind of privacy you need, but matrix is reasonably easy to self host, and allows you to federate if you want.
Also has plenty of clients.
If you want low tech, hosting IRC is easy too.
IRC, though you’ll want to use it over TLS.
XMPP, which someone else listed, is also good if you want a more instant-message-like interface.
simplex ?
Yunohost comes with a builtin xmpp chat server.
Is essentially a self hosted slack.
Maybe https://jami.net/ ?
This one is very interesting!
due to it missing ideal features
what features do you want? kindly elaborate
XMPP with Snikket could be an easy solution. If you don’t want to talk to the wider web make sure to disable federation.
What is “ideal” for you? I use xmpp but some people want stickers and shit and use Matrix instead, it’s much more heavy weight but also has these extra features. There’s also rocket.chat that has all the extra stuff but is not built for federation.
Matrix would probably be one of the better options, but xmpp is a pretty good choice as well.
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