this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024
71 points (93.8% liked)

Selfhosted

40173 readers
680 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
ruud@lemmy.world
Loki@lemmy.world
CannaVet@lemmy.world
HybridSarcasm@lemmy.world
devve@lemmy.world
HybridSarcasm@lemmy.hybridsarcasm.xyz
71
Question: self-hosted instant messanger. (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Bahnd@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
47 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Question: What do people in this community recommend for self-hosted instant messanger projects? I host a VOIP service for my nerd herd and due to recent events i'm attempting to migrate out groups chats off of the major platforms (Discord, Google chats, Slack, Etc.) as well.

There are a few notes that were requested/requirements.

  • Self-hosted
  • Supports images
  • Has a decent mobile app
  • Encrypted communication
  • Expected load ~25 users.

I am doing my own digging but wanted to hear the communites opinions on some of the projects that came up in searches.

  • IRC/XMPP - dosent really work for the request but is a classic, so I feel had to mention it.
  • Rocket.Chat - seems like the best option so far, but I was having trouble finding current reviews, and its licensing is a bit much.
  • Matrix also is close to checking all the boxes, but it wasnt clear how it works on mobile (Element seemed like the mobile app that was recommended).
  • Revolt was high on the SEO results but most of the discussion around it was about drama with the maintainers (that is what prompted this post, i'm fishing for more current opinions).
  • Zulip seemed similar to Rocket.Chat, but more expensive if we had to get a license.

I appreciate peoples opinions and recomendations on this topic.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Black616Angel@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 6 days ago (3 children)

We host a small Matrix-server. The server is for 4 people but barely uses the 2 cores 4GB RAM.

Storage is mostly media, but stayed under 100GB in about 3 years.

We also host a web frontend and use Schildichat as app, but Element X could be better nowadays. Both also have a desktop client.

A big plus are all the bridges. My girlfriend uses WhatsApp, no problemo, there is a bridge for that. That one club only has a signal group? Use the bridge.
One of us uses Fb-Messenger via a bridge. Telegram also works and there are lots more.

The server is also low maintenance. It's an ansible playbook, that I irregularly run.
It takes around an hour twice a year due to changes in the playbook.

Also matrix is feature rich beyond your requests. I don't know much about the others, but matrix had emoji-reactions before WhatsApp and has threads inside of chatrooms and spaces which are collections of chats for common topics.
Also polls, sharing current/live location (not bridged to WA), voice messages and stickers.

[–] sk@hub.utsukta.org 1 points 6 days ago

@Black616Angel Also for storage, you can define message retention (1 year or similar) so your storage would also not balloon over time. In my opinion chat is ephemeral in nature.

load more comments (2 replies)