Given the #Discord situation, let me point out that many flaws of #Matrix have been improved over the past 2-3 years:
* "Unable to decrypt message" is no longer a thing
* Load times are MUCH faster
* Harmful content is caught server-side
* Spaces (grouping channels) are now supported on many clients including Element X
Asterisks apply so it's by no means perfect yet. But if you were disappointed last time you tried it, maybe worth giving it another shot!
There's also more traction going with big open-source communities (KDE, Fedora, Redox, …) running Matrix spaces for communication nowadays.
Of course that doesn't help much if your favorite community is on Discord, but at least Matrix-land does have cool places of its own!
To preempt the inevitable "well actually" comments, yes here's what's still wrong:
* UTD can technically still happen in esoteric configurations (usually layer 8 problems)
* Moderation tooling for enforcing community rules is still lacking
* Element UX is okay but not great
* I'm told push notifications are still flakey for some people
@neobrain
- Administration tools still lackluster as well afaik
- Audio and Voice channels not where they need to be, if they even exist at all
- No desktop client for Element X, old Element client a total UI/UX mess
- The federation is excruciatingly slow
- Pictures occasionally not being send
- Verification not working repeatedly
- Sessions get unverified occasionally
- Did they fix all the metadata leaking?
- No communities, just confusing spaces
Matrix simply isn't a Discord alternative.
@Natanox Thanks for the perspective!
Not every person or community need an "alternative" with strict feature parity. Personally I'm happy to do audio calls on other platforms (though I *have* also seen Matrix<->Jitsi integration, dunno if it's good).
AFAIU, the Element X speedups have been gradually merged into Web/Desktop apps instead of replacing them entirely.
Dunno about federation being slow; does this matter to reasonably sized home servers or only to single-person ones?
(1/?)
@neobrain FYI I'd take @Natanox's anti-Matrix carping with a grain of salt. They seem to have had an almost uniquely bad personal experience with Matrix, and seem determined to treat that as *the* universal experience. In contrast, many of us who have used *many* Free Code chat systems have had good experiences with Matrix, and note distinct improvements in UX as the Matrix 2.0 features are gradually stabilised and rolled out across the network.
@neobrain (2/2)
@neobrain
> happy to do audio calls on other platforms (though I *have* also seen Matrix<->Jitsi integration
Jitsi widget has worked fine for me since Element was still Riot. But Element has used native Matrix signalling for 1:1 voice/ video for a few years now, based on the MatrixRTC spec;
https://cfp.2025.matrix.org/matrix-conf-2025/talk/UQVVRV/
MatrixRTC powers call.element.io, and is being integrated into BigBlueButton;
https://blog.element.dev/partnership-with-bigbluebutton-for-matrix-based-virtual-classrooms/
Plan is to use it for all Matrix voice/video group calls too
