Indecisive : rocket.chat or matrix ?
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I can't speak for Element since I use it sparingly. We have been using Rocket.Chat for 3-4 years now and like it. We mostly only use it for text messaging. When we started out, we also used it for Live Chat on the website, though we have removed now. The mobile app can be flaky wrt push notifications but we don't need it.
The jitsi integration inside Rocket.Chat often broke. This led us to using meet.jit.si directly. But during the start of COVID, their hosted version had trouble keeping up (I guess lots of traffic). We switched to a selfhosted Big Blue Button at around that time and have stuck to that since. We still use jitsi for all customer calls.
I think Rocket.Chat is probably not a great fit for personal messaging though you can make it work if the individuals involved are "accomodating". Rocket.Chat targets teams and business and has gazillion features targeting them. For individuals, I think what's most important is the client apps and having them butter smooth and flashy stuff which Rocket.Chat mobile apps are not.
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I think you should look at using Session for instant messaging:
When you first launch it, there are no channels, so the only "social" stuff there will be you and your family. There are some busy channels if you find and subscribe to them, for general interest. Some cool people there.
Since you are interested in IPFS, there is also Berty, which is not yet out of private Beta, but which has just received US$ 1 Million in funding.
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@loudlemur thank you.
I have Session installed but it's still too early in its life for my group of family/friends/contacts to use it.
It's interesting and I hope it develops further, but it is not going to be adopted by my group. -
@robi : I like mattermost on desktop, but I re-checked what was my (emphasis : MY) issue with mobile app.
All their current apps rely on GSF (Google Services Framework?) and I am de-googling.
I checked the F-Droid and Aurora stores for a non-google version, but there are none (except 3 yr old).
They offer a compile yourself option, but this is beyond me, as you need to add in your own push notification.
So that's why they do not have a non-GSF version : they are bought into Google.Not sure how Element gets around that, because I'm sure I get notifications on Andoroid Graphene non-google. But maybe it's not push, just frequent polling. Personally I don't mind about that, even if it is technically inefficient.
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@timconsidine you can run your own gotify.net server.. there's a topic here on it too.
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I've installed both, and used both, but in the end I stuck with Matrix/Element. WHy?
Rocket.Chat needed 2GB + of ram. Matrix and Element needed half of that.
Rocket.Chat felt too much like a forum - rather static, and the sense that "I" was in control made it feel overbearing. I like that Matrix/Element allows me to interact with others on their terms (their profiles, their Matrix servers and how they've set it up), and just felt more dynamic than static.
That said, I think Rocket.Chat would be great as a "help destination" for a business, and in fact that's how I used it initially for two projects. It assured the people that I knew what I was doing simply because it was "my rocket.chat". They only interacted within our specific chat space; they didn't need to see all the various nutcases and interesting people I'm connected to on Matrix/Element.
That's my 2c.
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@timconsidine Don't know if it matters, but iirc mattermost does not have access control in the community edition that we have on Cloudron. As in, all the users are "equal" and any user can archive channels etc. There is no fine grained permissions.
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+1 for Rocket.Chat
It does the job pretty nicely imho.
It's also top of the list here and we can't all be wrong:
https://selfhosted.libhunt.com/categories/1654-communication-systems
I've always found Matrix to be harder to find rooms and to use generally.
And yeah like Girish says Mattermost CE doesn't include any permissions system.
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@jdaviescoates There is a commenting system which is like a Free version of Disqus too, Commento, which Cloudron already supports.
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@timconsidine Just to note: riot is a client for matrix. You can consider them the same. But I assume you actually meant to type "rocket.chat"
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Rocket Chat for business and orgs.
Signal for family & friends that aren't dimwits.
Been through all this research and testing for so long, the rest are all clumsy, buggy and more difficult than necessary IMHO.
Web Design https://www.evergreen.je
Development https://brandlight.org
Life https://marcusquinn.com -
@marcusquinn nice summary !
Yeah, it's probably a kinda FAQ thing almost. Sorry.Main problem : most of my family/friends and business contacts are dimwits. Including those working in IT !
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@timconsidine then they won't figure out the shortcomings of Mattermost for you to have trouble
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Zulip looks like it could be promising for mixed use, but Cloudron App development seems to have hit capacity, so I don't expect to see it here any time soon:
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Mattermost is nice, but has the same feel as Rocket.Chat. I was just checking mine out again and see that the Channels, or rooms, would be a nice way to silo your social circles, and they would be none the wiser that there are other convos going on. That might be nice, but then you'd also have to jump from Channel to channel. You might post a response to something in the wrong channel.
BUT, even though I promoted Matrix/Element, one weakness stands out for me (for M/E), and that is how it handles its security. Now, what follows may be off a bit in details but let me try: You can ask Matrix/Element to encrypt the convos end to end, but it gives several warnings that if you lose the key or other sign-in mode, you lose the convo. Ok, fair enough, I'm certain I won't, but what about your chattees? Also, this higher security means, for me at least, that when I go to sign in by another device, I have to scan QR codes and a few other steps to ensure it is me. In my early days I had already signed out of the main device, and so when trying to sign in on a new one, there was no way for me to authenticate, or prove, that the new device was me because it wanted the original device to approve it. I can't remember why I gave up, but I just re-installed and kept that in mind for next time. So, a mess-up like that could really screw your efforts up. And those with whom you are chatting. I guess NOT turning on encryption is one way to avoid that, but, that option is touted as one of the major benefits of Matrix/Element.
Since we're talking dimwits here, Matrix/Element might not be the best option.
Plus, RC and Mattermost both have plugins you can add, making them rather handy.
