this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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matrix isn't a fediverse thing, it's its own thing. it does happen to be decentralized, like the fediverse.
matrix isn't an alternative to discord. it's an alternative to whatsapp/signal/telegram/etc.
matrix is nice (I use it with my friend group), but it's not perfect. we're looking for something better.
if you're looking for a decentralized, self-hosted, open-source, secure alternative for discord, my friends and I use Mumble. It works great for VoIP (and its noise cancellation software actually seems to work noticeably better than Discord's), but it doesn't really have the advanced text chat features that Discord does. We make do with Matrix.
Yes and no.
Matrix is a communication standard. More like SMTP, RSS or XMPP than those things. I don't know why Matrix specifically has this problem because you'll never see anyone say "I've joined ActivityPub".
Element is by far and away the most popular Matrix client (similar to how Mastodon is the most popular ActivityPub software) and it has "Spaces", which functions similar to Discord "servers" (not actually servers). Better in some ways but mostly worse. Namely in terms of stability and the function of "spaces" specifically.
While it's true people don't say "I've joined ActivityPub", isn't that synonymous with "I've joined the Fediverse"? Besides, the organization behind it does market it that way — they themselves refer to it as "joining Matrix, using one of these clients" (Element, Fluffychat, etc). Like, that's what their website is called, and so is the Matrix server they host.
Their centralization is, I think, a little more advanced than Mastodon's. The organization that maintains the protocol regularly adds features to it, and then of course immediately updates their own client and server implementations to have those same, recently added features, meaning the other client and server implementations are always behind on at least a few features. It's becoming reminiscent of how the web browser spec is so bloated, and gets new stuff added to it with such regularity, that new browsers are basically impractical.
Hi! How much a matrix and mumble server costs?
For matrix it depends on how big rooms you join, the way matrix federates the more servers in a room the more resources it'll take to join it and send messages in it since you send a message to every server in a room, conduit is a much more efficient homeserver implementation compared to synapse
Well, if you host a server, you can either host it on the cloud (which costs $$$), or you can host it by yourself (if you have a spare computer that you can just use as a server). If you host it yourself, all you're really paying is the same stuff you already pay — internet and electricity.
Hosting a server for something like mumble, matrix, or lemmy only has the costs I mentioned above.
The True selfhosted open source alternative to Discord are Mattermost and RocketChat. My friends and I use both
Why is it an alternative to telegram but not to discord?
It allows you to have personal 1 to 1 conversations and group chats, just like WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal.
Discord isn't exactly the same thing as Telegram, that's why Matrix.org is usually mentioned as an alternative to WhatsApp or Telegram but not Discord
On Discord you can have 1:1 chats and rooms as well.
But I feel both Discord and Matrix are better suited to room chats than 1:1, if for nothing else because the registration is a tad more complex than just receiving an sms, and you're not sharing your phone number with a 1000 people.
I think the general vibe is that WA or Signal is for small friends groups exactly because of reliance on phone number, while the others aren't.
Ed: also the E2E doesn't "just work" like on WA/Signal.
Yes, you can have 1:1 and rooms on Discord too, but the level of customization of rooms, roles and permissions Discord has is much more advanced than what you can find in WA, Telegram or Matrix.org.
On Discord when you're in a server you can see (usually) every other user that's on the same server, and in every room you'll see some of those people, depending on the permissions. That's not how the other options mentioned before work.
Also, on Discord you can have specific rooms dedicated to audio/video chats, on the rest (WA, Telegram, Matrix) it works differently.
I think it's mainly because of those reasons that people compare Matrix to WA and/or Telegram instead of saying it's a "Discord alternative".
there is work in matrix for video rooms, along with native group calls in matrix which once its added to the spec more clients will likely start implementing
A lot of people only use it chat and never touch the voice features.
Really?
Yeah! My wife does. There are communities she chats with there.
Does Mumble have an equivalent to PluralKit? PK is one of the biggest things keeping me and my friends on discord atm
what's PluralKit?
tbh, Mumble pretty much just does voice chat and only voice chat, and just focuses on doing it well.
what's PluralKit?
tbh, Mumble pretty much just does voice chat and only voice chat, and just focuses on doing it well.
It's a bot that allows multiple people sharing an account to appear as though they each had their own pfp and username, using webhooks. It's mostly used by plural systems, which are groups of people who live in the same head. You assign a proxy to each member, which might be something like prefacing your message with a certain emoji, and whenever you type a message using that proxy (prefacing with that emoji), PluralKit deletes your account's message and gets a webhook with a name and pfp of your choice to re-send the message. The bot makes it way easier to talk to a plural system and know who's speaking.