| ▲ | Arathorn 7 hours ago |
| Matrix is a decentralised encrypted chat protocol on which you could build something like Zulip, except decentralised and end-to-end encrypted. Element is the actual app being trialled here, which feels more like Slack and/or Signal than Zulip. The point is that you get something you can selfhost while also interoperating with other deployments… while also encrypting the data end-to-end with Signal protocol. |
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| ▲ | pm3003 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Federation can feel like "just a feature" but the E2E encryption (also in group chats) is a reason for Matrix to exist and a big reason why it's so slow. |
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| ▲ | ezst 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's so slow because it's so badly designed as a protocol, E2E isn't really the problem (the slowness is roughly equivalent for non-encrypted rooms) | |
| ▲ | dpc_01234 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | "Slow" in what sense? Development? Because I self host a Conduit server and I don't ever notice messages being slow. It would be hard to notice anyway, as in a group chat people usually take some time to type in their responses. The sync between large groups used to be slow because of amount of data, but Element X and "sliding windows" were rolled out to help with it. AFAIK, the public Matrix server used to be slow because of a heavy load (I think), but on my self-hosted instance that's not a problem at all. | | |
| ▲ | JuniperMesos 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | The experience of using Matrix involves a lot of sluggishness at various points in the client - waiting to decrypt messages or properly sync keys, waiting to join a room or for room search to load - these are the things that have been salient to me using multiple matrix clients with a freshly-spun-up server within the past month. |
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| ▲ | solarkraft 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > on which you could build something like Zulip I hope that at some point a focus of the Matrix project will become why this isn’t being done. A better developer experience would supercharge the ecosystem, IMO. Matrix should be the default for anyone building a chat app, but for some reason it’s not. |
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| ▲ | tamimio 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Yeah I would love to see a new professional application based on Matrix, Element is buggy, other apps lacking too. |
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| ▲ | blitzar 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Element is buggy Someone should tell the CEO/CTO of Element | | |
| ▲ | Arathorn 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Speaking as the CEO/CTO of Element... the classic Element apps on mobile were buggy, thanks to being a ~10 year old codebase with no shared code between platforms and effectively the 1st generation Matrix client. Which is why we replaced them over the last few years with Element X, with all the heavy lifting shared between iOS & Android via matrix-rust-sdk (effectively a 3rd gen Matrix SDK). That said, 70% of our users haven't got the memo yet - we'll do a hard-upgrade when the remaining missing features in Element X (Spaces & Threads) are fully out of Labs. Meanwhile, Element Web is lagging behind Element X - but we're now in the middle of an incremental in-place upgrade (not a big-bang rewrite, thank goodness) to use matrix-rust-sdk - see our talk from FOSDEM last Sunday for the details: https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/DZJVTS-an-element-web... | | |
| ▲ | JuniperMesos 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > That said, 70% of our users haven't got the memo yet - we'll do a hard-upgrade when the remaining missing features in Element X (Spaces & Threads) are fully out of Labs. This isn't users not getting the memo yet, this is users being faced with an unfortunate choice between a buggy, slow client and a new client that doesn't implement important functionality like Spaces and Threads. | |
| ▲ | Flere-Imsaho 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Can i ask why is Element Classic even available on the Google Play Store? If you want people to move away from this? I've only started my Matrix journey, in the form of writing bots using the matrix Python library. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, as the Matrix protocol could be really impactful. | | | |
| ▲ | solarkraft 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I’m excited to watch the talk. I’m generally critical of Matrix, but that’s because I want it to succeed. Lately I find you’ve been doing a lot of things right, so I hope you keep going! | |
| ▲ | markush_ 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It’s very cool and inspiring to see the CEO posting here. Keep up the amazing work! |
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| ▲ | edoceo 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Arathorn is the CEO. I bet you knew that. At the time I write this your comment is grey. Maybe context was missing; or they think you're snark. |
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