All the anti matrix sentiment is so strange to me especially from people on the fediverse…

I use and host matrix, I love it, I wouldn’t even consider any other alternative as they all lack core must have features

It’s non-corporate Discord. It’s great if you want real-time chat and not a forum.

The most promising alternative to Discord currently by far is Fluxer

I liked using Matrix. I was lazy and didn’t fully set up the configuration. But it was really easy to replace discord with Element.

I’ve seen comments complaining that Element is the most used and if everyone uses Element it’ll be vulnerable to bad actors.

I like that I get to host the file and data myself. In my perfect world the local Internet Service Provider Co-op would host a matrix server so the town could still communicate/talk in case my town loses connection to the big city.

I use it everyday with the Sable client

i want it to work well but it simply sucks. the ux is terrible, federation is buggy, etc… i’m quite tolerant of hard to use softwares but i couldn’t continue using it. had a techie friend try it out with me for a while as a potential discord alternative but he had such bad experience that he doesn’t wanna try other foss messengers unless they’re proven to be very good. i just lurk on irc and telegram these days. (ik telegram is shit, but i prefer it over discord)

Matrix is actually aimed at enterprise services which is where they make most of their income to keep running. Parts of the French and German governments use it for communication, for example.

I think part of the issue is that people want it to replace Discord when it’s really meant to replace Microsoft Teams.

Matrix is a good idea in principle and the 2.0 protocol (as well as the implementation) is in very good shape. Sadly Element is the most feature complete client for using it and frankly: it’s trash. Both desktop and app, X and non-X. It’s buggy, unreliable and unpolished. It certainly has gotten better, seeing how they went from borderline unusable to at least the core stuff working, but they move incredibly slow. If you think Signal is moving slow, you haven’t waited for Element features (to properly work) yet.

I personally find Fluffy Chat to be more enjoyable, but tbf I basically have to use it, because I need to use multiple accounts. Element just straight up doesn’t support that for whatever reason - I don’t think any other client either. It comes with its own set of issues and shortcomings however. There simply is no app that supports everything and works flawlessly at the same time. To stick with my Signal comparison: Signal just works. It self-explanatory and you need to do next to nothing for it to work. This is not the experience you can expect from Matrix in general, because the way the protocol works makes everything more complicated.

The only major alternative I know is XMPP, which in my experience next to no one uses. I have very limited experience with it, but ‘Conversations’ seemed fantastic on the surface. Much, much simpler and cleaner than anything Matrix. But again, couldn’t actually test it, because no one uses it lol

I’ve been using matrix as a drop-in replacement for discord for a couple years now and I really love it, personally. It could definitely move a little faster when it comes to development and I wouldn’t be mad, but for me at least the major features are there and the day to day experience is really good so I don’t feel like I’m missing much waiting on new features.
I’ve personally been much happier with matrix than I ever was with discord, and the only annoyances I really run into related to it are more to do with the network problem of everyone else being on discord than matrix itself.

I’ve been using matrix with a few people, and I like it conceptually. However, it’s definitely got some very rough edges. Mobile clients don’t seem to even support calling, and as I found out recently some homeservers just don’t support calling? custom emote/sticker support is client dependent and somewhat janky on all of them (no favoriting emotes, fluffychat not showing custom emotes with other emojis, etc.). I want it to be great but I just don’t see it being user friendly enough for mass adoption right now.

On the other hand, I’ve also been trying Fluxer. It’s a lot smoother of an experience, (aside from screen share), and I really see it as a great drop in replacement for discord with friend groups. But, it’s not got federation yet, and I don’t believe E2EE for DMs or voice calls is here yet either. I hope it can keep developing and deliver on these promises.

I tried it briefly, but in addition to the software itself feeling rather behind, I don’t think it can solve the major problems I have with Discord.

The biggest problem I have with Discord is that it is ‘underground’, siloed away from the open web and unable to be indexed by search engines. I don’t want a Discord Alternative that is just the same thing but federated, I want all the communities that have moved to Discord to come back to the open web, whether that’s traditional forums or here on the Threadiverse or something else. In fact, I think Threadi would be a very good fit for a lot of the improper use cases Discord currently gets used for.

And the secondary problem, of course, is the network effect. Nobody I want to talk to is using Matrix. All the communities that have kept me tied to Discord against my will, are on Discord. And sadly I don’t see much chance for that to ever be overcome.

I have the same issue with Matrix that I had with Discord and all the other silo’d chats, cannot find any active communities. Just walls of people joining and leaving empty rooms.

I find the secure features of it that make it great if you want to be sure you’re talking to who you think you are and no one else make it a pain in the ass to use for the average person that doesn’t care about those features.

I hosted it for a while. I’m the techy one in my little circle. It didn’t get used except by one friend.

Speaking to my own feelings… While I don’t think Discord is the most problematic part of the modern internet, I do think that it’s only a matter of time before the de-facto centralization of so many internet communities behind one corporate gatekeeper becomes a bigger problem.

I do think Matrix is a little bit complicated (though, like the fediverse, part of that is just the nature of the complexity of running a federated internet service) and it has some rough edges.

Search is lackluster and discoverability of communities is pretty low, though arguably the same is true for Discord even if it isn’t as much of a problem due to just how popular Discord is.

I also think that Discord is significantly better at being community-oriented, with features like being able to schedule events that aren’t available in Matrix’s “spaces”.

At some point, I can only assume that Discord will (at best) go down the path of profit-driven enshittification and corporate corruption OR (at worst) fall off into obscurity taking a large chunk of internet community/history with it. Discord’s recent age (read: identity) verification is troubling, especially in the current climate of political corruption and corporate mass surveillance.

So to me, it is worth investing some time and effort into building free, open and defederated alternatives, and I hope that things like Matrix are ultimately more successful over time.

It is dope. But is totally and by far not Discord. I should try Stoat though.