just asking what is a good one
For one to one chats and the occasional group chat? XMPP is pretty awesome and has lots of good clients (Conversations on Android, Monal on iDevices, Dino, Gajim, etc. on Linux)
If you want something closer to Discord and host public communities or very large chatrooms, Matrix is very good. You can self-host it with Continuwuity, and there are lots of clients too (Cinny, FluffyChat, Element, Fractal, NeoChat, etc.)
If you just need voice chat, Mumble is simple and works well.
Are you asking just for general self-hosted messengers? Why did you mention Facebook specifically?
Matrix, and I recommend selfhosting Continuwuity as it is lightweight and easy to spin up. Your other option could be XMPP with Snikket or proper Prosody.
Though do you have any particular features you wanna bring over from Facebook Messenger?
Continuwuity is so easy the setup and maintain. If you want to self host a matrix server, I couldn’t recommend this enough.
Because it hasn’t been mentioned:
IRC
Sometime also mentioned SimpleX, which I’m looking into myself, but have no experience currently.
I love IRC but it’s absolutely not usabale for non-tech people
There is quite a bit of friction in the setup. After that, it’s smooth.
Honestly no.
How do you join a channel? How to start private message? How to setup e2ee? How do I recieve messages when I’m offline (bouncer)? how do I send files/images/video? There’s lots of things to learn, understand and setup
simplex
The smp and xftp servers look pretty simple to get running with docker compose.
you can also run them in the same container with a multi-stage build and some finesse with S6.
You must be the first person I’ve heard that actually selfhosts a delta chat server
Since it is chatmail based, it isn’t hard https://chatmail.at/relays
You just linked to a list of relays
here is the correct link: https://chatmail.at/doc/relay/getting_started.html#minimal-requirements-and-prerequisites
Matrix
but what good client that isnt designed for just businesses
Personally I like Sable, it feels closer to Discord, has call support, and “just works”
services: sable: image: git.sable.moe/sableclient/sable-next:latest ports: - '127.0.0.1:8080:8080' volumes: - ./config.json:/app/config.json:ro restart: unless-stoppedLooks pretty simple to selfhost the web client too
https://github.com/SableClient/sable-next/blob/main/Caddyfile
Edit: I couldn’t get it working, moved to selfhosting cinny
Cinny is also still a very good option! Especially if non-techy people are gonna be using it, as its UI is more stable (as in, changes less)
