Hi. I’m kinda of a noob in the world of self-hosting and matrix, for that matter. But I was wondering how heavy is it to host a matrix server?
My understanding how matrix works is each participating server in the room stores the full history and then later some sort of merging happens or something like that.
How is that sustainable? Say in 5 years matrix becomes mainstream and 5 people join my server and each also join 3 different 10k+ people rooms with long histories. So now what I have to account for that or people have to be careful of joining larger rooms when they sign up in a smaller-ish server?
Or do I not understand how Matrix works? Thanks.


Is there a good alternative that you would recommend?
XMPP obviously. Have a look at https://joinjabber.org/
Still staggering to me that XMPP isn’t the default, since it was used in many chat apps in the late 90’s.
Does it do screen sharing, group calls, etc.?
Screensharing is the only thing i dont think it does. Voice and video good. See snikket or conversations.im
Neither of those client promo pages mention group calling. le sigh
I believe group calling is only a thing certain clients (e.g. Dino, Movim) support, although there is a initiative to implement it on protocol level as far as I am aware.
So, Onomatopoeia there is wondering why xmpp isn’t standard, and I’m getting the sense that it is targeted at oldskool usage.
Discord is popular because it’s easy to start using, it has collaboration features like group screensharing, and it doesn’t assume an ubernerd is the target audience.
Maybe we’ll get a more unified, feature rich xmpp implementation, but until then, sounds like matrix/element is closer, despite its warts.
Yeah you could consider it old school, or maybe just a product of another time were people didn’t mind to use multiple software for different uses.
I for one don’t mind using Mumble for voice and XMPP for text chat or one to one calls for example.
I don’t have a computer or smartphone so I only can install one app and that’s it. And I know I might be in the minority when it comes to that, at least compared to the general public. For gods sake it’s already hard to get people to install a second messenger app, not even trying to get them off WhatsApp or other meta crap…