To be fair, matrix's synapse server was always only supposed to be the reference server...reference servers aren't always built for top-notch performance, just

To be fair, matrix's synapse server was always only supposed to be the reference server...reference servers aren't always built for top-notch performance, just for admins/implementors to get understanding of protocol, etc. To address performance, the team is busy building a matrix server in Go; see https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite I do agree that mastodon and matrix - of which I'm a fan of both - solve for different scenarios. Mastodon replaces twitter; sort of short social media bursts/broadcasts. While matrix replaces slack (and other chat platforms like xmpp). I've always seen matrix as a modern-day irc; also allowing expansion and enhancement via plugins, and programmability like good ol' irc is/was. ActivityPub was only recently approved, so can't expect every project to instantly support it; though to be fair it has been on many projects' radar well before its approval by w3c. I truthfully haven't followed the latest matrix news, so not sure if support for activitypub is coming soon. I do feel that supporting activityPub really make it that much more powerful of a protocol AND platform...but i'm sure that's not a trivial matter. If you haven't played around with clients for matrix (such as the Riot clients), i suggest you give it a try. Riot keeps getting better and better with each new release.