Yes, unfortunately Synapse is possibly one of the worst apps i've ever sysadmin'd for, and I'm not even the primary sysadmin for my homeserver. I still use it,

Yes, unfortunately Synapse is possibly one of the worst apps i've ever sysadmin'd for, and I'm not even the primary sysadmin for my homeserver. I still use it, regularly, but we're all really anxiously anticipating the release of Dendrite. I'm not the biggest fan of the protocol either, or the UI/UX of Riot. I think Matrix is a good idea, but there's a lot of historical baggage and I think the world probably needs one more "throw everything away but learn the lessons of the past" cycle before we get something really, truly good in the chat space.