6 ms·

Incidentally I tried matrix for the first time on the basis of someone recommending it here in HN, and it's extremely slow

Arathorn 4y ago
this is like saying “i tried the web, and it’s extremely slow”. what server were you using? and which client on which platform?
- ngetchell 4y ago
  How about slow compared to Discord?
  - 29083011397778 4y ago
    But this still doesn't answer the question - did you register on the default server that everyone uses (matrix.org)? And in that case, you've given the exact worse case scenario: The heaviest server, being used by everyone else, with massive rooms, and constantly fighting off spam.
    - jeroenhd 4y ago
      Personally, I find that the Matrix.org server is much better for large rooms. Most of the content is already cached on the server by all the other accounts on there, so joining large rooms takes seconds instead of minutes. Modern sync (v3 already, I think?) also helps a huge amount but it needs client and server support. I've tried to join the main matrix chat room (#matrix:matrix.org) but my poor homeserver just couldn't handle it.
      - feanaro 4y ago
        Modern sync (sliding sync, v3 sync) only helps with non-encrypted rooms. For encrypted rooms, it degrades to essentially the old sync v2 performance.
        jeroenhd 4y ago
        That's true, but most rooms where this is a problem (the huge ones) aren't encrypted. There's no way you're going to cross-verify everyone in a room with 4000 users in it so encryption in such rooms is essentially useless.
    - NoraCodes 4y ago
      Not everyone uses matrix.org. I've run my own server on a $15/mo DO droplet for ages and my whole polycule and friend group use it heavily as well. It's incredibly easy to deploy and maintain for anyone who knows even a little bit about sysadmin.
      - kixiQu 4y ago
        same. i have yet to bother switching from sqlite to postgres and it's ... fine. it's fine.
- Legogris 4y ago
  Not the person you're replying to but following up on an identical past thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30996203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30996203 > Linux, x86_64. Getting the same behavior across distros and installations. It is still very much the case. To emphasize, we have for the past couple of years used Matrix routinely on: * Multiple client implementations * Multiple OSs (Linux/Android/iOS) * Multiple accounts and profiles * Multiple Linux distros, desktop environments, window managers, X11/Wayland, CPU architectures (x86_64, aarch64) * Private and public homeservers In particular, multiple accounts on the same Linux installation of element-desktop. The common denominator seems to be that the account with many (thousands) of rooms (almost all of which fully historical/archived with no ongoing activity apart from participants presence) consistently gets Element freeze, hang, be extremely slow. This makes element-desktop practically unusable for that account. Other accounts in the exact same environment do not have this issue. Signing in to a fresh profile seems to improve this, for a while, until it starts happening again The same issue does not appear on Element iOS/Android, or with other accounts on the same client. It gets more annoying by the fact that even under normal operations it's slow enough to start up that it can take some time to tell if this time it'll eventually resolve by waiting or if it needs to be force-killed and restarted. This is also the case on an otherwise idle 8-core Ryzen3 with 64GB of RAM and fast NVMe drive sitting close to its homeserver on a 1GBps link. (The slowness seems to be all or mostly locally in Element - even when in a mostly empty room, it can take a very long time expanding/collapsing/navigating the People/Rooms sidebar. This, too, only for those particular high-room accounts and only on element-desktop) For a while we believed it could have been the same cause as this issue[0] but alas, 1.11.0 with Electron 19 has not resolved it. The common factors that consistently exhibits this behavior seems to be Linux, element-desktop, account with large amount of rooms. Been like this for a while now. [0]: https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/21147 https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/21147
  - rvz 4y ago
    That is the problem with defining Linux Desktop support as I have said this many times before. It has been more than 20 years and the same fragmentation and inconsistency issues are still here. It is not early days anymore. It works fine on macOS as mentioned in that thread, especially with 4000 rooms on both Firefox and Chrome and supporting that is simple with a predictable desktop stack. The Linux Desktop however is eternally plagued with these issues and the support and testing is very expensive. It is a serious and fundamental problem with multiple alternative of alternatives of system components to test and the problem [0] may still happen deeper in the desktop stack and looking for the root cause is like finding a silver needle in the sky and would require a mixture or part time / full time devs to test or debug literally everything that is in the stack to reproduce or actually find it. The fact that it works fine on macOS and it hasn't been solved on Linux yet, tell us that defining Linux Desktop support and targeting / supporting 100% of Linux Desktop users is an impossibility. It's a very expensive contraption to support, unlike the users on Windows and macOS. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30983400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30983400
- ldkdndsl 4y ago
- t6jvcereio 4y ago
  > this is like saying “i tried the web, and it’s extremely slow” Uuuuuh ok...? WhatsApp isn't slow.
  - your_challenger 4y ago
    The matrix protocol is an open protocol where anyone can build on. You using the matrix protocol is the you using http. So your slowness equates to the server you are communicating with. Note: Yes, the protocol has issues when you are joining larger rooms. But for WhatsApp scale (max 256 users in a group) matrix works pretty well.
    - t6jvcereio 4y ago
      Uhhhh ok? Email is fast.
jeroenhd 4y ago
I'm running it on my own server and performance is quite acceptable. Picking the right client is very important, though; Element isn't always the fastest, and I find Cinny's UX to be much better for general chat, which is clearly very much… inspired by Discord. On the other hand, Element is ahead in terms of features and protocol support (like the (live) location sharing feature), but Fluffychat has the superior mobile app in terms of general look and feel IMO. On the desktop, Nheko is incredibly fast, being written in a native language and being optimized for performance and all, but I don't use it because I just can't get used to the design. When joining huge chat rooms like some of those on the matrix.org homeserver, it can take a bit for the clients to sync up and get going. Performance is getting improved all the time, especially in terms of quickly joining a room. Latency also doesn't help, the protocol requires loads of round trips for the JSON payloads to go back and forth, so if you're not near your homeserver you're going to see some annoying problems. I recommend giving the platform another quick try using https://app.cinny.in/ https://app.cinny.in/ which to me feels very Discord-like in terms of snappiness.
- lelandfe 4y ago
  Cinny user registration told me my username was already taken, and threw up a never ending captcha[0]. I nevertheless got a "validate your email" in my inbox, although I can't login. Not, like, a great start. [0] https://imgur.com/a/zYBZWoW https://imgur.com/a/zYBZWoW
  - ajbura 4y ago
    https://github.com/cinnyapp/cinny/issues/664 https://github.com/cinnyapp/cinny/issues/664 Thanks for the bug report.
- t6jvcereio 4y ago
  I'm not sure the problem was the client (element for Android). Asking around it seems people on the chatrooms kind of agreed the issue was matrix.org Regardless, if you believe the issue is the client, which would you recommend is the lightest/fastest client?
Saris 4y ago
I found the same, as soon as I join any larger rooms it starts to struggle. The clients feel sluggish as well, just in terms of moving around the UI.

Arathorn 4y ago

this is like saying “i tried the web, and it’s extremely slow”. what server were you using? and which client on which platform?

ngetchell 4y ago
How about slow compared to Discord?
- 29083011397778 4y ago
  But this still doesn't answer the question - did you register on the default server that everyone uses (matrix.org)? And in that case, you've given the exact worse case scenario: The heaviest server, being used by everyone else, with massive rooms, and constantly fighting off spam.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    Personally, I find that the Matrix.org server is much better for large rooms. Most of the content is already cached on the server by all the other accounts on there, so joining large rooms takes seconds instead of minutes. Modern sync (v3 already, I think?) also helps a huge amount but it needs client and server support. I've tried to join the main matrix chat room (#matrix:matrix.org) but my poor homeserver just couldn't handle it.
    - feanaro 4y ago
      Modern sync (sliding sync, v3 sync) only helps with non-encrypted rooms. For encrypted rooms, it degrades to essentially the old sync v2 performance.
      - jeroenhd 4y ago
        That's true, but most rooms where this is a problem (the huge ones) aren't encrypted. There's no way you're going to cross-verify everyone in a room with 4000 users in it so encryption in such rooms is essentially useless.
  - NoraCodes 4y ago
    Not everyone uses matrix.org. I've run my own server on a $15/mo DO droplet for ages and my whole polycule and friend group use it heavily as well. It's incredibly easy to deploy and maintain for anyone who knows even a little bit about sysadmin.
    - kixiQu 4y ago
      same. i have yet to bother switching from sqlite to postgres and it's ... fine. it's fine.
Legogris 4y ago
Not the person you're replying to but following up on an identical past thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30996203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30996203 > Linux, x86_64. Getting the same behavior across distros and installations. It is still very much the case. To emphasize, we have for the past couple of years used Matrix routinely on: * Multiple client implementations * Multiple OSs (Linux/Android/iOS) * Multiple accounts and profiles * Multiple Linux distros, desktop environments, window managers, X11/Wayland, CPU architectures (x86_64, aarch64) * Private and public homeservers In particular, multiple accounts on the same Linux installation of element-desktop. The common denominator seems to be that the account with many (thousands) of rooms (almost all of which fully historical/archived with no ongoing activity apart from participants presence) consistently gets Element freeze, hang, be extremely slow. This makes element-desktop practically unusable for that account. Other accounts in the exact same environment do not have this issue. Signing in to a fresh profile seems to improve this, for a while, until it starts happening again The same issue does not appear on Element iOS/Android, or with other accounts on the same client. It gets more annoying by the fact that even under normal operations it's slow enough to start up that it can take some time to tell if this time it'll eventually resolve by waiting or if it needs to be force-killed and restarted. This is also the case on an otherwise idle 8-core Ryzen3 with 64GB of RAM and fast NVMe drive sitting close to its homeserver on a 1GBps link. (The slowness seems to be all or mostly locally in Element - even when in a mostly empty room, it can take a very long time expanding/collapsing/navigating the People/Rooms sidebar. This, too, only for those particular high-room accounts and only on element-desktop) For a while we believed it could have been the same cause as this issue[0] but alas, 1.11.0 with Electron 19 has not resolved it. The common factors that consistently exhibits this behavior seems to be Linux, element-desktop, account with large amount of rooms. Been like this for a while now. [0]: https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/21147 https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/21147
- rvz 4y ago
  That is the problem with defining Linux Desktop support as I have said this many times before. It has been more than 20 years and the same fragmentation and inconsistency issues are still here. It is not early days anymore. It works fine on macOS as mentioned in that thread, especially with 4000 rooms on both Firefox and Chrome and supporting that is simple with a predictable desktop stack. The Linux Desktop however is eternally plagued with these issues and the support and testing is very expensive. It is a serious and fundamental problem with multiple alternative of alternatives of system components to test and the problem [0] may still happen deeper in the desktop stack and looking for the root cause is like finding a silver needle in the sky and would require a mixture or part time / full time devs to test or debug literally everything that is in the stack to reproduce or actually find it. The fact that it works fine on macOS and it hasn't been solved on Linux yet, tell us that defining Linux Desktop support and targeting / supporting 100% of Linux Desktop users is an impossibility. It's a very expensive contraption to support, unlike the users on Windows and macOS. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30983400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30983400
ldkdndsl 4y ago
t6jvcereio 4y ago
> this is like saying “i tried the web, and it’s extremely slow” Uuuuuh ok...? WhatsApp isn't slow.
- your_challenger 4y ago
  The matrix protocol is an open protocol where anyone can build on. You using the matrix protocol is the you using http. So your slowness equates to the server you are communicating with. Note: Yes, the protocol has issues when you are joining larger rooms. But for WhatsApp scale (max 256 users in a group) matrix works pretty well.
  - t6jvcereio 4y ago
    Uhhhh ok? Email is fast.

jeroenhd 4y ago

I'm running it on my own server and performance is quite acceptable. Picking the right client is very important, though; Element isn't always the fastest, and I find Cinny's UX to be much better for general chat, which is clearly very much… inspired by Discord. On the other hand, Element is ahead in terms of features and protocol support (like the (live) location sharing feature), but Fluffychat has the superior mobile app in terms of general look and feel IMO. On the desktop, Nheko is incredibly fast, being written in a native language and being optimized for performance and all, but I don't use it because I just can't get used to the design. When joining huge chat rooms like some of those on the matrix.org homeserver, it can take a bit for the clients to sync up and get going. Performance is getting improved all the time, especially in terms of quickly joining a room. Latency also doesn't help, the protocol requires loads of round trips for the JSON payloads to go back and forth, so if you're not near your homeserver you're going to see some annoying problems. I recommend giving the platform another quick try using https://app.cinny.in/ https://app.cinny.in/ which to me feels very Discord-like in terms of snappiness.

lelandfe 4y ago
Cinny user registration told me my username was already taken, and threw up a never ending captcha[0]. I nevertheless got a "validate your email" in my inbox, although I can't login. Not, like, a great start. [0] https://imgur.com/a/zYBZWoW https://imgur.com/a/zYBZWoW
- ajbura 4y ago
  https://github.com/cinnyapp/cinny/issues/664 https://github.com/cinnyapp/cinny/issues/664 Thanks for the bug report.
t6jvcereio 4y ago
I'm not sure the problem was the client (element for Android). Asking around it seems people on the chatrooms kind of agreed the issue was matrix.org Regardless, if you believe the issue is the client, which would you recommend is the lightest/fastest client?

Saris 4y ago

I found the same, as soon as I join any larger rooms it starts to struggle. The clients feel sluggish as well, just in terms of moving around the UI.