4 ms·

Element is slow and resource heavy, I wonder how adding group video rooms will affect it.

theK 4y ago
Ran an instance of the reference implementation for a year or two and hadn't noticed resource consumption that much tbh. And this was for an organization with hundreds of members. Did something change in the past two years?
- Arathorn 4y ago
  nope, perf has improved a lot in the last 2 years (on web, at least). android and ios are still slower than they should be in accounts with large rooms, but there is a bunch of step changes on the horizon (called “sliding sync”) which should eliminate that.
  - Akronymus 4y ago
    I think a lot of the "element is slow" can be attributed for using the matrix homeserver. I personally notice it somewhat frequently that that one is quite slow, in comparison to a privately hosted one.
  - Legogris 4y ago
    I do hope I'm not spamming you here but an acknowledgment would be appreciated. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32026459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32026459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32020929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32020929 Summary: element-desktop sluggish and freezing with accounts with large amount of rooms and history on Linux (consistent across devices, dists, and DEs). This is separate from a recent freezing issue which was fixed in v1.11.0.
    - Arathorn 4y ago
      Have responded at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32093491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32093491.
- daenney 4y ago
  I think you’re confusing Element and Synapse. Synapse is the reference implementation, Element is the client. And it can definitely be a resource hog on some end systems but it seems pretty fine in general
no_time 4y ago
I assume the audio/video stack runs on a different thread so not much. It still suffers from a terminal case of Electron, but atleast it's not worse than it's comptetitors in this regard. Both teams and discord have an absolutely laughable click to photon time on anything but high end machines.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  Despite the Electronness, I think the UX of Discord is still much better than that of Element. There's just something off about the way element responds to interactions, I can't put my finger on it. I've noticed there have been some improvements made over time, but Discord is still much more fluent in the places where it matters. Cinny, being very Discord inspired, also gets many of the Discord usability features right. With the way Cinny is developing I wouldn't be surprised if the two projects would eventually merge together. The lack of audio/video support is the most obvious flaw at the moment, but perhaps once proper Matrix voice is stable and implemented in Element we'll see some improvements in that area in Cinny as well.
hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
If it’s slow and resource heavy it’s consistent with every other competing app at least.
- zaik 4y ago
  Checkout the Dino XMPP client.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
    I think you misunderstood my point, it was more a jab at the entire industry, but I do imagine it’s probably a difficult problem to solve. I also have no interest in running thick clients. For all it’s warts, browser based clients leverage browser security which is something I value.
pixxel 4y ago
It was for me, too. I was subbed to dozens of rooms that I never used. I trimmed it down to about 10 rooms and it’s noticeably faster. Bulk deleting messages is still an absolute bastard (app hangs for days).

theK 4y ago

Ran an instance of the reference implementation for a year or two and hadn't noticed resource consumption that much tbh. And this was for an organization with hundreds of members. Did something change in the past two years?

Arathorn 4y ago
nope, perf has improved a lot in the last 2 years (on web, at least). android and ios are still slower than they should be in accounts with large rooms, but there is a bunch of step changes on the horizon (called “sliding sync”) which should eliminate that.
- Akronymus 4y ago
  I think a lot of the "element is slow" can be attributed for using the matrix homeserver. I personally notice it somewhat frequently that that one is quite slow, in comparison to a privately hosted one.
- Legogris 4y ago
  I do hope I'm not spamming you here but an acknowledgment would be appreciated. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32026459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32026459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32020929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32020929 Summary: element-desktop sluggish and freezing with accounts with large amount of rooms and history on Linux (consistent across devices, dists, and DEs). This is separate from a recent freezing issue which was fixed in v1.11.0.
  - Arathorn 4y ago
    Have responded at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32093491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32093491.
daenney 4y ago
I think you’re confusing Element and Synapse. Synapse is the reference implementation, Element is the client. And it can definitely be a resource hog on some end systems but it seems pretty fine in general

no_time 4y ago

I assume the audio/video stack runs on a different thread so not much. It still suffers from a terminal case of Electron, but atleast it's not worse than it's comptetitors in this regard. Both teams and discord have an absolutely laughable click to photon time on anything but high end machines.

jeroenhd 4y ago
Despite the Electronness, I think the UX of Discord is still much better than that of Element. There's just something off about the way element responds to interactions, I can't put my finger on it. I've noticed there have been some improvements made over time, but Discord is still much more fluent in the places where it matters. Cinny, being very Discord inspired, also gets many of the Discord usability features right. With the way Cinny is developing I wouldn't be surprised if the two projects would eventually merge together. The lack of audio/video support is the most obvious flaw at the moment, but perhaps once proper Matrix voice is stable and implemented in Element we'll see some improvements in that area in Cinny as well.

hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago

If it’s slow and resource heavy it’s consistent with every other competing app at least.

zaik 4y ago
Checkout the Dino XMPP client.
- hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
  I think you misunderstood my point, it was more a jab at the entire industry, but I do imagine it’s probably a difficult problem to solve. I also have no interest in running thick clients. For all it’s warts, browser based clients leverage browser security which is something I value.

pixxel 4y ago

It was for me, too. I was subbed to dozens of rooms that I never used. I trimmed it down to about 10 rooms and it’s noticeably faster. Bulk deleting messages is still an absolute bastard (app hangs for days).