4 ms·

I'm sad to see XMPP missing from this list. I wonder if the author was simply unaware of it or simply ignored it. IMO XMPP is technically superior to Matrix.

I'm sad to see XMPP missing from this list. I wonder if the author was simply unaware of it or simply ignored it. IMO XMPP is technically superior to Matrix. It "only" needs a cross-platform high-quality, branded app àla Element. There's underlying protocol support for all the features: video/audio calls, group calls, threads and reactions. Maybe missing are custom emoji (I think?) and channel grouping (which is still in the works). And of course all these protocol features work fine with federation.

fishgoesblub 8mo ago
Same here, I was hoping to see it listed in the article. XMPP is close to being right there in being able to compete with Discord. It just needs a good client with Spaces support (XEP-0503), along side user roles with permissions, and server side voice channels.
- Semaphor 8mo ago
  > It just needs a good client Generally an XMPP issue :/ The protocol is amazing and selfhostable servers (I use prosody) are great. But The only client I enjoy is conversations, and that’s mobile while my main usage is always desktop. There are decent clients, but none I’d say are great.
cookiengineer 8mo ago
The problem with XMPP is that it's a suite of RFCs. It's like describing DNS, which is a conglomerate of RFCs so complex that it's unlikely to be implemented correctly and completely. XMPP is a design fail in that regard, because if you have to tell your chat contacts to download a different client that fulfills OMEMO or XEP-whatever specs, then yeah, ain't gonna happen for most people. (I am still a proponent of XMPP, but the working groups need to get their shit together to unify protocol support across clients)
- aaravchen 8mo ago
  This has been brought up on HN before, and people smarter than me identified that this view is about 10 years out of date. Yes it's a bunch of XEPs, but there are standardized "sets" apparently that include all of the things any other similar tools do. It sounds like only very niche old/minimal XMPP clients don't support encryption by default for example, and virtually all servers have supported it for many years.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Groxx 8mo ago
    And unlike Matrix(/Element), it works most of the time.
  - worble 8mo ago
    Is there a recommended or "blessed" server and client combo for someone who just wants to migrate their friends off discord? The main site https://xmpp.org/software/ https://xmpp.org/software/ lists lots of different options but I have no idea what core/advanced means and comparing all of these would take ages.
    - mfru 8mo ago
      Conversations is a great Android client (also brings their own backend instance if you don't want to host your own), I don't know about iOS or server though.
      - nicoco 8mo ago
        https://monal-im.org/ https://monal-im.org/ is my personal recommendation for iOS.
    - cookiengineer 8mo ago
      The ironic part is that those software description files are meaningless. AstraChat claims Advanced in all categories, but it's a proprietary commercial software, so nobody ran any kind of test suite to verify this. That software list, how it's done and how it's ranked is literally confirming my initial point of critique :D Last time I tried out several chat clients, most of them were alpha software, had lots of bugs appearing in normal conversation flows, well, or were so broken that they broke compatibility in subminor version updates to their very same client apps. I just wish there was some kind of ACID test suite for XMPP or something else to reproducibly validate spec compliance. Maybe a test server or similar as a reference implementation. This way client or server maintainers would have to run their programs against the official test server to increase their compliance stats.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- MarsIronPI 8mo ago
  This is what I mean by "it needs a good client". It needs a single implementation that works consistently across platforms and has the features and UX people care about. The groundwork is there, and is better than Matrix. It's a matter of writing software to implement the useful subset of the specs.
  - singpolyma3 8mo ago
    Working on it
ekianjo 8mo ago
Xmpp clients are completely awful on Linux desktop, and can't do voice and video chat correctly with clients on Android like Conversations
- nicoco 8mo ago
  You can with dino. I wish I had the time to work on getting A/V calls back in gajim. It could be worth asking an NLNet grant for that… https://dino.im/ https://dino.im/
  - ekianjo 8mo ago
    Yes it works but it lacks QOL features like automatic compression of videos or images when sending attachments. A bit too barebones.
    - upofadown 8mo ago
      How would you send an uncompressed video/image? Like thumbnails?
    - rcakebread 8mo ago
      Why would you want to automatically degrade the quality?
      - ekianjo 8mo ago
        It does not have to be automatic. Easy to expose that through options, most clients do that. Also, I don't need pictures shared to be at the utmost best quality.
- leetnewb 8mo ago
  In addition to Dino, you could use movim as a PWA.
  - edhelas 8mo ago
    And they are both compatible, unlike Element and ElementX ;)
ranger_danger 8mo ago
I tried XMPP recently and was surprised to see just how barren it was. The tech might be good but if nobody is using it after all these years, what's the point?
- nicoco 8mo ago
  It is used in a non-federated context as the underlying in a lot of places (NATO, Zoom, british Military, Grindr, Jisti…). Federated usage is mostly private chats that don't really want to advertise that they do use it. It is sad because public groups also just work, but I know clients are missing a few features that would improve usability/UX. Some people are working on that, cf https://movim.eu/ https://movim.eu/ for instance.
- leetnewb 8mo ago
  Isn't this the sort of moment that pushes users off of Discord into alternatives? Maybe pragmatic/opportunistic users should establish new channels or servers and advertise them when the shoe drops on Discord.
  - troupo 8mo ago
    To be an alternative it had to be an alternative. Not "we had a great community with image uploads, voice chats, client parity across all platforms, miltiple servers set up in one click, songle login, game integrations etc., so now we move to this broken disjointed landscape of inconsistently implemented features"
    - leetnewb 8mo ago
      Most users don't need every single one of those features. It reminds me of the conversations about lemmy and the fediverse after the reddit api uproar. The alternative link aggregators didn't need to do everything well, just the core things well enough to build a community that sustains engagement and becomes discoverable. But it failed at the major pieces: performance, scalability, media handling, moderation, governance, and federation. In contrast, I would argue xmpp covers a strong subset of commonly used discord features well enough to provide the chat/social component to many existing communities.
ethin 8mo ago
XMPP's biggest failure is that there is no client which is on advanced on most of it's compliance suites. So if someone uses Windows for example, they're pretty much locked to "Well, you can chat, but no video/voice calls for you". I really hope this changes because XMPP does look interesting.
- opan 8mo ago
  Gajim works on Windows and is the best non-mobile client.
  - MarsIronPI 8mo ago
    But Gajim doesn't support the defacto standard calls extension. And now even the support for the older extension has been removed. Dino is a better experience, for the limited feature set that it supports (which does include calls and group calls).
  - ethin 8mo ago
    Doesn't it use gtk? Which currently has no built-in accessibility on Windows?

fishgoesblub 8mo ago

Same here, I was hoping to see it listed in the article. XMPP is close to being right there in being able to compete with Discord. It just needs a good client with Spaces support (XEP-0503), along side user roles with permissions, and server side voice channels.

Semaphor 8mo ago
> It just needs a good client Generally an XMPP issue :/ The protocol is amazing and selfhostable servers (I use prosody) are great. But The only client I enjoy is conversations, and that’s mobile while my main usage is always desktop. There are decent clients, but none I’d say are great.

cookiengineer 8mo ago

The problem with XMPP is that it's a suite of RFCs. It's like describing DNS, which is a conglomerate of RFCs so complex that it's unlikely to be implemented correctly and completely. XMPP is a design fail in that regard, because if you have to tell your chat contacts to download a different client that fulfills OMEMO or XEP-whatever specs, then yeah, ain't gonna happen for most people. (I am still a proponent of XMPP, but the working groups need to get their shit together to unify protocol support across clients)

aaravchen 8mo ago
This has been brought up on HN before, and people smarter than me identified that this view is about 10 years out of date. Yes it's a bunch of XEPs, but there are standardized "sets" apparently that include all of the things any other similar tools do. It sounds like only very niche old/minimal XMPP clients don't support encryption by default for example, and virtually all servers have supported it for many years.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- Groxx 8mo ago
  And unlike Matrix(/Element), it works most of the time.
- worble 8mo ago
  Is there a recommended or "blessed" server and client combo for someone who just wants to migrate their friends off discord? The main site https://xmpp.org/software/ https://xmpp.org/software/ lists lots of different options but I have no idea what core/advanced means and comparing all of these would take ages.
  - mfru 8mo ago
    Conversations is a great Android client (also brings their own backend instance if you don't want to host your own), I don't know about iOS or server though.
    - nicoco 8mo ago
      https://monal-im.org/ https://monal-im.org/ is my personal recommendation for iOS.
  - cookiengineer 8mo ago
    The ironic part is that those software description files are meaningless. AstraChat claims Advanced in all categories, but it's a proprietary commercial software, so nobody ran any kind of test suite to verify this. That software list, how it's done and how it's ranked is literally confirming my initial point of critique :D Last time I tried out several chat clients, most of them were alpha software, had lots of bugs appearing in normal conversation flows, well, or were so broken that they broke compatibility in subminor version updates to their very same client apps. I just wish there was some kind of ACID test suite for XMPP or something else to reproducibly validate spec compliance. Maybe a test server or similar as a reference implementation. This way client or server maintainers would have to run their programs against the official test server to increase their compliance stats.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
MarsIronPI 8mo ago
This is what I mean by "it needs a good client". It needs a single implementation that works consistently across platforms and has the features and UX people care about. The groundwork is there, and is better than Matrix. It's a matter of writing software to implement the useful subset of the specs.
- singpolyma3 8mo ago
  Working on it

ekianjo 8mo ago

Xmpp clients are completely awful on Linux desktop, and can't do voice and video chat correctly with clients on Android like Conversations

nicoco 8mo ago
You can with dino. I wish I had the time to work on getting A/V calls back in gajim. It could be worth asking an NLNet grant for that… https://dino.im/ https://dino.im/
- ekianjo 8mo ago
  Yes it works but it lacks QOL features like automatic compression of videos or images when sending attachments. A bit too barebones.
  - upofadown 8mo ago
    How would you send an uncompressed video/image? Like thumbnails?
  - rcakebread 8mo ago
    Why would you want to automatically degrade the quality?
    - ekianjo 8mo ago
      It does not have to be automatic. Easy to expose that through options, most clients do that. Also, I don't need pictures shared to be at the utmost best quality.
leetnewb 8mo ago
In addition to Dino, you could use movim as a PWA.
- edhelas 8mo ago
  And they are both compatible, unlike Element and ElementX ;)

ranger_danger 8mo ago

I tried XMPP recently and was surprised to see just how barren it was. The tech might be good but if nobody is using it after all these years, what's the point?

nicoco 8mo ago
It is used in a non-federated context as the underlying in a lot of places (NATO, Zoom, british Military, Grindr, Jisti…). Federated usage is mostly private chats that don't really want to advertise that they do use it. It is sad because public groups also just work, but I know clients are missing a few features that would improve usability/UX. Some people are working on that, cf https://movim.eu/ https://movim.eu/ for instance.
leetnewb 8mo ago
Isn't this the sort of moment that pushes users off of Discord into alternatives? Maybe pragmatic/opportunistic users should establish new channels or servers and advertise them when the shoe drops on Discord.
- troupo 8mo ago
  To be an alternative it had to be an alternative. Not "we had a great community with image uploads, voice chats, client parity across all platforms, miltiple servers set up in one click, songle login, game integrations etc., so now we move to this broken disjointed landscape of inconsistently implemented features"
  - leetnewb 8mo ago
    Most users don't need every single one of those features. It reminds me of the conversations about lemmy and the fediverse after the reddit api uproar. The alternative link aggregators didn't need to do everything well, just the core things well enough to build a community that sustains engagement and becomes discoverable. But it failed at the major pieces: performance, scalability, media handling, moderation, governance, and federation. In contrast, I would argue xmpp covers a strong subset of commonly used discord features well enough to provide the chat/social component to many existing communities.

ethin 8mo ago

XMPP's biggest failure is that there is no client which is on advanced on most of it's compliance suites. So if someone uses Windows for example, they're pretty much locked to "Well, you can chat, but no video/voice calls for you". I really hope this changes because XMPP does look interesting.

opan 8mo ago
Gajim works on Windows and is the best non-mobile client.
- MarsIronPI 8mo ago
  But Gajim doesn't support the defacto standard calls extension. And now even the support for the older extension has been removed. Dino is a better experience, for the limited feature set that it supports (which does include calls and group calls).
- ethin 8mo ago
  Doesn't it use gtk? Which currently has no built-in accessibility on Windows?