7 ms·

This has been brought up on HN before, and people smarter than me identified that this view is about 10 years out of date.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

This has been brought up on HN before, and people smarter than me identified that this view is about 10 years out of date.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.
  - leetnewb 8mo ago
    Hasn't social media like HN, Reddit, fediverse, etc. become the real clearinghouse of information about those sorts of questions? I can see how it would be nice for xmpp.org to be an authoritative source of truth, but user response/consensus seems more relevant these days, at least to me.
  - edhelas 8mo ago
    > 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. This is exactly what the Compliance Suits are for, and the XMPP Software Fundation is taking care of telling all the clients what they misses directly on the official website, for example: https://xmpp.org/software/movim/ https://xmpp.org/software/movim/
    - cookiengineer 8mo ago
      My point is about why clients like AstraChat can be listed with "Advanced" in the overview, but then in the details page it has nothing. See https://xmpp.org/software/astrachat-xmpp-client/ https://xmpp.org/software/astrachat-xmpp-client/ This should not be allowed.
      - edhelas 8mo ago
        Because the declaration file of the clients says that it is actually compatible with everything in this section. You can't run scripts on all the XEPs declared, some of them are purely redaction or bound to specific UI/UX behaviors. This is based on trust that the developers actually implemented things as stated.
        saghm 8mo ago
        Not being able to automate something is not the same as not being able to verify at all. It sounds like the parent commenter is arguing that at least some of the clients listed are not worthy of this trust because (either intentionally or due to developer error) they don't actually hold up to scrutiny. Obviously they're just one person and their opinion might not be representative but it's hard to argue that if some random user is expected to have enough time to try out various clients and figure out which ones work or don't that the official people in charge of making the recommendations of clients should probably be able to find the time to as well even if it's just a volunteer that they, well, you know...trust.
- nicoco 8mo ago
  The targeted audience of this website is, for now, developers. Communicating is hard. https://joinjabber.org/ https://joinjabber.org/ is/was an attempt at something more user-focused. It is not linked to the XMPP Software Foundation. BTW, joining the XSF and participating in discussion around protocol evolution, communication strategy and these sort of things is free, and only requires asking for write permission on the XSF wiki to add an application page. Everything happens in the open (mailing lists, chat rooms). We value democratic processes.
- Zokii0 8mo ago
  Monocles chat is best one for Android, it is the most complete chatting app for todays standards, unlike Conversations it has swipe to reply, last seen, emoji reactions etc. The only issue is making account there, need to use other homeserver like @conversations.im if you don't want to pay for their @monocles.eu . For IOS the only option is Monal. For web I find conversejs better than mov.im as movim doesn't encrypt sent pictures in chat at all, and encryption of text messages is sometimes broken depending on how you set it up in settings of account and in chat, as it needs to be activated on both places, so conversejs is better, but less enjoyable UI than movim
- opan 8mo ago
  >Is there a recommended or "blessed" server and client Not sure about servers, but for clients there's Gajim, Dino, and Conversations. Not much else is super relevant these days. Profanity exists but is significantly worse than irssi or weechat despite looking superficially similar. Kaidan is a KDE/Qt alternative to Gajim but I'm not sure if it's usable yet. It may be worth switching when it's fleshed out to escape the bugs and slowness of the GTK-based clients.
- MarsIronPI 8mo ago
  If you stick with mobile use, there is Snikket[0], which provides a branded server+mobile app ecosystem that should "just work". YMMV; I haven't tried it myself. [0]: https://snikket.org https://snikket.org
  - aaravchen 8mo ago
    I have and it works great. The developer is very active in updating and maintaining the software (both client and server), and it already supports most of the XEPs. It's open source and fully supports self-hosted as first class, but if you want to support the developer he offers a cloud hosting paid offering as well. There's a crossover offer with JMP.chat too. If you pay $5 upfront for your first month of JMP.chat, you can get a free cloud hosted Snikket server for it to be setup on. As long as you maintain at least one number with JMP.chat, you keep the server maintained. If you don't, you get a chance to migrate your data. The Snikket cloud server gives you an XMPP server admin account, and you can setup as many accounts as you want. The caveat is that Snikket implementation is optimized for <1000s of user accounts per server.
- pseudalopex 8mo ago
  Core and advanced meant the compliance suites.[1] [1] https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0479.html https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0479.html
- aaravchen 8mo ago
  Basically you need a server, which you host, pay someone else to host for you, or you join am existing server someone else hosts. Then you find a client. There are a ton of clients around, but it's like picking a browser before Chrome ate the world. Tons of options and everyone has thier own opinions and information about them.
palata 8mo ago
> Yes it's a bunch of XEPs, but there are standardized "sets" apparently If the answer to "it's confusing" is "there are apparently standardised sets", it sounds like it is, indeed, confusing :-).
- Groxx 8mo ago
  It's overwhelmingly more of an outsider talking point than an actual issue in practice. There's a category of people that just says any extensible protocol must fundamentally have massive amounts of incompatibility, and brings it up every chance they can... and while that is technically always possible, it only happens in practice if clients diverge greatly. XMPP clients mostly work together much better than Matrix clients, from what I've experienced, as long as they've been actively developed at some point in the last decade. Which is by far most clients in use.
  - palata 8mo ago
    Don't get me wrong, I have been hearing about XMPP forever, and I would love to have an opportunity to try it. Unfortunately it hasn't happened. I have been forced to use Slack, Discord, I have had opportunities to try Matrix, Zulip, of course I have been using IRC for a long time. But XMPP? I may have installed an app, but I haven't had an opportunity to actually use it. Is there a list of communities there? Then about it being confusing: you're right, that's an outsider point. Because I haven't been able to try it (again nobody ever told me "oh, this project is on XMPP, you can go ask your question with this app/website"), but I have been genuinely interested in it, I ended up on the official pages. - Check the RFC list: https://xmpp.org/rfcs/#6120 https://xmpp.org/rfcs/#6120. The first one is more than 200 pages, the second more than 100. There are 5 "basic RFCs" and 19 "further RFCs" (whatever "further" is supposed to mean). There is no way I will even open them all. Conclusion: I have no idea how XMPP works, except that there is XML in the mix and a whole bunch of stuff around. - There is a "technical overview" here: https://xmpp.org/about/technology-overview/ https://xmpp.org/about/technology-overview/. I invite you to have a look at it. Apart from the fact that it seems to use "XMPP" and "Jabber" interchangeably (I think? I'm confused), it kind of loses me at "Jingle", which seems to be a "multimedia specification" (does that mean it's for video?), and has a bunch of implementations, like "pidgin". Isn't pidgin an XMPP client? Here it's under the Jingle section. And then there are extensions, with a whole section just for "Multi User Chats": so the default is that there are no groups, and if my client supports this extension and the server supports it, then I can join a group? I gave up at "PubSub", I did not even read anything from "BOSH". As a person who wrote his own IRC client, contributed to Signal and looked into the Matrix protocol (which seems more complex than I am comfortable with), I must say that XMPP is in its very own league. My conclusion with Matrix was that nobody would ever want to write it from scratch, so there has to be some kind of `libmatrix` on top of which people could build. Seems hard in practice because it feels like it keeps changing. I don't know how fast XMPP is moving, but I would hope that it is now stable. Is there a libxmpp that contains all the necessary features to write a client? Not clear to me. It feels like it's still a complex ecosystem where it depends on the client, and on the server, and on what you want to do. > XMPP clients mostly work together much better than Matrix clients, from what I've experienced I can only take your word on it: I don't know a community that is on XMPP, so I haven't had a chance to try. Matrix has been frustrating, that I can say.

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.
- leetnewb 8mo ago
  Hasn't social media like HN, Reddit, fediverse, etc. become the real clearinghouse of information about those sorts of questions? I can see how it would be nice for xmpp.org to be an authoritative source of truth, but user response/consensus seems more relevant these days, at least to me.
- edhelas 8mo ago
  > 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. This is exactly what the Compliance Suits are for, and the XMPP Software Fundation is taking care of telling all the clients what they misses directly on the official website, for example: https://xmpp.org/software/movim/ https://xmpp.org/software/movim/
  - cookiengineer 8mo ago
    My point is about why clients like AstraChat can be listed with "Advanced" in the overview, but then in the details page it has nothing. See https://xmpp.org/software/astrachat-xmpp-client/ https://xmpp.org/software/astrachat-xmpp-client/ This should not be allowed.
    - edhelas 8mo ago
      Because the declaration file of the clients says that it is actually compatible with everything in this section. You can't run scripts on all the XEPs declared, some of them are purely redaction or bound to specific UI/UX behaviors. This is based on trust that the developers actually implemented things as stated.
      - saghm 8mo ago
        Not being able to automate something is not the same as not being able to verify at all. It sounds like the parent commenter is arguing that at least some of the clients listed are not worthy of this trust because (either intentionally or due to developer error) they don't actually hold up to scrutiny. Obviously they're just one person and their opinion might not be representative but it's hard to argue that if some random user is expected to have enough time to try out various clients and figure out which ones work or don't that the official people in charge of making the recommendations of clients should probably be able to find the time to as well even if it's just a volunteer that they, well, you know...trust.
nicoco 8mo ago
The targeted audience of this website is, for now, developers. Communicating is hard. https://joinjabber.org/ https://joinjabber.org/ is/was an attempt at something more user-focused. It is not linked to the XMPP Software Foundation. BTW, joining the XSF and participating in discussion around protocol evolution, communication strategy and these sort of things is free, and only requires asking for write permission on the XSF wiki to add an application page. Everything happens in the open (mailing lists, chat rooms). We value democratic processes.
Zokii0 8mo ago
Monocles chat is best one for Android, it is the most complete chatting app for todays standards, unlike Conversations it has swipe to reply, last seen, emoji reactions etc. The only issue is making account there, need to use other homeserver like @conversations.im if you don't want to pay for their @monocles.eu . For IOS the only option is Monal. For web I find conversejs better than mov.im as movim doesn't encrypt sent pictures in chat at all, and encryption of text messages is sometimes broken depending on how you set it up in settings of account and in chat, as it needs to be activated on both places, so conversejs is better, but less enjoyable UI than movim
opan 8mo ago
>Is there a recommended or "blessed" server and client Not sure about servers, but for clients there's Gajim, Dino, and Conversations. Not much else is super relevant these days. Profanity exists but is significantly worse than irssi or weechat despite looking superficially similar. Kaidan is a KDE/Qt alternative to Gajim but I'm not sure if it's usable yet. It may be worth switching when it's fleshed out to escape the bugs and slowness of the GTK-based clients.
MarsIronPI 8mo ago
If you stick with mobile use, there is Snikket[0], which provides a branded server+mobile app ecosystem that should "just work". YMMV; I haven't tried it myself. [0]: https://snikket.org https://snikket.org
- aaravchen 8mo ago
  I have and it works great. The developer is very active in updating and maintaining the software (both client and server), and it already supports most of the XEPs. It's open source and fully supports self-hosted as first class, but if you want to support the developer he offers a cloud hosting paid offering as well. There's a crossover offer with JMP.chat too. If you pay $5 upfront for your first month of JMP.chat, you can get a free cloud hosted Snikket server for it to be setup on. As long as you maintain at least one number with JMP.chat, you keep the server maintained. If you don't, you get a chance to migrate your data. The Snikket cloud server gives you an XMPP server admin account, and you can setup as many accounts as you want. The caveat is that Snikket implementation is optimized for <1000s of user accounts per server.
pseudalopex 8mo ago
Core and advanced meant the compliance suites.[1] [1] https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0479.html https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0479.html
aaravchen 8mo ago
Basically you need a server, which you host, pay someone else to host for you, or you join am existing server someone else hosts. Then you find a client. There are a ton of clients around, but it's like picking a browser before Chrome ate the world. Tons of options and everyone has thier own opinions and information about them.

palata 8mo ago

> Yes it's a bunch of XEPs, but there are standardized "sets" apparently If the answer to "it's confusing" is "there are apparently standardised sets", it sounds like it is, indeed, confusing :-).

Groxx 8mo ago
It's overwhelmingly more of an outsider talking point than an actual issue in practice. There's a category of people that just says any extensible protocol must fundamentally have massive amounts of incompatibility, and brings it up every chance they can... and while that is technically always possible, it only happens in practice if clients diverge greatly. XMPP clients mostly work together much better than Matrix clients, from what I've experienced, as long as they've been actively developed at some point in the last decade. Which is by far most clients in use.
- palata 8mo ago
  Don't get me wrong, I have been hearing about XMPP forever, and I would love to have an opportunity to try it. Unfortunately it hasn't happened. I have been forced to use Slack, Discord, I have had opportunities to try Matrix, Zulip, of course I have been using IRC for a long time. But XMPP? I may have installed an app, but I haven't had an opportunity to actually use it. Is there a list of communities there? Then about it being confusing: you're right, that's an outsider point. Because I haven't been able to try it (again nobody ever told me "oh, this project is on XMPP, you can go ask your question with this app/website"), but I have been genuinely interested in it, I ended up on the official pages. - Check the RFC list: https://xmpp.org/rfcs/#6120 https://xmpp.org/rfcs/#6120. The first one is more than 200 pages, the second more than 100. There are 5 "basic RFCs" and 19 "further RFCs" (whatever "further" is supposed to mean). There is no way I will even open them all. Conclusion: I have no idea how XMPP works, except that there is XML in the mix and a whole bunch of stuff around. - There is a "technical overview" here: https://xmpp.org/about/technology-overview/ https://xmpp.org/about/technology-overview/. I invite you to have a look at it. Apart from the fact that it seems to use "XMPP" and "Jabber" interchangeably (I think? I'm confused), it kind of loses me at "Jingle", which seems to be a "multimedia specification" (does that mean it's for video?), and has a bunch of implementations, like "pidgin". Isn't pidgin an XMPP client? Here it's under the Jingle section. And then there are extensions, with a whole section just for "Multi User Chats": so the default is that there are no groups, and if my client supports this extension and the server supports it, then I can join a group? I gave up at "PubSub", I did not even read anything from "BOSH". As a person who wrote his own IRC client, contributed to Signal and looked into the Matrix protocol (which seems more complex than I am comfortable with), I must say that XMPP is in its very own league. My conclusion with Matrix was that nobody would ever want to write it from scratch, so there has to be some kind of `libmatrix` on top of which people could build. Seems hard in practice because it feels like it keeps changing. I don't know how fast XMPP is moving, but I would hope that it is now stable. Is there a libxmpp that contains all the necessary features to write a client? Not clear to me. It feels like it's still a complex ecosystem where it depends on the client, and on the server, and on what you want to do. > XMPP clients mostly work together much better than Matrix clients, from what I've experienced I can only take your word on it: I don't know a community that is on XMPP, so I haven't had a chance to try. Matrix has been frustrating, that I can say.