I am really struggling to replace facebook messenger / whatsapp for a few casual conversations. My friends and I are all wanting to move away. We are not heavy users of this but need it to work. I think the requirements are:
-
floss client for android, linux, windows
-
persistent history across devices
-
reasonable security
-
don’t need to self host server
-
can send a message to offline user, they get it when they come online
-
not tied to or reliant on phone number / cell service
-
ETA: end user documentation explaining how to set up and common troubleshooting
tried:
-
matrix: the thing with having to keep track of room keys and stuff is too complicated. every time someone uses a new device it is a ton of issues and we could never quite get it ironed out
-
signal: tied to phone number, no history across devices
-
xmpp: similar to matrix the key situation is confusing, also no cross device history
-
ETA: simpleX: a lot of people here are mentioning simpleX. It didn’t come up in previous investigations so will give it a shot.
- ETA 2: It doesn’t seem to have persistent history across devices. Clarification?
I actually didn’t think this would be such a problem but it is breaking us. we don’t need a lot of sophisticated features like voice, video, moderation, 1000s of participants, spam protection etc that seem to be of concern to the projects. just simple text chat.
Matrix / Element is pretty streamlined nowadays, I’d give it a try again. It has all the features you mentioned above.
I agree with this. I don’t know what keeping track of rooms keys is. Never heard of that problem. Adding devices to an account (cross-signing) is pretty easy these days with a popup wizard. Or a backup key if you don’t have any online devices.
If you want persistent multi-device history it is really one of the few options.
Probably the other main options would be XMPP and Jami but I don’t have much experience with either of those.