A new messaging app is in development, and the project is described as “an open source WhatsApp for the Fediverse.”
I personally really like Matrix, but there are a few outstanding complaints about it. The biggest one is that the reference implementation everyone uses by default is known to be bloated and slow, and poor at scaling. Server admins have had a huge challenge of supporting a large amount of data for things like room history, which in the past required propagation to every server hosting every participant. The protocol itself has been described by some developers as overtly complex.
Some of this seems to be improving, particularly with development of a Go-based backend implementation, Dendrite.
And if dendrite fail, we wait for the rust-based backend implementation. :)
It’s funny. When I was typing my original response, I was under the impression that Dendrite was Rust-based! 😂 I’m really glad I checked before posting!
Fun fact. I didn’t made a joke. There is a rust based version in alpha state. But I don’t remember it’s codename.
Edit: okay, it has no codename:
@deadsuperhero
> the reference implementation everyone uses by default is known to be bloated and slow, and poor at scaling
This doesn’t seem to stop the fediverse growing (*cough* Mastodon *cough*).
@deadsuperhero
> development of a Go-based backend implementation, Dendrite
Also Rust-based homeserver implementations like Construct and Conduit. Both of which are usable, although missing a few nice-to-have added features. Eg Conduit is still working on;
“E2EE emoji comparison over federation (E2EE chat works)… Outgoing read receipts, typing, presence over federation”
Good to know. I signed up for beeper.com which seems cool. I am a bit concerned about data collection and privacy, so I’m trying to set up my own instance.
