this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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77
XMPP as a Discord alternative for small group? (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
80 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hi. I have a group of 6 people using Discord to chat. Recently Discord changed a lot and we're looking for an alternative. We have a few requirements:

  • Good client on multiple platforms
  • Easy to use search
  • Self hosted
  • Permanently saved chat history & attachments on server (no expiration)
  • Easy image upload (Ctrl+V to post image from clipboard)

IRC isn't an option as chat history is saved on the client, and there's no good integrated way to share files and preview images. Matrix would be an overkill as we're a small group not interested in federation, and the available clients had a few bugs. Mattermost lacks a good mobile app (their current one had bunch of bugs). XMPP appears to be the best as it is extensible and has many clients available.

However, I tried configuring prosody on my FreeBSD server and it seems like it doesn't permanently save chat history or attachment files. Does anyone know if these can be solved? Or is there any better alternative than XMPP?

Thanks.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web
IMAP Internet Message Access Protocol for email
SSL Secure Sockets Layer, for transparent encryption
TLS Transport Layer Security, supersedes SSL
VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)

[Thread #663 for this sub, first seen 8th Apr 2024, 01:05] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Which flavor of XMPP you tried?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

As I mentioned in the OP I tried Prosody on my FreeBSD server, I've yet to get attachments working.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Oh sorry, misread exactly this part. I've had great experience with ejabberd, maybe worth trying it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Prosody claims to support Message Archive Management and HTTP file sharing, sounds like the feature you want, or at least it is close.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Yeah it seems to have bunch of plugins but it's not working well for some reason.. :(

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Signal is a good alternatives as you can group call and screen share (no audio), share images and videos etc. Messages are saved locally on devices unless a timer is set on the chat

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Thanks, but it's not ideal for our usage, it's not selfhosted and there aren't many clients available. Plus it doesn't have unlimited message and attachments history.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Hands down Revolt. Best alternative I have found so far.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

I've tried installing and using revolt. It's okay and our members like it but the lack of support and a usable control panel makes it hard to choose.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I am surprised that no one mentioned snikket yet, which is essentially a distribution of Prosody with sane defaults and a custom client.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Thanks, actually [email protected] mentioned it earlier lol. I'm planning to try this as I get a linux box running.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (3 children)

delta.chat

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Looks interesting, but isn't this slow though?

Our chatroom is very active and the members won't move if it's much slower compared to Discord unfortunately..

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It's basically real-time, even sending large files is very fast, I don't know the details of the reason, maybe it's because there is not much difference between IMAP and TLS, or because the roundcube we deploy is super fast?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This is interesting. I've never heard of this project but it looks really neat.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

We've been using it on our phones and desktops for three years now, it's very stable

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Do you self host your email or use it with an email provider? Also, does it need its own inbox/address to function? I can't really tell from the documentation if it functions along side normal emails or if it'll mess up your inbox if you use it with your normal inbox/address.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

We use a self-hosted roundcube mail server, which is not necessary, and we did initially assign each person an additional account dedicated to delta.chat to prevent inbox clutter, but that didn't happen.

Nowadays, we prefer to send and receive emails in delta.chat. One of my groups already has 70 members, contains a lot of images and PDFs, and it's still very fluid to use.

We also run bots for integration with other systems, such as task management, meeting notifications, etc.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Awesome - thanks for the info!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Yes, and this can be paired with a self-hosted mail server, too.

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