Hello,

I’ve been self hosting Nextcloud for the last half a year, and my family has been using Nextcloud Talk to communicate. However, as cool it is overall, we suffer from a lot of missed messages. I’ve been keeping an eye on (and contributing to) the Android app, but even with all the updates, it seems like they can’t quite figure out the issue with notifications not appearing consistently. My wife is fed up, so I’m looking for alternatives.

It seems like Matrix is the next logical one to try, but the Android apps have pretty poor reviews. A lot of the self hosted messengers also seem to be more like Slack replacements, rather than focused on family & friend use.

Has anyone had a good experience with a self hosted messenger for family use?

Thanks!

  • justme@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1·
    53 minutes ago

    I’m using matrix for years with my wife and my mom, never really had issues, but maybe my requirements are not that high.

  • johntash@eviltoast.orgEnglish
    2·
    2 hours ago

    I like the idea of matrix, but I wouldn’t recommend it yet. Maybe after a few more years if the ux improves.

  • Andres@social.ridetrans.it
    5·
    11 hours ago

    @anakin78z We use xmpp (prosody on the server; a mix of conversations/cheogram/dino/snikket on our phones and laptops). We’ve got a family chat where the kids share the latest memes, and we message back and forth. We do also have signal (or in my case, Molly) installed, but don’t use it that much. My wife just switched phones and signal was unable to transfer stuff from phone phone to the other - in general I find signal annoying to use.

    We use matrix for a few years but it was buggy and dumb.

    • anakin78z@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      1 hour ago

      Thanks for the info. My wife and I tried Signal a while back and didn’t care for it.

      I’m trying to get xmpp going today, even just as a test. 🤞

    • Andres@social.ridetrans.it
      4·
      11 hours ago

      @anakin78z I still have to use Matrix for work. The clients suck (literally every single one I’ve tried, and I even briefly maintained Neochat for debian) and I routinely get key errors.

  • Jul (they/she)@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    18·
    16 hours ago

    I use Signal because it’s the best balance of privacy and security vs. convenience and reliability I have found. Not self-hosted, but I’ve yet to find a self hosted alternative that is as reliable, especially since I don’t want to set up distributed servers, and it’s one of those things that “just needs to work” or people will abandon it quickly.

    And the older people I’ve convinced to use it, like my mom, have had very little trouble adopting it. It helped that RCS messaging is so unreliable on my phone since Google or my carrier keep seeming to break it (likely became I use GrapheneOS), and also for those with iPhones it is way more compatible with itself vs Apple and Google refusing to implement RCS in a way that all features work between them, like message reactions. Without RCS, my mom couldn’t send me decent quality pictures of my niece all the time, and I couldn’t send nice pictures of my outfits to the girl I’m dating, LOL.

  • hexagonwin@lemmy.todayEnglish
    8·
    14 hours ago

    xmpp. don’t matrix, it causes selfhosting-phobia for normies because its ui sucks. i had a friend try matrix with me for a while and now they’re never trying another foss messenger again unless its proved to be very good.

  • GreenKnight23@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    14 hours ago

    I’ve been doing research on this and came down to two.

    1. simplex
    2. delta chat

    simplex won because of the robust encryption and selfhosted option.

    a close contender was stoneage. I liked all it took was an S3 bucket. I didn’t like that it hasn’t been updated in 3 years.

    • unitedwithme@lemmy.todayEnglish
      4·
      12 hours ago

      SimpleX is going away I thought. Any reason you don’t want to use Signal, or setup XMPP/Jabber/Snikket/Prosody, etc.

      • GreenKnight23@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        9 hours ago

        signal has privacy problems.

        xmpp/jabber/snikket have encryption and security problems.

        from what I can see simplex has everything I need.

        • selfhosted
        • e2e encryption
        • forward security
        • routinely maintained
        • does not require user IDs

        My hesitation to using simplex is the selfhosting aspect of it. I’ve been researching the simplex protocol (SMP) and have been thinking out ways to develop a serverless version of it, that way you don’t get charged for something that’s not being used if you host it in the cloud.

        anyway, just my 2¢.

        • unitedwithme@lemmy.todayEnglish
          3·
          9 hours ago

          Try Simplex on Yunohost. I mean, it’s about as clean/quick as can be iirc. Simplex has the lead in security, but I recall the app stating they couldn’t keep servers funded and are shutting down. So you might need to run your own to be on the safe side.

          Signal had privacy problems?? Maybe using Google play notifications? I download the apk to be Google free, works on my lineage OS just fine without micro g.

          XMPP, if you’re all within the same ecosystem vs SMS or RCS chat (which only carriers services support), it’ll use OMEMO encryption and is e2e encryption. I host my own instance to have a little extra control. And that’s on top of everything else secure about it. Anyway, I believe you can enable traffic over Tor for XMPP, but I do not have that bc it breaks voice calls.

          • GreenKnight23@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            6 hours ago

            Signal had privacy problems?? Maybe using Google play notifications?

            I’m not a fan of having my personal identity tied to it. last I checked signal still requires* a phone number.

            looks like I might have been wrong originally, but it looks like signal actually does fwd secrecy as well as post-quantum encryption.

            keep in mind I’m replacing telegram. I have put off moving for some years but I have the itch to replace it now. simplex also has the closest feature-pairity to telegram out of all the messengers on that list.

            also I’m building and hosting this for very nontechnical users. if they heard tor they’d think it was the “darknet”.

            my goal is

            • keep it secure
            • keep it private
            • keep it simple
  • pienz@feddit.orgEnglish
    43·
    22 hours ago

    Grandma uses Signal, it looks like a normal texting app, nothing special

    • Joelk111@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      18 hours ago

      Just want to note that Molly IS Signal, just a fork of it with some added features, in case OP isn’t aware. Definitly just go for Signal unless you have a specific reason to use Molly.

  • Mio@feddit.nuEnglish
    3·
    15 hours ago

    I have never understood why there is no protocol that allows for multi-master node setup(if a message is written to one, then queue to write to the second one and ignore timestamp missmatchning and conflict resolution(It does not have to be perfect) - matrix put too much effort into this IMO).

    For family i use Signal. My coworkers use IRC and I have it setup in link-mode for multi master support(but IRC does not have new features like send image, thread, reactions, emoji, text-styling, audio/video calls). Using unrealircd. Neat when the local city network is up but the fiber connection from the city network to the internet is down so I can still write to some friends, or dont care about uptime on my server since they fallback to the second, free, Oracle VM.

  • communism@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5·
    17 hours ago

    Matrix works well for me.

    It’s not out yet, but I’d keep an eye on Flatline. It’s by the people who make Molly (Signal client fork—it’s pretty good, been using it for years). Flatline is a Molly-compatible server implementation, i.e. so that you can host your own Signal server. Because generally if someone asked for a “reliable messenger for family use” I’d recommend Signal as a polished and reliable option, though not self-hostable unfortunately.

  • stratself@lemdro.idEnglish
    23·
    23 hours ago

    Android notifications are notoriously difficult to get right. May I ask how is Nextcloud Talk currently implementing notifications? Is it through ntfy, a background service, or Google’s Firebase? Have you allowed background usage for both the push app and the chat app?

    I use Matrix with Continuwuity and Element X, and it’s doable most of the time except for small bugs. If you disable federation, the resource usage should be minimal too. But it also requires a third party for push service which can be unreliable.

    On the XMPP side, there is also Snikket which you could look into. It offers both a server (running modified Prosody) and a mobile client (modified Conversations). XMPP can run as an efficient background service on Android, so it’ll receive in-band notifications.

    Regardless of options, one of the main problem I’m aware of is that Android variants tend to overkill various background app, leading to missed notifications. I think it’s better to debug on that aspect as well

    • thirdBreakfast@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      13 hours ago

      I ran Snikket for a while a couple of months ago - notifications in the iOS app were late or never arrived till you opened the app.

    • anakin78z@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      8·
      23 hours ago

      I believe Nextcloud Talk uses FCM for notifications. The issue doesn’t seem to be on the FCM side, it’s the client marking messages as read incorrectly, or not notifying because it thinks it’s running in the foreground, etc. They’re definitely working on these issues, but my family has lost confidence in it.

      I will check out Snikket, thanks!

  • artyom@piefed.socialEnglish
    7·
    19 hours ago

    Does it have to be self-hosted? I’ve had tons of problems with Matrix. Many fewer issues with XMPP.

    Chatmail is probably the easiest and best bet for reliability. Deltachat is the OG but I like Arcanechat, it’s a fork with more features.

    • anakin78z@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      17 hours ago

      I guess it doesn’t have to be, but I really like the idea of having control over the data, and not handing it over to some other entity, even if they say they’re not evil. It just seems like communication without a 3rd party in between is a good idea, so I’m trying to make that work for now.

      • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.ukEnglish
        5·
        15 hours ago

        +1 for XMPP

        I’m currently using a public server until I get my own (Raspberry Pi based) Prosody server running

        Never had a missed notification / message and video calls are great too… even Grandma can use it

        Using Conversations (Android) and Monal (ios)

        • wilo108@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          14 hours ago

          I host snikket (which is built on top of prosody) for my family and (especially) my pre-teen children and their friends. Pretty happy with it, all things considered.

      • artyom@piefed.socialEnglish
        2·
        14 hours ago

        Definitely decentralization is a good idea, but it also adds a layer of complexity that many are unable to grasp. Signal is always the easiest but I have major concerns about their longevity.

  • surpador@programming.devEnglish
    18·
    23 hours ago

    Seconding the XMPP reccomendation- I run Prosody, which has been rock solid and stays up even when other services I run go down. File sharing, E2EE, reactions, voice and video calls- everything you’d expect from a modern messenger. Cheogram or Conversations are great Android clients, and Monal is the iOS client I’d reccomend.