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Element X, Call and Server Suite are production ready (element.io)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Element is launching the world’s first communications platform based on the upcoming Matrix 2.0 release. The result is blazing performance which outperforms the mainstream alternatives - across a decentralised system that enables self-hosting and end-to-end encryption - as well as open standard interoperability to revolutionise real time communication between large organisations.

Built on Matrix 2.0, Element X now rivals the performance of centralised consumer messaging apps, empowering organisations to address the shadow IT issues caused by consumer-grade messaging apps in the workplace.

The new Element communications solution consists:

Element X, our next-gen app with an array of new features

Element Call fully integrated into Element X, for native Matrix-encrypted voice and video

Element Server Suite, our backend hosting solution for powerful admin control and Matrix 2.0 performance

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

All I read is Marketing Tech Speak that sounds no different than anything else that gets advertised in my face. At work, we use Teams. It is a pain sometimes when it gets a little buggy, but integrates into SharePoint/OneDrive and the noise suppression in meetings is pretty awesome. At home I use discord or GChat because that is where all my friends are. I don't assume I have privacy on any of these platforms and they all work on my phone and computer.

How is the user experience? Ultimately, give me privacy, but if the user experience and UI don't give any improvements over the corporate ones, I will have to try it some other time.

[–] sweng 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You can self-host it, making it as private as you want.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

But my question is about the user experience and UI. I can run a docker script, but I care about the thing I can see and interact with.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

The user experience is generally worse than Discord, like any federated system compared to centralized platforms.

There is Cinny, a client with an UI similar to Discord. Element X is a great mobile client, and imo far superior to Discord for 1 on 1 chats (to be fair, I really dislike Discord 1 on 1 chat experience, so I'm biased).

Edit: It's worth noting that Element X does not support Spaces yet, which allows for grouping of rooms similar to Discord Server.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for answering the question! I am genuinely both trying to make a point and still be open to try new things. To me, there seems to be a real downward turn on UI/UX in a lot of applications these days, corporate included. When they mentioned the bit about supporting corporate, I have a hard time believing they will get very far with that customer group right now.

I really wish software, especially FOSS, would stop making the UI the afterthought. I try to keep a holistic view when designing things and everyone has a seat at the table. I wonder if projects are boxing themselves in and making it harder for the UI teams to properly integrate, and vice versa? I will happily take criticism and ideas from pretty much anyone, especially outside my immediate teams.

I am pretty out of the game on that as I spent quite a few years doing controls engineering instead. I am back in Software now and I feel old and a little lost. I graduated back in 2012 and we didn't have all of these crazy developer roles and more specialized degrees. They were trying to get a Game Design program started when I graduated, and it was supposedly a mess for a few years.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I also think the Element Web UI is lacking, but it's gotten better over the last few years, after they started taking design more seriously. With Element X they do proper UI/UX design as a first step, and then implement it.

The old Riot.im client was exceptionally terrible, in performance and design, so I'm really happy with Element X.

Element being focused on corporate needs is nothing new, since they've a few large (government, healthcare) contracts, and they've struggled with financing for years now. Big deployments using Synapse is the big reason dendrite doesn't see much development anymore, even though it was planned as a replacement for Synapse at first.

I believe many of their side projects (P2P, VR) exist because they try to find possible business avenues, although I feel like most of them aren't successful (and they stretch to thin because of that).

[–] lambda 0 points 2 months ago

"Blazing fast" makes me check out so fast.