Technology

I think it's supposed to become just normal element when it gets feature parity with current element

It is just a codename, Element X is going to be just Element once it replace the old one.

Jesus just go back to calling it Riot.IM the name keeps getting stupider and more corporate.

I wanted to try Element X but apparently my self hosted server is not compatible.

Featureset-wise it falls somewhere between IRC and Discord.

Matrix really is 21st-century IRC.

I will get shit for writing that, but Matrix in its current form shouldn't have seen the light of the day, nor should have been let to spread with close to no technical scrutiny and based on empty promises/hype like it did.

Just to be clear, I'm absolutely encouraging, in fact, actively promoting federated alternatives to things like WhatsApp, Messenger, Signal, Telegram, …
But I don't believe for a second that the foundations on which Matrix is built make sense, can be made to work well in practice, nor represent a problem worth spending so much time and effort solving. This article does a good job at introducing the "behind the scenes" of the protocol: https://telegra.ph/why-not-matrix-08-07

The whole history of Matrix can be summarized as:

• "let's do this because it's cool"

• "shit, it's hard/slow, but we will figure it out"

• "I have a breakthrough, here comes a new version of the protocol/client/…" (the ecosystem reboots)

(rinse and repeat)

Matrix has seen more incompatible reincarnations of itself in the last 5 years than XMPP in the last 20. Arathorn, its lead contributor and evangelist will keep apologizing, promising that this time they have their stuff in order, that whatever buzzword will solve this or that aspect of the problem, while the elephant still is in the room. You practically can't tell apart arathorn's messages of 2015 from those of 2022 and that would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

IMO Matrix is broken beyond repair, while XMPP is quietly used by millions of users. I wish Matrix could carry its own weight and be so unambiguously better that we wouldn't need competing alternatives there. To me, the better XMPP is XMPP itself, and I'd be happy to elaborate on that.

Kind of a mix between Discord and IRC. Although it doesn't have servers like Discord and is more of individuals rooms. In fact they made bridges an important feature, so an IRC room and Matrix room can be merged together without either side really noticing a difference. Same with Discord and a ton of other programs.

https://joinmatrix.org/guide/matrix-vs-discord/

technically it's an eventually consistent federated database (or series of databases i guess? dunno), which just happens to primarily be used for instant messaging similar to discord but also inheriting features from IRC.

"Sliding sync" is Matrix's own admission that the protocol is too complex and taxing on clients to be practical

I know of no major messaging service where the client wants to download everything

Admitting problems and improving/replacing your protocol is good, you make it sound like a bad thing. I mean you could argue that they should have started with this, but imo better late than never. From what I've seen this will take load off of the client AND the server, because both don't have to sync thousands and thousands of events anymore. It basically looks like an indexing/caching layer between client and server, which is standard practice to make things go faster, especially for thin clients.

I can’t wait to see what you’ll develop in response!

Because Synapse is already widely used. The Matrix foundation is also building Dendrite, which is in beta and written in Go.

Conduit is another server, in Rust https://gitlab.com/famedly/conduit

Covering up a bloated protocol by a faster language has its limits though, and in the case of Matrix, well, a faster language only buys you little