What is the best selfhostable messaging service for family? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago by greensky@sh.itjust.works to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

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I want to selfhost a messaging service for my family. It should be secure and have voice calling option, ideally. Thank you.

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[-] ElkanNixed@programming.dev 8 points 1 year ago

I'm on Signal (obviously not self hosted) and even if I really wanted to move to another platform be it self hosted or yet another privacy focussed one, I can't ask my friends and family to move to another platform again. I already asked them to move away from WhatsApp, can't do it again..

[-] lemba@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago

💯 this. It took me several years to get most of my friends, co-workers and family to Signal...

[-] ancoraunamoka@lemmy.dbzer0.com -3 points 1 year ago

This is what I told most of my friend when they asked me to move to signal. Is is going to be a very shitty company managed by a shitty egocentric person and you are going to regret. But you will make people move and they won't do it again and won't understand the reasons

[-] Dusty@l.dustybeer.com 7 points 1 year ago

I host my own matrix instance for my wife, a few friends and I. It has worked great for us. They can either use a web app, or an app on their phone.

[-] randomguy2323@lemmy.fmhy.ml 0 points 1 year ago

Hey , do you have a guide on how to host my own matrix server?

[-] Dusty@l.dustybeer.com 2 points 1 year ago

I used the official docker image: https://hub.docker.com/r/matrixdotorg/synapse/

My compose file looks like this: https://pastebin.com/3JYzAPr2

Pretty sure I just followed the instructions there.

[-] PoisonedPrisonPanda@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 1 year ago

how have you secured your server when opening your network to the outside?

[-] Dusty@l.dustybeer.com 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm using a cloudflare tunnel for it. I also have crowdsec installed, only allow ssh keys and only from my IP (I have a static from my ISP), and no ports open other than the ones needed.

[-] scott@lem.free.as 7 points 1 year ago

Matrix. With its bridges you can "wire-in" networks like WhatsApp, Slack, Signal, Telegram, Discord, iMessage, SMS, e-mail, ... and have a single app that interacts with them all. You can have a single group chat with users from all those networks participating and no one would be any the wiser.

[-] wgs@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago

From my experience (with Dendrite, not synapse, so keep that in mind), bridges create "fake" users to replicate your contacts on these platform as matrix users, and they are visible on the whole instance by all their users (but you might not be able to talk to them). Also, in puppeted mode (which is what you want to "replace" your app with matrix), only a single user can use the bridge at a time, so the other users cannot use it.

[-] scott@lem.free.as 1 points 1 year ago

This is true but if you're self-hosting it's not that much bother to add additional copies of a bridge for other users (granted, it's not ideal).

[-] wgs@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 year ago

Bridges were not that easy to manage in my case (regarding process management, and ease of config deployment/reproductibility). It was on OpenBSD though, so your mileage may vary. And still, it leaks all of your contact informations to the other users of the server (like their phone number eventually), so definitely not suited for public instances.

[-] SirEDCaLot@lemmy.fmhy.ml 0 points 1 year ago

Leaks contact information to the other users? Can you elaborate on that? I haven't heard anything like that

[-] wgs@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago

That's from my own experience. I had a self-hosted matrix server running with Dendrite, and the mautrix-whatsapp bridge running. The bridge was running in puppeted mode, so upon synchronizing contacts, the bridge created "fake" users on the matrix server, one for each of my whatsapp contacts. The matrix username of these contacts is (by default) whatsapp_<phone_number>:domain.tld. And these users are visible (at least) by other users on the same server. It was my own instance and I was the sole user so I didn't really care. But when a friend of mine wanted to try matrix, I created an account for him on the server, and when he joined, he could see all the fake whatsapp/telegram/discord users created by the bridge on the server. And as the default username includes the phone number, he basically had access to my whole phone contact list in real time.

[-] SirEDCaLot@lemmy.fmhy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Very interesting.

https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/8969 This may be of interest- it's basically the same thing. Seems that before that patch was merged, bridge-created puppet contacts would show up in searches.
Of course that's for Synapse not Dendrite. So it sounds like Dendrite never applied that same functionality.

[-] curioushom@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago

Matrix (synapse server) probably fits the bill.

[-] milouse@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 year ago

Just for a family and friends I'd go for xmpp. Matrix is still an enormous greavy piece of software, hard to self host if you don't want to pay for a gigantic server just for it. Also the UI is more like gamer/company chat (discord, slack...), what may not be what your family expect, coming from whatsapp, telegram, or plain sms. In the contrary xmpp is very light and nowadays a lot of tutorial exists on how to configure it, even with voice/video. Plus mobile apps like conversation match the habbits of other messengers.

[-] grannyweatherwax@feddit.nl 3 points 1 year ago

Matrix.

[-] TrinityTek@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Another Nextcloud user here. If you setup a Nextcloud server you will see many benefits, with the Talk app being just one of them. Install OnlyOffice and you can even collaboratively edit documents in the web browser similar to Google Docs or o365. I really can't recommend Nextcloud enough. Anyone who is into self hosting should at least give it a try.

[-] phrogpilot73@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

The only downside to the OnlyOffice document server is that if you can't edit documents through the Nextcloud app (or mobile browser) on your phone with the community edition. However, you can set up your Nextcloud instance in the OnlyOffice documents app on your phone, and edit that way.

[-] TrinityTek@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

That's a great tip! I had no idea that you could do that with the OnlyOffice app now. I tried a few years ago and you could only connect to their hosted services. This is a game changer! I had been doing all my editing on the desktop.

[-] phrogpilot73@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yup. In the clouds section of the app, you have options for OnlyOffice cloud, OwnCloud, Nextcloud, kdrive, some crappy well known proprietary ones, and any WebDAV storage. Once I figured that out, I was pretty happy.

[-] TrinityTek@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yes! I tried it as soon as I saw your comment. It works great! Back when I last tried it there was only one option to enter the address of one of their hosted servers. This is great news. Thanks for the tip!

[-] philpo@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

Also a vote for Matrix and Synapse. Works great and you can decide if you federate or not.

[-] t3chskel@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

We use Matrix (Synapse) and it works extremely well. I just wish I could get a STUN/TURN server working...

[-] ticho@social.fossware.space 1 points 1 year ago

My family has been using Synapse since before Covid hit, including TURN server (coturn) for audio and video calls. No complaints about the UI so far, except for Element on iPhone reportedly "freezing" for a few moments when sending messages - and that was over a year ago.

What problems do you have getting TURN to work?

[-] t3chskel@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I tried setting up coturn with docker but I can't remember offhand what I had issues with. I am running a reverse proxy (Traefik) with wildcard certs. I should dig into it again. Do you happen to have any pointers or any good guides I could try following?

[-] hitagi@ani.social 1 points 1 year ago

I like Matrix (I mostly use it with my sister) though XMPP might be a good option too if it's just for family.

[-] johntash@eviltoast.org 0 points 1 year ago

If you're already using Nextcloud, it has a chat w/ video chat as well.

Matrix / Synapse / Element.io is also pretty cool. The UX might not be on par with what some family expects though. I don't know if voice/video chat is built-in yet or not, but it was at least an option before.

[-] stefan@lemmy.kopieczek.com 1 points 1 year ago

Voice / video requires a separate TURN server, IIRC.

[-] fleg@szmer.info 0 points 1 year ago

Matrix works, but it's way harder and more expensive to selfhost than for example XMPP, which can be hosted even on cheapest VPS or first RPi. I would definitely take the cost and "how hard is it to maintain in the long run" into consideration.

Mattermost also works and is pretty easy to selfhost, but it doesn't have federation.

Another option is always an email with delta.chat - I don't think it offers voice calling, but email is one of the most basic services one can host, and many automated solutions to help with that exist.

[-] rglullis@communick.news 0 points 1 year ago

The problem of XMPP is not hosting it, it's the clients. Give me one easy-to-use guide to have

e2ee text messaging
groups
audio/video calling

working equally well on desktop, Android and iOS, and I will gladly drop my matrix server.

[-] poVoq@slrpnk.net -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Don't listen to all the Matrix fanboys here 😅 It's no fun having to manage the massive server application and the mobile apps pretty much suck.

I would go for https://snikket.org/ which is a lightweight all in one solution based on XMPP specifically designed for what you want.

[-] wounn@lemmy.pt 1 points 1 year ago

Massive server application? Running on a PI 3? If you don't want to federate with massive servers it's super lightweight!

this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023

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