diff --git a/content/blog/instant-messaging.md b/content/blog/instant-messaging.md index f7cbf9c..ee0ba3d 100644 --- a/content/blog/instant-messaging.md +++ b/content/blog/instant-messaging.md @@ -11,6 +11,24 @@ As anyone who knows me could tell you, I am a strong proponent of XMPP/Jabber as * Must be reasonably self hostable. I say reasonably because Signal advocates will often say you can *technically* self host Signal, if you "simply" modify away the Twilio dependencies, modify the clients to connect to your server and distribute your client to all of your contacts, etc. * Closely tied to the last point, it must support federation. Self hosting without federation can work, but isn't particularly useful at scale. * Good mobile support with proper offline message archiving, instant notifications, etc +* Must not require [KYC](https://kycnot.me/about#what-is-kyc) to sign up Despite these requirements, I will still go into detail about some of the options that were ruled out, in case you aren't as rigid on these requirements as I am. +## Feature Overview + +As a tl;dr, here's a comparison table. The table is derived from a now defunct page by the [Divested](https://divested.dev/) team. A mirror can be seen [here](https://divestos-archive.codeberg.page/page/messengers.html). + +| Name | Jabber/XMPP | Matrix | Signal | Discord | WhatsApp | Telegram | +| ----- | ----------- | ------ | ------ | ------- | -------- | -------- | +| FOSS Client(s) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | +| FOSS Server | Yes | Yes | Code over wall | No | No | No | +| Federated | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | +| E2EE | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Only 1:1 chats | +| [KYC](https://kycnot.me/about#what-is-kyc) | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | + + +## In Depth + +### Matrix +Matrix is a federated and self hostable chat protocol, very similar conceptually to XMPP.