it's really not reliable especially for non techies. plus it's a real p2p so..

just setup XMPP

I have tried it before, it's neat, but notifications are not reliable since it is peer to peer (both devices need to be online for a connection), a bit like Briar if you've used that before. I don't think it uses the Tor network, so it might be faster than Briar (but also less anonymous?)

I don't have experience with the jami daemon though, so can't comment if that solves the peer to peer issue.

I personally like Matrix the best, since you have federation, options for encrypted chats, self-host able with Continuwuity (or Synapse), lots of alternative clients for nearly every OS (even mobile Linux, you have Fractal! FluffyChat also works but it's definitely oriented towards Android devices)

Wow, as someone who has been hosting XMPP for family for 10+ years and only liking it, I'm amazed by the overwhelmingly supportive comments for it, it's like people are recovering from a Matrix hangover and rediscovering the things they already had for their merit. So yeah that's my +1: XMPP is really something dependable, it just works, and the sysadmin story is great too (my preference goes to ejabberd for the best "turnkey" experience, but you can't go wrong with prosody either if you are willing to read some guide).

I never tried deploying Jami, as I settled on XMPP for this use-case. But, let us know how it goes if you do try it! I haven't seen many review it before so I'd be interested to hear your experience.

It's 2026... Why do people insist on skipping the fact that XMPP exists?

Anyway. Just set up XMPP.

I would be very careful with it as it has a long history of being unstable and hasn't had a security audit.

Honesty my recommendation would be to use Signal or Molly. While it isn't the best from a anonymity perspective it is reliable and easy to understand and use

I was never able to get it to work reliably. For those mentioning XMPP, Jami uses a serverless approach with a distributed hash table instead. In principle it has better privacy but in reality it's flaky. IDK for sure if the flakiness comes from the DHT but either way I gave up. I might try again sometime.

Simplex chat service anyone?

Quick question after you found happiness using IRC: was xmpp not enough ? I'm genuinely curious in case I need something like this

Are text message and group chats not acceptable anymore?