Slack has raised our charges by $195k per year

For those of you recommending matrix, have you tried in earnest to use it? I couldn't get reliable video and call to work, even with stun/turn servers properly configured (chrome doesn't trust let's encrypt for ICE certs, that was a fun one to debug, had to go with zerossl).

Sometimes the phone wouldn't ring, rarely did video work.

The element app for android doesn't notify correctly unless the app is open.

For day to day desktop chat it's great, but it falls apart on videoconferencing and mobile

I can’t really comment on video calls in Matrix since I never used them in Slack either. For me the main draw is having one tool that does one job well, rather than trying to be the all-in-one hub for everything. I’d rather have messaging in one place, email wherever it lives, and video calls on a separate tool that’s actually good at that, instead of relying on a centralized system that tries to cover all bases but ends up being mediocre at most of them.

Around a year ago I could do calls reliably on it, but recently I have been having a bad experience, I am not sure what changed.

Are you having these problems on Element X or Element Classic (the old mobile app, which is in maintenance mode?)

(Element Classic used a mix of legacy Matrix voip calling for 1:1 and Jitsi for group calling; Element X has switched to native MatrixRTC (Element Call) for E2EE for both 1:1 and group, but is technically still beta as we’re still finishing the 1:1 UX. On Android, notifications are a known problem on Element X Android but if you give the app total permission to run in the background they should work.)

I have used Matrix daily for several years now, however I don't ever use voice or video on it, just text chats and image uploads. Regarding the Element Android issue, you might need to install ntfy. The only Matrix client I've used with unreliable notifications is FluffyChat. I think both Element and Element X are working fine for me.

I grow tired of your chronic replies to everyone critical of Matrix implying that they’re holding it wrong.

If everyone using your software has trouble using your software (or tracking the bugfixes supposedly resolved in the never ending rewrites, rebrands, etc), maybe you should stop pushing it until it’s ready.

Every experience I have had with using Matrix has been a bad one: with the old client app, with the new client app, with the web app, trying to run the server, etc. It’s clunky and slow when it does work. It phones home to the Vector servers by default, despite being selfhosted. It’s a pain in the ass for end users to point it at a different hosted instance.

Maybe the answer is just “the whole thing, client, server, protocol - it’s all still in beta and you shouldn’t expect it to work well”. If that’s the answer, I wish people would stop recommending it until such time it works well.

It has been a year or two since I used Slack heavily, but when I did the video calls were unreliable and poor. Maybe it has improved since then.

I recommend Matrix, and it works well for me. I'm using Element (old) on Android though, not Element X.

I'm not implying they're holding it wrong - i'm explaining that we're finishing a migration from one VoIP stack to another, and the new tech is still beta, hence asking which one they're using. If you're going to try to flame my replies, please at least read them.

The responses you're getting perfectly encapsulate the problem.

I'm not knocking the people trying to be helpful, but "<x> client sucks, use <y> client instead" is a huge UX problem in and of itself.