[pomfpomfpomf3]

Vector (+Matrix) is kinda like self-hosted slack/discord with proper history sync across all your devices, file uploads, nice UI, etc.

It's really good. I recommended it to 7 people and every single one liked it, even got 5 of them to set up their own federated homeservers. We're thinking about moving a ~60-people skype group there as well.

Only issue I had is Synapse hogging the CPU and getting laggy with a large room (#matrix:matrix.org with its 4 thousand members). I'm using scaleway's 3 EUR/month Starter VC1S server for Synapse though. Hopefully it will get even better with time.

[amandine]

Synapse 0.18.0 has just been released, might worth giving it a try as it improves things a bit.

Thanks for the support :)

[vertex-four]

Synapse does calm down once it's sorted everything out, luckily.

[kuschku]

Or you could just use IRC with quassel + quassel-webserver, and get basically all of the same, but with an actual open protocol. Which actually has support.

[mxuribe]

Actually matrix - the protocol upon which vector and now riot depend - is an open protocol; reference here: http://matrix.org/docs/spec/

And then of course, there are the matrix bridges to IRC, etc. Admittedly although i have been using vector clients AND have installed my own personal synapse server, i have no experience using/supporting the various matrix bridges, so can't speak to their quality.

That being said, if you've ever been curious about re-doing some aspects of IRC for the better, you might want to take a look at matrix (the protocol), and suggest improvements; we all stand to benefit from your (and the community's) suggestions.