Hi. I have a group of 6 people using Discord to chat. Recently Discord changed a lot and we’re looking for an alternative. We have a few requirements:

  • Good client on multiple platforms
  • Easy to use search
  • Self hosted
  • Permanently saved chat history & attachments on server (no expiration)
  • Easy image upload (Ctrl+V to post image from clipboard)

IRC isn’t an option as chat history is saved on the client, and there’s no good integrated way to share files and preview images. Matrix would be an overkill as we’re a small group not interested in federation, and the available clients had a few bugs. Mattermost lacks a good mobile app (their current one had bunch of bugs). XMPP appears to be the best as it is extensible and has many clients available.

However, I tried configuring prosody on my FreeBSD server and it seems like it doesn’t permanently save chat history or attachment files. Does anyone know if these can be solved? Or is there any better alternative than XMPP?

Thanks.

  • @hexagonwinOPEnglish
    1•8 months ago

    Thanks. Have you tried configuring infinite time for retention/attachments/history? I can’t find a way to disable those limits completely. Conversations on Android and Pidgin on Linux/Windows look pretty good, I’ve yet to find a good OSX one though. I’ll try checking out Snikket, thanks.

    • poVoqEnglish
      3•8 months ago

      Please don’t use Pidgin, its horribly outdated and doesn’t properly support nearly everything you want. For Windows Gajim is currently the best option, otherwise see: https://joinjabber.org

    • WeAreAllOneEnglish
      1•8 months ago

      Unfortunately I don’t remember about the retention setting.

      I would avoid Pidgin since I’m not so sure they implement fully omemo encryption. Try Gajim.