Only Matrix.

Correction: Zulip is 100% open-source software, and has been for a decade now. (I lead the Zulip project). Zulip's protocol, which is used for client/server communication by all major clients, has extensive documentation including the complete change history for the last several years on https://zulip.com/api/ and https://zulip.com/api/changelog.

As far as I know, there is no mechanism through which Zulip could bait-and-switch a customer that Element could not also do. And I think that as a practical matter, it would be a lot easier for a new team to pick up developing Zulip if the Kandra Labs team were to disappear than the similar question for Matrix/Element.

The core reason is that Matrix is far less simple and self-contained than Zulip. I've talked to multiple groups who tried to build apps on top of Matrix and found it too difficult. https://xn--gckvb8fzb.com/giving-up-on-element-and-matrixorg... may be a useful third-party reference.

This isn't to say Matrix is bad. It's just targeting a different niche. Matrix was designed around the requirements of a global social network, where you want to be able to keep writing in channels even in event of a network partition. As a result, Matrix is far more complex and less self-contained than a Zulip server is. If you are doing internal communications with some external guests, you are far safer from technical risk with a robust self-contained system like Zulip than something like Matrix that is also a social network.

Zulip's goal is to be the best way to do complex work, focused on replacing tools like Slack, Teams, and Discord, without the ambition to support a social network, and that changes a lot about the architecture and what we can do in terms of performance and focus on the human experience.

XMPP has been around for way longer, has proven that it actually works, and has a reliable community behind it, with no VC-funded hype.

I think the intention was never to get their communication audited (potentially via poor security), but ours. You know, to protect the children and all that.

What?

They also sometimes forget to clean their shoes after walking in from the street.

But at least this thing they will hopefully get right and maybe in the longer term they'll be able to break the lock-in on those other things as well.

I don't really care if it's good or bad for the US as a whole; I care whether or not it's good for free software communication apps. I'm an American citizen and I own MSFT in my index funds just like lots of other people do; but I'd also rather run a free software chat app than Microsoft Teams.

The U.S. government has long looked out for U.S. companies, even to the point of staging coups (e.g. United Fruit Company). The Trump administration has been threatening direct invasions while also levying tariff's and other actions when other countries try to enact taxation or legislation of American tech companies operating in their jurisdictions. U.S. tech execs have applauded and lined up to bend the knee. Now they're finding out that their products are replaceable.

The replacements aren't perfect, but an injection of new users and funding could allow them to improve rapidly. Meanwhile, American companies like MS and Google seem determined to enshitify their products and force AI adoption because they're financially entangled with OpenAI.

Is this bad for the U.S.? It depends on how fast Americans smarten up. MS needs to start putting their products first again. Meta needs to stop relying on their government links to coerce other jurisdictions into accepting utterly irresponsible products that cause social harm while producing no tax revenue to mitigate that harm. All Americans need to stand up to their government and force it to back down from imperialist aggression.

The U.S. and U.S. software have lost international trust and are now losing out to competitors because of it. Those competitors no longer need to be better or cheaper. Just trustworthy. It is possible to mitigate this loss of trust with prompt action, but every delay causes permanent harm. The world is watching.

Element’s topco may be UK based for now, but the vast majority of our business and footprint is in the EU - https://element.io/en/about. All but one of our mobile app team is in the EU for instance (and when we started, the UK was too :|)

Why reinvent the wheel when there are already open standards like Matrix or XMPP that can be adapted to your use case?

> Why can’t a company in the EU make a secure video/voice chat app?

What makes you think they can't?

Microsoft's corporate edge isn't merely the product, it's also an army of sales, entrenched corporate markets/clients, lock-in, etc.

You could have a better version of their product and still get eaten alive.

Jitsi

Formerly - skype

Matrix

There is Wire with HQ in Berlin, Germany.

https://wire.com/en/

The idea of the likes of SAP spinning up a new product quickly and painlessly seems like a joke.

The french government recently did: https://github.com/suitenumerique/meet

I mean German police is using Palantir.

There is nothing magic about Palantir, especially not about the subset of Palantir that the German police uses as we have stricter data privacy laws.

You might think that would be a strategic risk not worth taking especially with the US getting more hostile towards Europe but here we are.

Why? Honestly I don't have a good answer other than well the whole system is rotten, corruption, lobbyism, take your pick.

One major issue is system management:

Installing another app, such as Signal, on your personal computer is one thing. On 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 computers, installing it, configuring it, changing settings, updating it, backing it up, locking down settings from user changes (such as retention) - all that requires special tools to do it efficiently at scale. Without the management tools, no way that bit of IT can be used.

The most common tool by far is Microsoft's Active Directory and Group Policy, which has the best compatibility with Windows and with Microsoft applications, including Office. If AD/GP is already deployed, imagine the burden of deploying a second tool to your 1K/10K/100K computers, setting up the server, learning to use it ... you're not doing that for one application unless it's very valuable. The exception is a tool bundled with the application for its own management, but that's going to have to be efficient to deploy, learn, and use to be worthwhile.

Therefore, for many organizations, any application must be effectively managed by AD/GP, which requires the application's developer to create AD/GP management components.

Do Matrix, Signal, or any other application have system management tools?

Zoom came along with a securre video/voice chat, sure it's American, but it was by far the world leader

Microsoft then used its monopoly in office tools to push Teams to everyone

You can't compete with a trillion dollar company offering your product as a bundle your clients already pay for, even if your product is better. Even VC money runs out eventually