Sure, just find a way to self-host Conduit or Construct for Matrix and don't federate with outliers - it would work like a charm for internal communication (disclaimer: these light-weight servers are in beta stage, unlike the resource-hungry Synapse). Wait, NextCloud and Revolt have implemented chats, which are encrypted and open source already? As such, I don't observe any special benefits of Matrix for your use case (unless you're gonna do bots and stuff). ๐ค You have a lot of choices! ๐
Matrix
An open network for secure, decentralized communication
(Choices) not the least of which is just buy a cheap phone, or VoIP phone.
I don't use neither of them. What I liked specifically about Matrix is the detailed events system: I'm just not sure that kids might find it useful. ๐คญ
Yeah, I was hoping that I could white list specific accounts (family). I can use my existing account, and it keeps it simple. The others end up walled gardens.
I'm on the same path trying to find a solution. Is it possible to just whitelist certain accounts without all the public rooms. E.g., I have my own instance, but want to allow a DM from [email protected] without allowing public rooms or other random DMs?
As far as I can tell...you can't. Debating just using XMPP instead.
so, I could make a room called mum and dad, have it "private" and only invite the three accounts.
it could work.
I think having matrix is useful for eventually letting them federate without needing a new account - just enable it on the server. Nextcloud chat won't have that advantage
Sure. Federate with another trusted server, but probably not the general one - you might want to avoid that.
For what it's worth, I had a few great chats - while remoting - with my oldest kid upstairs. I've given him an old Eeepc 701, with just an ssh connection to a cli-only matrix client ; worked well, but I'll easily admit it was a bit limited (which, in my very specific use-case, was actually a feature)
I run a Synapse server for just my family. It's great.
How was the setup? I fairly advanced, but love it when it just works.