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Reliable messenger for family use? (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 days ago by anakin78z@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

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Hello,

I've been self hosting Nextcloud for the last half a year, and my family has been using Nextcloud Talk to communicate. However, as cool it is overall, we suffer from a lot of missed messages. I've been keeping an eye on (and contributing to) the Android app, but even with all the updates, it seems like they can't quite figure out the issue with notifications not appearing consistently. My wife is fed up, so I'm looking for alternatives.

It seems like Matrix is the next logical one to try, but the Android apps have pretty poor reviews. A lot of the self hosted messengers also seem to be more like Slack replacements, rather than focused on family & friend use.

Has anyone had a good experience with a self hosted messenger for family use?

Thanks!

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[–] stratself@lemdro.id 26 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Android notifications are notoriously difficult to get right. May I ask how is Nextcloud Talk currently implementing notifications? Is it through ntfy, a background service, or Google's Firebase? Have you allowed background usage for both the push app and the chat app?

I use Matrix with Continuwuity and Element X, and it's doable most of the time except for small bugs. If you disable federation, the resource usage should be minimal too. But it also requires a third party for push service which can be unreliable.

On the XMPP side, there is also Snikket which you could look into. It offers both a server (running modified Prosody) and a mobile client (modified Conversations). XMPP can run as an efficient background service on Android, so it'll receive in-band notifications.

Regardless of options, one of the main problem I'm aware of is that Android variants tend to overkill various background app, leading to missed notifications. I think it's better to debug on that aspect as well

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 hours ago

But it also requires a third party for push service

not necessarily, you can host ntfy or something else yourself too

[–] anakin78z@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago

I believe Nextcloud Talk uses FCM for notifications. The issue doesn't seem to be on the FCM side, it's the client marking messages as read incorrectly, or not notifying because it thinks it's running in the foreground, etc. They're definitely working on these issues, but my family has lost confidence in it.

I will check out Snikket, thanks!

[–] thirdBreakfast@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

I ran Snikket for a while a couple of months ago - notifications in the iOS app were late or never arrived till you opened the app.