Ironically this move finally made me to consider Matrix. I'm thinking about spinning a server on a non FAANG provider like Vultr or Linode and setting IM services bridges from there. Nowadays I use lots of different communicators to talk to different people and most of these apps track me. If I setup a Matrix server somewhere that allows me to use those networks without having their software installed on my devices that will not only be convenient but also improve my privacy. Not to mention the Matrix network and protocol that can be used to do fun stuff.
Is Dendrite ready for use? I don't have a lot of memory available and I heard Synapse is kinda heavy on resources.
Dendrite is okay for personal use (a few users), matrix-native, using the better-tested clients. IIRC some bridges work with it, but it doesn't implement the whole appservice API, which blocks you from using some of the better bridges.
I do not recommend synapse if you don't have a lot of memory. I put an extra 8 GB stick in my server for it, bringing it to 14 GB.
It routinely likes to take more than 4GB to itself, though it has become a lot leaner lately.
On the other hand, I was expecting the bridges to me more like Bitlbee which maps personal accounts to IRC rooms. Matrix bridges seem to be more like syncing the content of a room to another.
It sounds like you'd want puppet bridges. Each of your conversations on the remote side has a corresponding room, and what you say in that room is forwarded by the bridge trough your remote account.
You could try out dendrite.matrix.org as a homeserver (btw, dendrite would nicely fit into these 4GB). Most bridges need admin access to the server though, if you want to host them yourself. t2bot.io hosts a few you'd be able to use with your own dendrite, though it hits capacity problems at times.
Finally, you could try to make synapse leaner by not joining big rooms with hundreds of federating servers. There is a max_complexity (something like it) setting for that use case.
I'm in the process of setting up a Matrix homeserver myself.
It seems like there are some missing features.
From their github:
> Is Dendrite stable?
Mostly, although there are still bugs and missing features. If you are a confident power user and you are happy to spend some time debugging things when they go wrong, then please try out Dendrite. If you are a community, organisation or business that demands stability and uptime, then Dendrite is not for you yet - please install Synapse instead.
> Does Dendrite support push notifications?
No, not yet. This is a planned feature.
> Does Dendrite support application services/bridges?
Possibly - Dendrite does have some application service support but it is not well tested. Please let us know by raising a GitHub issue if you try it and run into problems.
I got it running relatively easy. Lots of client functionality from Element do not work and the shared secret request between devices timeouts.
I also find hard to debug because of all the errors related to broken federated servers. One thing that I recommend is to set "disable_federation: true" until you get some acceptable functionality before enabling it again.
Is Dendrite ready for use? I don't have a lot of memory available and I heard Synapse is kinda heavy on resources.