I second this! FYI, XMPP is the one protocol that as been forked over and over… it’s the base of all (or many) messaging apps (incl. whatsapp). The thing is that XMPP has all this “Extensions” to their protocol, and it’s difficult to implement or have a federated protocol that goes like that, with so many variations… that are implemented or installed on servers, and then also used by clients (e.g. Conversations is a great app on mobile, but not ready for just an average joe or my grandma)… I reckon snikket doesn’t implement OTR (the end-to-end encryption of XMPP), that could be a downside to some. But, please, reconsider if you really need that… if you happen to self-host, and then use SSL to encrypt on transit, and storage is encrypted on the server… that’s already pretty much everything we need/ want in most cases (e.g. communicating with family safely.)
The only contender would be hosting an email server (which is tough, dependes on your luck with getting a ‘clean’ IPv4) on a cheap VPS (say €5 per month, for all users) and then install Delta Chat.
In the past there was some “Identity Management” server that was centralizing the accounts of matrix.org or any other instances, and it was managed by Vector which was an ONG or Company… Nowadays, I see no mention to it in documentation (at least from my quick overview) and vector.im redirects to element (matrix client). Did anything change? Do anyone know? The lack of transparency over Vector.im made me reluctant to recommend Matrix as a really federated alternative to messaging.