We've been putting all of the "slack alternatives" and federated chat stuff through its paces, and while it's still young and annoying, the matrix ecosystem seems to err on the side of "simple for users". If you're in the same physical location as someone you're in an encrypted room with, you can choose to visually verify that person through the interface on the client, it displays a one time verification code on both clients, and that pair of keys (yours and t'other) will now be trusted, even across clients. It is in line with PGP, but there's no library of public keys.
Some things Matrix does (at least via Synapse server and Element client) on a federated "home server"
- 100% E2E from first message, if that's what you need
- automatically resizes images, but can send "full size" with a checkbox when uploading. Encrypted at rest on the synapse node. Tested up to 108MP images this way.
- URL previewing can be shut off if you consider that OP-SEC
- you can dump all new users into a specific room, or not. Depends on your stance on users using your "home server".
- Can make public rooms visible or invisible to the federation or specific federated servers (such as the matrix.org home server)
- Decent integration with irc.freenode.net (yay!) - you show up as "MatrixUsername [M]", other federated matrix users can see you in their clients and establish E2E with you directly. The only downside to this one is the "threading" features that probably came from Slack could be disruptive in IRC channels if you overuse them.
+ As part of the above - if you send an image normally, to an irc bridge, it gets made into a public image and the link sent to the IRC channel(s) you're in. It's both cool and disconcerting.
As I said, it's early days yet, but it's lightyears ahead of rocket.chat for ease of encryption, the user interface is more spartan than Mattermost. I would prefer mattermost, even though it's not E2EE - except matrix can use coturn/TURN, fully encrypted, to make and receive voice and video calls in the client, across the entire federated servers. And it sounds great. Did i mention encrypted?
Some things Matrix does (at least via Synapse server and Element client) on a federated "home server"
- 100% E2E from first message, if that's what you need
- automatically resizes images, but can send "full size" with a checkbox when uploading. Encrypted at rest on the synapse node. Tested up to 108MP images this way.
- URL previewing can be shut off if you consider that OP-SEC
- you can dump all new users into a specific room, or not. Depends on your stance on users using your "home server".
- Can make public rooms visible or invisible to the federation or specific federated servers (such as the matrix.org home server)
- Decent integration with irc.freenode.net (yay!) - you show up as "MatrixUsername [M]", other federated matrix users can see you in their clients and establish E2E with you directly. The only downside to this one is the "threading" features that probably came from Slack could be disruptive in IRC channels if you overuse them.
As I said, it's early days yet, but it's lightyears ahead of rocket.chat for ease of encryption, the user interface is more spartan than Mattermost. I would prefer mattermost, even though it's not E2EE - except matrix can use coturn/TURN, fully encrypted, to make and receive voice and video calls in the client, across the entire federated servers. And it sounds great. Did i mention encrypted?