Since my last post on monocles, I’ve got into the XMPP also known as jabber rabbit hole, here are few things I learned that you might find useful.
What is XMPP
The architecture of the XMPP network is similar to email, while a XMPP server conforms an email server (server.com) and XMPP clients conforms email clients ([email protected]). The difference is that everything happens in realtime over a persistent XML-TCP stream. The XMPP protocols are free & public, that any of us can use.
Differences with other communication services
- It’s one of the few actually decentralized communication platforms, there is no default server to join like in matrix.org. In a group chat with 100 people don’t be surprised that all 100 of them belong to different servers
- Hacker friendly & knowledgeable communities that are usually friendly
- Easy to setup transports/gateways (similar to bridges) between different networks, such as IRC or even proprietary ones like whatsapp.
Self hosting a server
Self hosting xmpp is really simple, I personally opted for ejabberd and it only took ~10 minutes to set it up with voice & video call support.
Other options for servers are available here
Joining a server
You can find servers open for registration here
Clients
A list of available clients for different platforms is available here