aioxmpp vs ejabberd

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted matrix & xmpp options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
Featureaioxmppejabberd
CategoryMatrix & XMPPMatrix & XMPP
LicenseLGPL-3.0GPL-2.0
LanguagePythonErlang
Setup difficultyMediumHard
Min. RAM128 MB512 MB
Deploymentsourcedocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 216★ 6,711
First released20162002
ReplacesSlack botsSlack, WhatsApp

Why pick each one

Choose aioxmpp if…

  • Released under the LGPL-3.0 license
  • Written in Python
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
aioxmpp details

Choose ejabberd if…

  • Extremely scalable
  • Battle-tested
  • Standards-based
ejabberd details

Frequently asked questions

Is aioxmpp or ejabberd better?

Neither is universally better. ejabberd has the larger community, while aioxmpp is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are aioxmpp and ejabberd free and open-source?

Yes. aioxmpp is licensed under LGPL-3.0 and ejabberd under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run aioxmpp and ejabberd with Docker?

aioxmpp: check the project docs for container support. ejabberd: yes.

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