Commet vs conduwuit
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted matrix & xmpp options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Commet | conduwuit |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Status | Actively maintained | Archived |
| Category | Matrix & XMPP | Matrix & XMPP |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Dart | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | docker, binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 100 | ★ 25 |
| First released | 2022 | 2024 |
| Replaces | Discord, Slack | Slack, Discord |
What are Commet and conduwuit?
Commet
Commet is a Matrix chat client that targets desktop and mobile from a single Flutter codebase. It aims for a familiar messaging experience with support for spaces and end-to-end encryption.
- Flutter cross-platform client
- Spaces support
- End-to-end encryption
- Desktop and mobile
conduwuit
conduwuit is a community-maintained fork of Conduit, a Matrix homeserver written in Rust. It focuses on stability, performance, and adding features that upstream Conduit lacked.
- Faster than upstream Conduit
- Easy single-binary deploy
- Active maintenance
- Matrix federation
Commet vs conduwuit: key differences
The biggest difference is maintenance: conduwuit's repository is archived and no longer developed, while Commet is actively maintained. Commet is written in Dart, while conduwuit is built with Rust. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Commet versus Apache-2.0 for conduwuit. Commet is the more established project (first released 2022), while conduwuit arrived in 2024. Commet has the considerably larger community, at 100 GitHub stars versus 25. Conduwuit lists first-class Docker deployment; Commet does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Commet if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Written in Dart
- Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Choose conduwuit if…
- More features than Conduit
- Good performance
Watch out for
- Relatively young project
- Smaller community
Frequently asked questions
Is Commet or conduwuit better?
Neither is universally better. Commet has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Commet and conduwuit free and open-source?
Yes. Commet is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and conduwuit under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Commet and conduwuit with Docker?
Commet: check the project docs for container support. conduwuit: yes.