Conduit vs conduwuit
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted matrix & xmpp options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Conduit
Simple, fast and reliable Matrix homeserver in Rust
VS
conduwuit
Archived
Well-maintained fork of the Conduit Matrix homeserver
| Feature | Conduit | conduwuit |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Status | Actively maintained | Archived |
| Category | Matrix & XMPP | Matrix & XMPP |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Rust | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, source | docker, binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,200 | ★ 25 |
| First released | 2020 | 2024 |
| Replaces | Slack, Discord | Slack, Discord |
What are Conduit and conduwuit?
Conduit
Conduit is a lightweight Matrix homeserver written in Rust that aims to be easy to set up and run on small servers. It uses an embedded database and requires minimal configuration.
- Embedded database, no external DB
- Very low resource usage
- Single binary deployment
- Matrix federation support
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
Conduit vs conduwuit: key differences
The biggest difference is maintenance: conduwuit's repository is archived and no longer developed, while Conduit is actively maintained. Both projects are written in Rust. Conduit is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for conduwuit. Conduit is the more established project (first released 2020), while conduwuit arrived in 2024. Conduit has the considerably larger community, at 2,200 GitHub stars versus 25.
Why pick each one
Choose Conduit if…
- Extremely easy to deploy
- Runs on a Raspberry Pi
Watch out for
- Not all Matrix features implemented
- Smaller ecosystem
Choose conduwuit if…
- More features than Conduit
- Good performance
Watch out for
- Relatively young project
- Smaller community
Frequently asked questions
Is Conduit or conduwuit better?
Neither is universally better. Conduit has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Conduit and conduwuit free and open-source?
Yes. Conduit is licensed under Apache-2.0 and conduwuit under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Conduit and conduwuit with Docker?
Conduit: yes. conduwuit: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Conduit or conduwuit?
Conduit has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for conduwuit. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.