Conduit 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?
FeatureConduitejabberd
CategoryMatrix & XMPPMatrix & XMPP
LicenseApache-2.0GPL-2.0
LanguageRustErlang
Setup difficultyEasyHard
Min. RAM128 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, binary, sourcedocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 2,200★ 6,711
First released20202002
ReplacesSlack, DiscordSlack, WhatsApp

Why pick each one

Choose Conduit if…

  • Extremely easy to deploy
  • Runs on a Raspberry Pi
Conduit details

Choose ejabberd if…

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

Frequently asked questions

Is Conduit or ejabberd better?

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

Are Conduit and ejabberd free and open-source?

Yes. Conduit is licensed under Apache-2.0 and ejabberd under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Conduit and ejabberd with Docker?

Conduit: yes. ejabberd: yes.

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