SHSelfHostIndex

Conduit vs Dendrite

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?
CO Conduit Simple, fast and reliable Matrix homeserver in Rust VS DE Dendrite Second-generation Matrix homeserver written in Go
FeatureConduitDendrite
CategoryMatrix & XMPPMatrix & XMPP
LicenseApache-2.0Apache-2.0
LanguageRustGo
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM128 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, binary, sourcedocker, binary, source
GitHub stars★ 2,200★ 5,632
First released20202017
ReplacesSlack, DiscordSlack, Discord

Why pick each one

Choose Conduit if…

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

Choose Dendrite if…

  • Much lighter than Synapse
  • Active development by Matrix.org
Dendrite details

Frequently asked questions

Is Conduit or Dendrite better?

Neither is universally better. Dendrite 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 Dendrite free and open-source?

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

Can I run Conduit and Dendrite with Docker?

Conduit: yes. Dendrite: yes.

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