conduwuit vs Dendrite Lite
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted matrix & xmpp options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
conduwuit
Archived
Well-maintained fork of the Conduit Matrix homeserver
VS
Dendrite Lite
Second-generation Matrix homeserver written in Go
| Feature | conduwuit | Dendrite Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 15 · At risk | 73 · Good |
| Status | Archived | Actively maintained |
| Category | Matrix & XMPP | Matrix & XMPP |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Rust | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, source | docker, bare-metal, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 25 | ★ 969 |
| First released | 2024 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Slack, Discord | Slack, Discord |
What are conduwuit and Dendrite Lite?
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
Dendrite Lite
A Matrix homeserver implementation in Go designed to be efficient and easy to run for small to medium communities. It speaks the Matrix federation protocol so users can chat across the wider network.
- Matrix federation
- End-to-end encryption
- Lower resource use
- Single binary deployment
conduwuit vs Dendrite Lite: key differences
The biggest difference is maintenance: conduwuit's repository is archived and no longer developed, while Dendrite Lite is actively maintained. Conduwuit is written in Rust, while Dendrite Lite is built with Go. Conduwuit is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Dendrite Lite. Dendrite Lite is the more established project (first released 2017), while conduwuit arrived in 2024. Dendrite Lite has the considerably larger community, at 969 GitHub stars versus 25.
Why pick each one
Choose conduwuit if…
- More features than Conduit
- Good performance
Watch out for
- Relatively young project
- Smaller community
Choose Dendrite Lite if…
- Lighter than Synapse
- Open standard protocol
Watch out for
- Some features still maturing
- Smaller deployment base
Frequently asked questions
Is conduwuit or Dendrite Lite better?
Neither is universally better. Dendrite Lite has the larger community, while conduwuit is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are conduwuit and Dendrite Lite free and open-source?
Yes. conduwuit is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Dendrite Lite under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run conduwuit and Dendrite Lite with Docker?
conduwuit: yes. Dendrite Lite: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, conduwuit or Dendrite Lite?
conduwuit has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Dendrite Lite. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.