conduwuit vs Fractal
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
Fractal
GNOME-native Matrix messaging client
| Feature | conduwuit | Fractal |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Status | Archived | Actively maintained |
| Category | Matrix & XMPP | Matrix & XMPP |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | Rust | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, source | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 25 | ★ 900 |
| First released | 2024 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Slack, Discord | Slack, Discord |
What are conduwuit and Fractal?
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
Fractal
Fractal is a Matrix client designed for the GNOME desktop and written in Rust with GTK. It supports end-to-end encryption, multiple accounts, and integrates cleanly with the GNOME ecosystem.
- GNOME-native GTK interface
- End-to-end encryption
- Multi-account support
- Adaptive layout
conduwuit vs Fractal: key differences
The biggest difference is maintenance: conduwuit's repository is archived and no longer developed, while Fractal is actively maintained. Both projects are written in Rust. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for conduwuit versus GPL-3.0 for Fractal. Fractal is the more established project (first released 2017), while conduwuit arrived in 2024. Fractal has the considerably larger community, at 900 GitHub stars versus 25. Conduwuit lists first-class Docker deployment; Fractal does not.
Why pick each one
Choose conduwuit if…
- More features than Conduit
- Good performance
Watch out for
- Relatively young project
- Smaller community
Choose Fractal if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Written in Rust
- Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is conduwuit or Fractal better?
Neither is universally better. Fractal has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are conduwuit and Fractal free and open-source?
Yes. conduwuit is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Fractal under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run conduwuit and Fractal with Docker?
conduwuit: yes. Fractal: check the project docs for container support.