conduwuit vs Nheko
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
Nheko
Desktop Matrix client with native Qt interface
| Feature | conduwuit | Nheko |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 15 · At risk | 77 · Good |
| Status | Archived | Actively maintained |
| Category | Matrix & XMPP | Matrix & XMPP |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | Rust | C++ |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, source | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 25 | ★ 2,496 |
| First released | 2024 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Slack, Discord | Slack, Discord |
What are conduwuit and Nheko?
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
Nheko
Nheko is a free desktop client for the Matrix protocol built with Qt and C++. It supports end-to-end encryption, voice and video calls, and a clean native interface across Linux, Windows, and macOS.
- Native Qt interface
- End-to-end encryption
- Voice and video calls
- Low resource usage
conduwuit vs Nheko: key differences
The biggest difference is maintenance: conduwuit's repository is archived and no longer developed, while Nheko is actively maintained. Conduwuit is written in Rust, while Nheko is built with C++. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for conduwuit versus GPL-3.0 for Nheko. Nheko is the more established project (first released 2017), while conduwuit arrived in 2024. Nheko has the considerably larger community, at 2,496 GitHub stars versus 25. Conduwuit lists first-class Docker deployment; Nheko does not.
Why pick each one
Choose conduwuit if…
- More features than Conduit
- Good performance
Watch out for
- Relatively young project
- Smaller community
Choose Nheko if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Active community (2.5k GitHub stars)
- Written in C++
Frequently asked questions
Is conduwuit or Nheko better?
Neither is universally better. Nheko has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are conduwuit and Nheko free and open-source?
Yes. conduwuit is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Nheko under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run conduwuit and Nheko with Docker?
conduwuit: yes. Nheko: check the project docs for container support.