conduwuit vs Prose
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
Prose
XMPP client for team messaging
| Feature | conduwuit | Prose |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 15 · At risk | 64 · Good |
| Status | Archived | Actively maintained |
| Category | Matrix & XMPP | Matrix & XMPP |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Language | Rust | Vue |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 50 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, source | bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 25 | ★ 59 |
| First released | 2024 | 2025 |
| Replaces | Slack, Discord | Discord, Facebook Messenger, Signal |
What are conduwuit and Prose?
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
Prose
Prose Web application. XMPP client for team messaging.
conduwuit vs Prose: key differences
The biggest difference is maintenance: conduwuit's repository is archived and no longer developed, while Prose is actively maintained. Conduwuit is written in Rust, while Prose is built with Vue. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for conduwuit versus MPL-2.0 for Prose. Prose is the lighter option, starting around 50 MB of RAM against 256 MB for conduwuit. Prose has the considerably larger community, at 59 GitHub stars versus 25. Conduwuit lists first-class Docker deployment; Prose does not.
Why pick each one
Choose conduwuit if…
- More features than Conduit
- Good performance
Watch out for
- Relatively young project
- Smaller community
Choose Prose if…
- Released under the MPL-2.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Written in Vue
- Tiny footprint — runs in 50 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is conduwuit or Prose better?
Neither is universally better. Prose has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are conduwuit and Prose free and open-source?
Yes. conduwuit is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Prose under MPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run conduwuit and Prose with Docker?
conduwuit: yes. Prose: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, conduwuit or Prose?
Prose has the smaller minimum footprint at 50 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for conduwuit. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.