ejabberd vs Fractal
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?
Compare ejabberd with
choose an app… Rocket.Chat Mattermost Zulip SimpleX Chat Tinode Element Web Let's Chat Berty Matterbridge The Lounge Dendrite qTox Synapse Cinny WeeChat Ergo Converse.js irssi Openfire FluffyChat Quicksy Bridge Dino Nheko Tuwunel Conduit Nextcloud Talk ZNC Movim mautrix-whatsapp MongooseIM gomuks Profanity Toxic Convos IRC Syphon Element Call Dendrite Lite Delta Chat Element X Maubot Briar JSXC Hydrogen matrix-nio Continuwuity mautrix-signal CoyIM Gajim Session mautrix-discord Chatmail Chatmail Relay SchildiChat Ketesa Synapse Admin jabberd2 Mjolnir Snikket Construct Tigase XMPP Server Pantalaimon Sliding Sync Proxy matrix-appservice-slack Coqui Chat Synapse-MAS Wesh Network aioxmpp Poezio Slidge Sygnal Metronome IM matrix-corporal PeerTube Plugin LiveChat Commet go-sendxmpp Simple-Matrix-Bot-Lib Monocles Chat Openfire Pade Plugin Prose conduwuit Prosody
Compare Fractal with
choose an app… Tinode Element Web Spectrum Mumble Dendrite Synapse Cinny Ergo Converse.js Revolt Openfire FluffyChat Tox Dino Nheko Tuwunel Conduit Spacebar ZNC Movim mautrix-whatsapp MongooseIM gomuks Profanity InspIRCd Convos IRC Syphon Element Call KiwiIRC Dendrite Lite Bonfire Element X Maubot Mumble Web Continuwuity Miaou
Feature ejabberd Fractal Category Matrix & XMPP Matrix & XMPP License GPL-2.0 GPL-3.0 Language Erlang Rust Setup difficulty Hard Easy Min. RAM 512 MB 256 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal binary, source GitHub stars ★ 6,711 ★ 900 First released 2002 2017 Replaces Slack, WhatsApp Slack, Discord
Why pick each one
Choose ejabberd if… Extremely scalable Battle-tested Standards-based ejabberd details 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 Fractal details
Frequently asked questions Is ejabberd or Fractal better? Neither is universally better. ejabberd has the larger community, while Fractal is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are ejabberd and Fractal free and open-source? Yes. ejabberd is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Fractal under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run ejabberd and Fractal with Docker? ejabberd: yes. Fractal: check the project docs for container support.