ejabberd vs Synapse
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 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 Fractal 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 Synapse with
choose an app… Rocket.Chat Mattermost Zulip SimpleX Chat Tinode Element Web Spectrum Let's Chat Berty Mumble Matterbridge The Lounge Dendrite qTox Cinny WeeChat Ergo Converse.js Revolt irssi Openfire FluffyChat Quicksy Bridge Tox Dino Nheko Tuwunel Conduit Spacebar Nextcloud Talk ZNC Movim mautrix-whatsapp MongooseIM gomuks Profanity InspIRCd Toxic Convos IRC Syphon Element Call KiwiIRC Dendrite Lite Bonfire Delta Chat Element X Fractal Maubot Briar Mumble Web JSXC Hydrogen matrix-nio Continuwuity mautrix-signal CoyIM Gajim Miaou 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
Feature ejabberd Synapse Category Matrix & XMPP Matrix & XMPP License GPL-2.0 AGPL-3.0 Language Erlang Python Setup difficulty Hard Hard Min. RAM 512 MB 1,024 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal docker, bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 6,711 ★ 4,503 First released 2002 2014 Replaces Slack, WhatsApp Slack, Discord, WhatsApp
Why pick each one
Choose ejabberd if… Extremely scalable Battle-tested Standards-based ejabberd details Choose Synapse if… Open federated protocol Strong encryption Bridges to other chats Synapse details
Frequently asked questions Is ejabberd or Synapse better? Neither is universally better. ejabberd has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are ejabberd and Synapse free and open-source? Yes. ejabberd is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Synapse under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run ejabberd and Synapse with Docker? ejabberd: yes. Synapse: yes.