SHSelfHostIndex

Convos IRC vs Dendrite

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?
CO Convos IRC Always-online web IRC client you can self-host VS DE Dendrite Second-generation Matrix homeserver written in Go
FeatureConvos IRCDendrite
CategoryMatrix & XMPPMatrix & XMPP
LicenseArtistic-2.0Apache-2.0
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM256 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, binary, source
GitHub stars★ 1,188★ 5,632
First released20122017
ReplacesSlack, IRCCloudSlack, Discord

Why pick each one

Choose Convos IRC if…

  • Stays connected for you
  • Simple to deploy
Convos IRC details

Choose Dendrite if…

  • Much lighter than Synapse
  • Active development by Matrix.org
Dendrite details

Frequently asked questions

Is Convos IRC or Dendrite better?

Neither is universally better. Dendrite has the larger community, while Convos IRC is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Convos IRC and Dendrite free and open-source?

Yes. Convos IRC is licensed under Artistic-2.0 and Dendrite under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Convos IRC and Dendrite with Docker?

Convos IRC: yes. Dendrite: yes.

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