Synapse vs ZNC
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 Synapse with
choose an app… Rocket.Chat Mattermost Zulip SimpleX Chat Tinode Element Web Spectrum Let's Chat Berty Mumble Matterbridge ejabberd The Lounge Dendrite qTox Cinny WeeChat Ergo Converse.js Revolt irssi Openfire FluffyChat Quicksy Bridge Tox Dino Nheko Tuwunel Conduit Spacebar Nextcloud Talk 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
Compare ZNC with
choose an app… Tinode Element Web ejabberd The Lounge Dendrite Cinny Converse.js Openfire FluffyChat Dino Nheko Tuwunel Conduit Movim mautrix-whatsapp MongooseIM gomuks Profanity Convos IRC Syphon soju Element Call Glowing Bear Dendrite Lite Element X Fractal Maubot Gamja
Feature Synapse ZNC Category Matrix & XMPP Matrix & XMPP License AGPL-3.0 Apache-2.0 Language Python C++ Setup difficulty Hard Medium Min. RAM 1,024 MB 64 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal docker, bare-metal, source GitHub stars ★ 4,503 ★ 2,123 First released 2014 2004 Replaces Slack, Discord, WhatsApp IRCCloud
Why pick each one
Choose Synapse if… Open federated protocol Strong encryption Bridges to other chats Synapse details Choose ZNC if… Very stable and mature Highly configurable ZNC details
Frequently asked questions Is Synapse or ZNC better? Neither is universally better. Synapse has the larger community, while ZNC is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Synapse and ZNC free and open-source? Yes. Synapse is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and ZNC under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Synapse and ZNC with Docker? Synapse: yes. ZNC: yes.