About 10 years ago, I ran my own XMPP server. Using XMPP/Jabber, I had an audio/video call with somebody on another XMPP server half way across the world with excellent quality and end-to-end text encryption with multiple, different clients at the same time. And also an end-to-end encrypted group chat where we could easily send files (with encryption). The server just worked. The client(s) just worked. There were multiple clients available. One of the clients ran in the web browser.

This year I host my own Matrix server, with the help of Desert. Setting up the server was painful and there was no clear instructions. The solution that made it work, I can't find anywhere else on the Internet. It required messing with Python packages. It consumes far more system resources than XMPP ever did, just sitting there. Over the last year, the server changed significantly and wouldn't start until I modified the config to suit its new requirements.

There are only a pawful of clients. I've tried many of them; they barely function, are slow as hecems, and are bloaty. Most of them are Chrome. One of them is Chrome that renders everything in JavaScript, consuming large amounts of the GPU. The developer of the premiere "FLOSS" client will happily give your private data over to violent extremists that disappear folx. None of the clients I've seen have many configuration options. I'm blessed when a client notifies me of a message.