The developers seems to aim for a federated discord alternative using existing federation protocols, currently ATProto (bluesky) and soon ActivityPub (Mastodon).
It seems it will have all the essentials for seamless switch and privacy friendly:
Outside of federation protocols
- They have tested E2EE DMs and then retracted as it’s still in phase of “figuring out” (and yeah wouldn’t trust it for sensitive communication until then and they were transparent that metadata is still a thing in alpha 1) (Roomy Chat Alpha 2)
- Self hostable (coming soon)
- Experimental bridge for discord (Roomy – alpha 5), seems it will help with slow transitioning
Now I understand the feeling:
“This is just Matrix, but different protocols” or “It is stoat, just with federation”
And true, but I think what differentiates for them is
a. For stoat, at least they’re figuring out E2EE, until then while in Alpha phase, Stoat still hasn’t got E2EE figured out, also being federated with ATProto and coming soon ActivityPub means it is a step up over stoat
b. For matrix, at least it is going to use a standard protocol that is used in Bluesky and Mastodon clients, not just the Matrix protocol that can only interface with apps and bridges using that protocol
And they seem to be striving a lot to not only make it federated & privacy-friendly but seems they’re also trying to make it familiar to discord at the same time like stoat and allow for intergration for things like
Discord and hopefully more for bridges which I know, matrix already has such a thing but stoat sure doesn’t and while having the familiar UX of Discord.
I think it is interesting and I will simply watch the development until then
Keep in mind that this is in alpha, you can test the app in their web app, but acknowledge that in alpha phase, issues can occur (which is why I’m watching the development, likely until beta)