underline960Jun 16, 2025

Is UX/UI and marketing really the reason XMPP lags behind Signal/Matrix/Telegram?

https://sh.itjust.works/post/40286422

Is UX/UI and marketing really the reason XMPP lags behind Signal/Matrix/Telegram? - sh.itjust.works

Matrix is going Freemium [https://sh.itjust.works/post/40160305] and WhatsApp is adding ads [https://sh.itjust.works/post/40280195], which is sparking the annual “time to leave [app]” threads. Users don’t care that much about privacy, but they do care about enshittification, so XMPP not being built for it [https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/why-not-xmpp/13792/3] shouldn’t be a problem. Meanwhile, I’ve heard for years that XMPP has solved a lot of the problems that lead more popular apps to fail. Is it really just a marketing/UX/UI problem? If XMPP had a killer app with all the features that Signal/Whatsapp/Telegram has, would it have as many users? If not, why does it keep getting out-adopted by new apps and protocols?

Show threadSophoclesJun 16, 2025

In my opinion Gajim for desktop looks pretty sleek. Cheogram has a 2020 look to it, but it’s still great looking imo. Not everything has to have sleek gradients and overly rounded borders. I actually prefer 2015 UI where things were more boxy and very slightly rounded e.g. the old instagram app logo.

I’ve also gotten my friend to use Cheogram, and her #1 complaint is not having chat effects from imessage. I feel like if you just slap on integrated gifs and add a couple of UI animations, non-techies would be all over it. Maybe XMPP just needs some frontend UI pazazz for people to take notice

Show threadAlexander
Check out “monocles chat” as replacement for Cheogram. They look very similar but monocles comes with some functionality and UI tweaks.
Jun 18, 2025 at 1:26pmWeb