this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2026
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Why do some people dislike Matrix so much?
speaking as a former matrix user and fan, I hate it because:
Overall, I view it much like I do XMPP. it takes basically the same approach to everything and has all of the same downsides, except E2EE is easier to get working I guess
I don't know when you used matrix, but I have always avoided Element for the reasons you mentioned and so far. I think Matrix can only be an enjoyable experience without element
The end of my usage was about one year ago. I'd tried several other clients in the years prior (Fractal, Nheko, Mirage, and some others I forgot the names of) but all of them had their own major issues, severe enough to eventually drive me back to Element
It's certainly possible the ecosystem has matured somewhat since then, but I would be skeptical because I think the root of the problem was not that these projects were too young, but that the protocol was too complex for anyone to implement properly, much like the web
I hate it because it was developed by Israeli spyware company Amdocs in Israel. Then it moved to the UK but on a forum someone who appears to be a dev denies that Amdocs ever did spyware (they wiretapped Bill Clinton and many other scandals)
The main Matrix server is Element, hosted by the developers of Matrix. And the server can see a lot of info not necessarily the messages but a lot of metadata. So unless people use a custom Matrix server it's actually not private at all
People love hating on stuff.
I don't hate Matrix but I'm not a fan. My only experience was on mid-size chatrooms where that was enough to notice the usual e2e UX issues just amplified by the number of users. I also remember reading articles about security issues. Both of those things make me reluctant to use it.
At the same time, I don't have a serious alternative to propose for multi-chatroom e2e messaging software (I haven't been looking though).