Which Matrix client should you use?

We install Element on your server by default, so day one isn’t a blank screen. But when a friend asks us what to actually use, we don’t say Element. We say Komai on the desktop, Cinny in the browser, and FluffyChat on a phone.

Why not the one that came with your server? Because customers kept telling us Element’s interface wore them down. A few gave up on Matrix over it, which is about the worst review you can hand a chat app, and we took it personally enough to go build and gather better ones.

None of this is a fence, to be clear. Matrix is an open protocol, so any client that speaks it works with your server, installed on your own machine or hosted wherever you like. This page is our shortlist for getting started without reading forty GitHub READMEs first, not a list of what you’re allowed to run. If your favorite isn’t here, use it anyway; your server won’t mind.

Komai, on the desktop¶

Komai is our own client, so yes, we’re biased. We built it because we wanted one we’d enjoy using, and it’s native (Rust and C++, no Electron), so it opens fast and your laptop fan doesn’t spin up just because you opened a chat app.

You already have too many browser tabs open. Chat doesn’t need to be one of them, so Komai gives your rooms their own tabs across the top: pin the ones you live in, flip between them, and they’re right where you left them after a restart. Few other Matrix clients do this, and it’s the one you’ll miss the second you go back.

A few more it gets right:

• Calls are built in. Element Call (voice and video, one-to-one or group, encrypted) is enabled by default in any room.
• The room directory ships pointed at matrixrooms.info. Open it and there’s a real index of public rooms already there, nothing to add by hand.
• It’s built to live in. Separate profiles for separate accounts, a keyboard and Vim workflow if that’s your thing, message effects and custom emoji for when chat should be a little fun, and themes that follow your system into dark mode.

Komai is desktop only today (Linux, macOS, Windows). No mobile build, and we’re not going to pretend the roadmap is the present. For a phone, keep reading.

Grab it from komai.chat, GitHub releases, or the AUR (komai and komai-bin).

Cinny, in the browser¶

If you’d rather keep Matrix in a browser tab, Cinny is the one. It’s clean, it’s what we’d hand someone who has never heard the word “homeserver,” and it isn’t built on Element’s code, so it’s a real second opinion instead of the same thing in a new coat. Calls work, and you can run it on your own server or just use the hosted one at cinny.in.

FluffyChat, on your phone¶

On a phone, FluffyChat is the pick. iOS and Android, fully open source, and it feels like Telegram, which is another way of saying your non-technical friends won’t need a walkthrough.

FluffyChat doesn’t do Matrix RTC yet, so you cannot make a voice or video call from it. Not yet. If calling from your phone matters to you today, keep Element around for that single job until FluffyChat catches up. Everything else, FluffyChat does well.

Element, the popular default¶

Element is what most people meet first, and it’s what we install at app.etke.cc alongside every server we manage. So when your new server shows up with Element already on it, that’s on purpose: we’d rather hand you a working client on day one than a blank screen and a shopping trip.

Customers tell us, often, that Element’s interface is where they get stuck, and in our own experience its releases have been the rough edge we keep catching a hip on. That’s the reason we built Komai and brought in Cinny and FluffyChat. Not because Element can’t do the job (it’s one of the most capable clients in the whole ecosystem, and on mobile it’s still the only one here that can place a call), but because “capable” and “pleasant to live in every day” turned out to be different things for a lot of the people we host.

So Element’s on the list, we support it, and it’s the familiar default. When you’re ready to try something friendlier, the three above are what we reach for.

At a glance¶

That’s our current thinking, not a law of physics. Clients move fast, we re-rank when they do, and this page is where the ranking lives. If we’ve called it wrong for your setup, tell us; we read everything.