Synapse: Open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation
Synapse is a self-hosted messaging tool. Open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation.
Why self-host Synapse
Running Synapse yourself means you control the data, the uptime policy, and the upgrade schedule. That is a different relationship with software than subscribing to a hosted service.
What it does
Synapse falls into the Messaging category of self-hosted software. It is designed to be deployed on your own infrastructure, whether that is a home server, a VPS, or a local machine running Docker.
Community traction
The project has 1k stars on GitHub, which is a reasonable proxy for how widely it is used. Active repositories tend to ship bug fixes faster and have better documentation than projects that stall after the initial release.
Deployment
Getting Synapse running usually takes under an hour if you have a working Docker setup. The official documentation covers the basic deployment steps.
Maturity
The current release is 1.112.0. The project has moved past early development and tends to ship stable, documented releases.
License
It is licensed under AGPL-3.0, making it freely available for personal and commercial use.
Links
If the use case fits, Synapse is a solid choice. Most of the complexity is in the initial deploy, and the day-to-day operation is low maintenance.