I kinda agree with the statement that the Matrix “ecosystem” is unstable, but I’ve been looking at it for some time now (It’s more than a year that I’m periodically giving it a try, but without having asked my friends or family to move yet) and what I’ve seen is some slow solid progress. So I’ll probably keep watching (and contribute if possible) its growth until there will be at least a desktop and a mobile client that works flawlessly out of the box, and then proceed to annoying any person with why they should move to Matrix (^_)

Some non-requested personal opinions about the clients I tried:

• I think that the desktop/web version of Element is kinda stable, but the android and iOS versions are a big no to me (with this I mean they are not ready to be recommended to non tech-savy people imho).
• Element X as many others said it’s still in beta, but I see huge potential on it. And I’d say that as soon as they manage to implement onboarding (like registering through the app) and proper “message replies” and threads it could be already pretty stable and usable from everyone.
• Fluffy Chat last time I tried was reeeally unstable, but it’s been a while and maybe there were good progresses there as well (it must be kept in mind that it’s volunteers-driven and not backed by a company as Element is)
• Cinny and Fragment seems very interesting too, but haven’t found the time to try them out properly yet.

Please report your bugs! If they are repeatable, use the documentation process to let the devs know so they can fix them.

Doing that helps make the experience better for everybody.

Writing a good encrypted chat app is very complicated, even if it may seem very simple. Message threads are a simple concept but they quickly complicate UI flow and program design, especially when you can’t just ask the server “give me all the messages in this thread” because of encryption. Writing end to end encrypted messengers is hard enough already, but adding federation between servers to the mix makes it almost impossible. There’s a reason there are basically two federated, E2EE chat standard (XMPP and Matrix) and why nobody seems to be using either of them.

It should be noted that Element X isn’t finished yet. It’s basically a public beta. When it’s ready, it’ll be called Element and replace the old app.

Cinny and many other Matrix clients only implement parts of the Matrix spec (especially verification). The only fully compliant web client I know is Element, and on desktop there are a few that come close. Threads are a relatively new feature that doesn’t work in most clients because they require design effort to support. Fluffychat and Cinny in general look nice, but in terms of feature support they’re actually quite barebones, and development isn’t as fast as with commercial chat apps.

If you want the full Matrix experience, stick to Element. It’s the only application with actual funding behind it, and the only implementation that actually has the features Matrix is capable of supporting.

Not being able to load old messages seems to be a symptom of a slow server plus messages not having been downloaded to your device before. Recent additions such as Sliding Sync have improved responsiveness for new users and devices, but for old messages you’ll still need to sync all the way back, and that can be quite algorithmically complex, especially in encrypted rooms. Servers also seem to be written so that new messages are delivered fast, not to make browsing the history faster, which makes sense because that’s how most people use chat apps. State compression on the server side can help with speed, but will only do so much if the server itself is overloaded.

All in all, the Matrix ecosystem is full of quick, throwaway projects, led by an underfunded company that is struggling to keep its own applications and server running well. If every Matrix user would donate a dollar a month, I think the ecosystem would be much better, but right now it’s struggling to keep up with its own development.

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Did you verify all of your sessions? AFAIK element x is still prerelease and is likely still very buggy. You should try schildichat

Element X is still in production, mostly should be threated as beta. Element is going to be depracated when Element X is ready. FlufflyChat and Cinny are build in free time by community and do not have resources to adopt to currently fast changing Matrix APIs. Fractal was just recently rewritten to use the same SDK and base as Element X.

Awesome project, but many things are rewritten or in the working now.

You know I tried to use element the other day and couldn’t even get it to load in the fucking invite code so I said forget it.

Shits still fairly young yet, as more interest develops in this whole sort of universe, talent and time spendable on these projects will increase.

You could always volunteer yourself if they offer that with their dev people! Not sure though