Information for Matrix Users

GENERAL DISCLAIMER: Inclusion does NOT imply any opinion (affiliation, endorsement, etc.) on individual homeservers, nor any guarantee regarding their availability. This list is provided “as is.” Any dispute regarding your account on one of the homeservers should be resolved between you and the operator(s) of the homeserver.

Welcome! This site is intended to help you decide which homeserver to base your account on. Please note that, while all listed servers respect the absolute criteria, you're encouraged to do your due diligence before trusting a homeserver. After all, they'll have access to all unencrypted data in your account!

Specifically, you should:

• Inspect the homeserver's homepage and legal policies, where applicable;
• Check if the server is federating properly;
• Verify if the server has an up-to-date version.

The software behind this list is open source. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me!

Still, how do I select a homeserver?

Unfortunately, Matrix does not provide an endpoint to query how many users a homeserver has. Member distribution on major rooms can be used as reference.

Below is a list of homeservers that are included in the homeserver list and have more than 10 members in #archlinux:archlinux.org on January 10, 2024:

# of members	Homeservers (exact member count)
>= 100	envs.net (185), tchncs.de (109)
26 ~ 99	catgirl.cloud (51), hackliberty.org (26)
21 ~ 25	matrix.im (24), converser.eu (21), sibnsk.net (21)
16 ~ 20	tedomum.net (18), arcticfoxes.net (16)
13 ~ 15	aria-net.org (14), yatrix.org (13)
12	archoslinux.cz, cat.casa, gnulinux.club
11	nope.chat

Note that member does not imply "active user." The omission of any homeservers does not mean that they are not stable enough to be used; it simply means that the stability has not been proven in the community.

Explanations of certain terminologies

Version status

There are three version statuses:

• Up-to-date means the homeserver is running on a version that has been released for less than approximately 1 month.
• Outdated means the homeserver is running on a version that has been released for more than approximately 1 month.
• Vulnerable means the homeserver is running on a version that has known vulnerabilities. While this does not imply the server being vulnerable (since many vulnerabilities require very specific preconditions), this may be an indication that a server is not keeping up with maintenance.

	Up-to-date	Outdated	Vulnerable
Synapse	>= 1.104.0	1.96.0 ~ 1.103.0	< 1.95.1
Dendrite	>= 0.13.7	0.13.2 ~ 0.13.6	< 0.13.1
Conduit	>= 0.7.0	n/a	< 0.7.0
Conduwuit	>= 0.3.2	n/a	< 0.3.2

"Longstanding"

Any homeserver that was included on publiclist.anchel.nl (archive) as well as Hello Matrix's homeserver list (no longer updated) is given a Longstanding label to recognize their longevity.

Manual Registration

When a homeserver does not provide a method to register directly, you may create an account using your preferred Matrix client (if it supports doing so). See here for the exact procedure.

Frequently-Asked Questions

Why shouldn't I just use matrix.org?

Because it is way too large, and thus

• It has performance issues, and
• Being a dominating homeserver, its existence is antithetical to decentralisation.

Of course, Matrix.org tries to address this by introducing P2P, but it may be a while before it goes into production; even then, P2P is unlikely to be suitable for everyone.

Are there other homeserver lists?

Currently, this is the only comprehensive public homeserver list. The rest are either raw (automatically generated) or intentionally misleading, so they're not as remotely useful as this list.

CHATONS has a list of homeservers hosted by various tech cooperatives (mostly French), though most of them require payment.

There's also a short guide on furry homeservers and communities on Matrix.

To my understanding, matrix.org will eventually host an official homeserver list.