{"slug": "fractal", "name": "Fractal", "category": "communication", "category_name": "Email and chat", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 7, "warners": 1, "score": 2.466, "rising": -1.31, "first": "2025-11-28", "latest": "2026-07-14", "why": "Similiar native applications integrate much better and use a fraction of memory (e.g. Fractal).", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 3, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [1, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Similiar native applications integrate much better and use a fraction of memory (e.g. Fractal).", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": "usefractal.dev", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://usefractal.dev", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Fractal", "fractal"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 772829011, "item_id": 48301813, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48301813", "by": "BoorishBears", "date": "2026-05-27", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Proper consumer apps like:", "excerpt": "You're trying to figure out what it is incrementally, and I'm telling you Apple Messages for Business is ancient news and isn't fit for the purpose described: https://www.apple.com/ios/business-chat/ The \"experiences\" are not normal 1:1 iMessage conversations. You're joining an outreach channel, and only large corporations (that includes whoever does distribution for Billie Eilish) qualify. Proper consumer apps like:", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) \u2013 Twilio for iMessage"}, {"id": 752600928, "item_id": 47037558, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47037558", "by": "drnick1", "date": "2026-02-16", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use fractal and a self-hosted server and it works great.", "excerpt": "Agreed, I use fractal and a self-hosted server and it works great.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Running My Own XMPP Server"}, {"id": 751309121, "item_id": 46956820, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46956820", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-02-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also liked the fractal gnu app", "excerpt": "> Matrix \u2192 flexible but rough UX Matrix's UI/UX is actually really flexible with multiple clients. You aren't struck with Element, you can even use TUI clients or any clients. For the web, the one which I really love is cinny. Cinny is really awesome, its UI/UX is better than discord imo. I recommend people to check out the matrix ecosystem of clients to see what they like, because I also liked the fractal gnu app & ", "context": "", "use_case": "Matrix client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Discord Alternatives, Ranked"}, {"id": 737330418, "item_id": 46083151, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46083151", "by": "ho_schi", "date": "2025-11-28", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Similiar native applications integrate much better and use a fraction of memory (e.g. Fractal).", "excerpt": "https://josephg.com/blog/electron-is-flash-for-the-desktop/ Please use native toolkits. At least Gtk or Qt :) Flash is just \u201cWe don\u2019t like to pay developers. We prefer you to pay more for memory. And your processor. And by the why, we don\u2019t care about your security.\u201d Ironically memory prices are skyrocketing right now. Even the best known Electron application (Signal) is eating memory like it is free. Similiar native", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Airloom \u2013 3D Flight Tracker"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 782386337, "item_id": 48899146, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899146", "by": "kaladin-jasnah", "date": "2026-07-13", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I think I tried Fractal and whatever KDE was working on and neither was polished at the time of use.", "excerpt": "I used Cinny at some point, but the issue for me was the mobile client. I liked Cinny, but wasn't a huge fan of a web-based client. I think I tried Fractal and whatever KDE was working on and neither was polished at the time of use.", "context": "", "use_case": "Matrix client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Telegram's t.me domain has been suspended"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["matrix client", "matrix desktop client", "unix-like boot program"], "compared": [{"slug": "cinny", "name": "Cinny", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "matrix", "name": "Matrix", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "discord", "name": "Discord", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "fluffychat", "name": "FluffyChat", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 777530848, "item_id": 48595678, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48595678", "by": "jprx", "date": "2026-06-19", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Hi everyone, Joseph (paper author) here. You can find Fractal on Github: https://github.com/jprx/fractal The full paper, slides from my S&P talk, and all our experiment data can be found at the Fractal project website here: https://fractal-os.com We've been building Fractal internally for a very long time (first commit was almost exactly 2 years ago), so it's exciting to finally share it with the world. Let me know w", "context": "paper author", "use_case": "studying how chips work", "switched_from": "", "story": "To study how chips work, MIT researchers built their own operating system"}, {"id": 736433570, "item_id": 46027098, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46027098", "by": "mercury24aug", "date": "2025-11-23", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "We built https://usefractal.dev/ to make it easier for people to build ChatGPT Apps", "excerpt": "Giving LLM the ability to generate UI is a cool concept, but our models are not there yet. MCP Apps can be extremely powerful, for example, you can play Doom inside ChatGPT: https://x.com/rauchg/status/1978235161398673553?s=20 I don't think we can generate anywhere close to this kind of UI just yet. We built https://usefractal.dev/ to make it easier for people to build ChatGPT Apps (they are technically MCP Apps) so ", "context": "", "use_case": "Building ChatGPT apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "MCP Apps: Extending servers with interactive user interfaces"}, {"id": 736328049, "item_id": 46020503, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46020503", "by": "mercury24aug", "date": "2025-11-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Full disclosure, I'm partial here because of our work at https://usefractal.dev.", "excerpt": "Looks like OpenAI, Anthropic, and the MCP-UI team actually worked together on a common standard for MCP Apps: https://blog.modelcontextprotocol.io/posts/2025-11-21-mcp-apps/ Honestly, I think the biggest friction for MCP adoption has been how un-userfriendly it is. It\u2019s great for devs, but not the average users. Users don't always want to chat, sometimes they just want to click a button or adjust a slider. This feels", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "MCP Apps: Extending servers with interactive user interfaces"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897878", "title": "Telegram's t.me domain has been suspended", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48543311", "title": "To study how chips work, MIT researchers built their own operating system", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46020502", "title": "MCP Apps: Extending servers with interactive user interfaces", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48267829", "title": "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) \u2013 Twilio for iMessage", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47172119", "title": "Layoffs at Block", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47034801", "title": "Running My Own XMPP Server", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 2, "warn": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "quotes": [{"id": 782459681, "item_id": 48903730, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48903730", "by": "graynk", "date": "2026-07-14", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "On desktop I use Fractal but it still misses some fairly major features like spaces and threads.", "excerpt": "Fluffychat works reasonably well on mobile for me. On desktop I use Fractal but it still misses some fairly major features like spaces and threads.", "context": "", "use_case": "Matrix desktop client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Telegram's t.me domain has been suspended"}, {"id": 782389696, "item_id": 48899356, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899356", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-07-13", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Fractal probably comes as close to it tbh", "excerpt": "Hm yeah I understand, there were some issues in Fractal where it didn't support spaces sometime back (I am not sure about it right now), it was fun talking to the team at gnome though making fractal. > I liked Cinny, but wasn't a huge fan of a web-based client. I feel as if sacrifices must be made as Signal and most others are probably web based clients as well. Fractal probably comes as close to it tbh > but the iss", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Telegram's t.me domain has been suspended"}, {"id": 782386337, "item_id": 48899146, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899146", "by": "kaladin-jasnah", "date": "2026-07-13", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I think I tried Fractal and whatever KDE was working on and neither was polished at the time of use.", "excerpt": "I used Cinny at some point, but the issue for me was the mobile client. I liked Cinny, but wasn't a huge fan of a web-based client. I think I tried Fractal and whatever KDE was working on and neither was polished at the time of use.", "context": "", "use_case": "Matrix client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Telegram's t.me domain has been suspended"}, {"id": 782385809, "item_id": 48899113, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899113", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-07-13", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Fractal and the matrix element fork called schildichat are interesting as well", "excerpt": "For matrix, I don't use the original client but rather cinny. This client is so good that I wish that other clients and it looks really good in UI/UX, honestly I have had some serious thoughts of porting this UI sometimes: https://cinny.in, so I would be curious what you think about this as well. (Side note: Fractal and the matrix element fork called schildichat are interesting as well. It is also possible to run mat", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Telegram's t.me domain has been suspended"}, {"id": 777679936, "item_id": 48604996, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48604996", "by": "throawayonthe", "date": "2026-06-19", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "a boot program that happens to be unix-like, have a libc, tools like binutils, coreutils, dash, vim, gcc and a GUI have a filesystem, userspace, peripheral support... https://github.com/jprx/fractal", "context": "", "use_case": "Unix-like boot program", "switched_from": "", "story": "To study how chips work, MIT researchers built their own operating system"}, {"id": 772829011, "item_id": 48301813, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48301813", "by": "BoorishBears", "date": "2026-05-27", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Proper consumer apps like:", "excerpt": "You're trying to figure out what it is incrementally, and I'm telling you Apple Messages for Business is ancient news and isn't fit for the purpose described: https://www.apple.com/ios/business-chat/ The \"experiences\" are not normal 1:1 iMessage conversations. You're joining an outreach channel, and only large corporations (that includes whoever does distribution for Billie Eilish) qualify. Proper consumer apps like:", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) \u2013 Twilio for iMessage"}, {"id": 754781936, "item_id": 47173871, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47173871", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-02-26", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "back when I used to use fractal", "excerpt": "I found this an interesting question and did some research out of curiosity [Full credits to wikipedia]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Division (The company behind what's gonna be essentially StarOffice/Later OpenOffice/Libreoffice given Libreoffice is a fork of OpenOffice) Star Division was a German software company best known for developing StarOffice, a proprietary office suite. The company was founded in 198", "context": "", "use_case": "Matrix client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Layoffs at Block"}, {"id": 752600928, "item_id": 47037558, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47037558", "by": "drnick1", "date": "2026-02-16", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use fractal and a self-hosted server and it works great.", "excerpt": "Agreed, I use fractal and a self-hosted server and it works great.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Running My Own XMPP Server"}, {"id": 751309121, "item_id": 46956820, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46956820", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-02-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also liked the fractal gnu app", "excerpt": "> Matrix \u2192 flexible but rough UX Matrix's UI/UX is actually really flexible with multiple clients. You aren't struck with Element, you can even use TUI clients or any clients. For the web, the one which I really love is cinny. Cinny is really awesome, its UI/UX is better than discord imo. I recommend people to check out the matrix ecosystem of clients to see what they like, because I also liked the fractal gnu app & ", "context": "", "use_case": "Matrix client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Discord Alternatives, Ranked"}, {"id": 737330418, "item_id": 46083151, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46083151", "by": "ho_schi", "date": "2025-11-28", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Similiar native applications integrate much better and use a fraction of memory (e.g. Fractal).", "excerpt": "https://josephg.com/blog/electron-is-flash-for-the-desktop/ Please use native toolkits. At least Gtk or Qt :) Flash is just \u201cWe don\u2019t like to pay developers. We prefer you to pay more for memory. And your processor. And by the why, we don\u2019t care about your security.\u201d Ironically memory prices are skyrocketing right now. Even the best known Electron application (Signal) is eating memory like it is free. Similiar native", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Airloom \u2013 3D Flight Tracker"}]}