{"slug": "synapse", "name": "Synapse", "category": "selfhosted", "category_name": "Self-hosted and home server", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 5, "warners": 1, "score": 1.837, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-12-01", "latest": "2026-10-09", "why": "I have been using synapse for years with little issue.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I have been using synapse for years with little issue.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://github.com/element-hq/synapse", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Synapse"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 786105552, "item_id": 49131597, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49131597", "by": "louiskottmann", "date": "2026-07-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have been using synapse for years with little issue.", "excerpt": "Remark half-way in the rant they are using dendrite, an experimental matrix server implementation that has been abandonned. Thus ranting about it is cheeky at best. I have been using synapse for years with little issue.", "context": "", "use_case": "Matrix server", "switched_from": "", "story": "A Week in Matrix"}, {"id": 743952880, "item_id": 46497055, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46497055", "by": "aligundogdu", "date": "2026-01-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I decided to move our stack to Matrix/Synapse", "excerpt": "That 10k limit was the breaking point for me too. I decided to move our stack to Matrix/Synapse but didn't want to lose years of context. Since I couldn't find a straightforward migration path, I built a CLI tool to handle the transition (users, channels, and history). It\u2019s open-source if you want to give it a try or contribute: https://github.com/aligundogdu/matrixmigrate", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "Mattermost", "story": "Mattermost restricted access to old messages after 10000 limit is reached"}, {"id": 737852864, "item_id": 46115804, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46115804", "by": "eTomte", "date": "2025-12-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Def bumps along the way, but its still the daily driver for me and about five other people.", "excerpt": "I've been running synapse on a small VPS for the past few years. I got some of the bridges working too. Def bumps along the way, but its still the daily driver for me and about five other people. Recently I spun up the new ESS Community Edition on a new VPS. Much easier to get up and running. I was delightfully surprised. although since that one uses kubernetes and other things I'm not familiar with getting bridges a", "context": "runs it on a small VPS for about five people", "use_case": "self-hosted Matrix server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 800409494, "item_id": 50025593, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50025593", "by": "MayeulC", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I do not recommend due to spam waves.", "excerpt": "Well, I have a VPS, plus multiple physical servers in different locations (parents, etc). The VPS is useful for: - sending e-mails (hard to improve your reputation on residential IPs and get a reverse DNS record) - Unifi controller, though I appreciate Unifi less and less. - Uptime monitoring / status page - I think I'll move my headscale node there, since it has the highest availability -- Internet was out for a wee", "context": "", "use_case": "Matrix server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?"}]}], "who": [{"by": "eTomte", "context": "runs it on a small VPS for about five people", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46115804", "date": "2025-12-01"}, {"by": "meatmanek", "context": "runs a 2-user server", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46110431", "date": "2025-12-01"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["matrix server", "self-hosted matrix server", "team chat"], "compared": [{"slug": "mattermost", "name": "Mattermost", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46106132", "title": "Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49985548", "title": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49130295", "title": "A Week in Matrix", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46383675", "title": "Mattermost restricted access to old messages after 10000 limit is reached", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"warn": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 800409494, "item_id": 50025593, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50025593", "by": "MayeulC", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I do not recommend due to spam waves.", "excerpt": "Well, I have a VPS, plus multiple physical servers in different locations (parents, etc). The VPS is useful for: - sending e-mails (hard to improve your reputation on residential IPs and get a reverse DNS record) - Unifi controller, though I appreciate Unifi less and less. - Uptime monitoring / status page - I think I'll move my headscale node there, since it has the highest availability -- Internet was out for a wee", "context": "", "use_case": "Matrix server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?"}, {"id": 786105552, "item_id": 49131597, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49131597", "by": "louiskottmann", "date": "2026-07-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have been using synapse for years with little issue.", "excerpt": "Remark half-way in the rant they are using dendrite, an experimental matrix server implementation that has been abandonned. Thus ranting about it is cheeky at best. I have been using synapse for years with little issue.", "context": "", "use_case": "Matrix server", "switched_from": "", "story": "A Week in Matrix"}, {"id": 743952880, "item_id": 46497055, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46497055", "by": "aligundogdu", "date": "2026-01-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I decided to move our stack to Matrix/Synapse", "excerpt": "That 10k limit was the breaking point for me too. I decided to move our stack to Matrix/Synapse but didn't want to lose years of context. Since I couldn't find a straightforward migration path, I built a CLI tool to handle the transition (users, channels, and history). It\u2019s open-source if you want to give it a try or contribute: https://github.com/aligundogdu/matrixmigrate", "context": "", "use_case": "team chat", "switched_from": "Mattermost", "story": "Mattermost restricted access to old messages after 10000 limit is reached"}, {"id": 737852864, "item_id": 46115804, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46115804", "by": "eTomte", "date": "2025-12-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Def bumps along the way, but its still the daily driver for me and about five other people.", "excerpt": "I've been running synapse on a small VPS for the past few years. I got some of the bridges working too. Def bumps along the way, but its still the daily driver for me and about five other people. Recently I spun up the new ESS Community Edition on a new VPS. Much easier to get up and running. I was delightfully surprised. although since that one uses kubernetes and other things I'm not familiar with getting bridges a", "context": "runs it on a small VPS for about five people", "use_case": "self-hosted Matrix server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years"}, {"id": 737766897, "item_id": 46110431, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46110431", "by": "meatmanek", "date": "2025-12-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use sqlite for my 2-user server and haven't had any issues in the several years I've been running it.", "excerpt": "I use sqlite for my 2-user server and haven't had any issues in the several years I've been running it. It's possible to corrupt a sqlite database file, but generally it shouldn't happen unless you're doing something weird with it. https://www.sqlite.org/howtocorrupt.html", "context": "runs a 2-user server", "use_case": "self-hosted Matrix server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years"}]}