I’m currently using Beeper to conglomerate the plethora of chat services that my friends and family use: WhatsApp, FB Messenger, RCS/SMS, and Discord. I use Signal separately because I read that Beeper needs to decrypt incoming messages before reencrypting and routing, so I felt adding a bridge for Signal defeated the purpose of using Signal.

I’ve also read that Beeper is essentially just Matrix with a bunch of bridges, so I looked into self-hosting Matrix and standing up those bridges myself. I would feel comfortable integrating Signal into a self-hosted instance where I control and can encrypt the middleware.

What would you all recommend as a viable, self-hosted alternative to replace Beeper? I’ve been trying to set up Matrix but running into a lot of headache with no simple way to self-host it. Yes, I’ve tried the Ansible set up and I get countless issues. I’ve heard an XMPP server might be a better solution as it is more lightweight and battle-tested? How do XMPP gateways compare to Matrix bridges, and would they cover all my needs?

  • @shrugal@lemm.ee
    5•1 month ago

    I’m using the Beeper Matrix server, but self-host their bridges. That way the de- and reencryption is done on my server, and Beeper only sees encrypted Matrix messages. It’s extremely easy to set up if you’ve used docker before, much less work than running a full Matrix server yourself.

    • @bonsai@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      3•1 month ago

      This might be exactly what I’m looking for, thank you! I’m fine with Beeper itself, I just want the decryption on a machine I control so this looks perfect if I can get it working. Thanks!

      • @shrugal@lemm.ee
        2•1 month ago

        if I can get it working

        It’s really as simple as starting one container per chat service, with a config like this:

        services:
    beeper-<service>:
        image: ghcr.io/beeper/bridge-manager
        restart: unless-stopped
        environment:
            - MATRIX_ACCESS_TOKEN=<your beeper matrix token>
            - BRIDGE_NAME=sh-<service>
        volumes:
            - ./beeper-<service>:/data

        then messaging the @sh-<service>bot:beeper.local bot user, and logging in to your chat account.

  • 🌶️ - knighthawk
    4•1 month ago

    i don’t have anything useful to add except that I’m saving this because i also want to know the same thing as you.

    hoping to learn how and start hosting my own matrix server over summer. depending on how things work I’d like to migrate my family chat there, possibly even host space for my kid’s friends if that’s a thing they have interest in using

    • @bonsai@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      1•1 month ago

      I’m aware, as stated in the post I mentioned I’ve been trying that one out but running into a lot of issues. I’m not trying to debug those here though, just trying to get opinions on other options.