[title = Joining the Matrix]: #
[banner = images/Blasty/joining_matrix/joining_matrix.webp]: #
[section = tutorials]: #
[keywords = tutorial, Matrix, opensource, chat]: #
[description = Step by step tutorial to use my most recomended chat/call application.]: #
[__extension_content_table__ = True]: #
[type = article]: #
[social_link = https://mastodon.social/@lily_linck/116923961063590409]: #

Hi.

Some time ago I made a tutorial intended to help close friends be free from Discord, using the best alternative [recomended in other article](../../../_BlastyLily/texts/discord_alternatives.html). Now it is a good time to make this tutorial public, so lets go!

# What is Matrix

An open-source communication network, privacy friendly and decentralized. It works by separating the functionality in two layers:

* **Homeservers**  
	The web-server that provides the communication and hosts all the content
* **Client** applications  
	The gateway to access Homeservers and communicate

You can choose whatever Homeserver and Client application you want, in the same way you can choose different e-mail providers, but the day-to-day usage of Matrix comes with two important advantages over e-mail: a lot more privacy (end to end encryption) and much more interaction than simple text messages (audio, video, polls and even audio/video rooms in some clients).

What this means in practice is that you do not need to use closed ecosystems  to talk with friends and join communities, you can use a better alternative that respects you, your privacy and gives you the freedom of using whatever provider/clients you want – even your own.

## What Clients are available?

At the moment of writing, those are the options with best feature support for my personal requirements (audio/video rooms and end to end encryption):

* [Element](https://element.io/en)  
	The default Matrix client, developed by the same creators of the network – and because of this, the most feature-complete. Has both web, desktop and mobile apps, being often provided in its web version by Homeservers to allow easy access.
* [Cinny](https://cinny.in/)  
	Lightweight client application with simpler UI. Their desktop version is more limited than the web client because of problems with dependencies, so if you want to use it for audio/video rooms you will need the web version.
* [Commet](https://commet.chat/)  
	Comfortable UI with extra features, but without end-to-end encryption for audio/video rooms. It’s an experimental software, so there might be problems and instabilities.

If you do not require audio/video rooms, there are a few more notable options:

* [Nheko](https://nheko-reborn.github.io/)  
	Supports end-to-end encryption and audio/video calls, but not audio rooms yet.
* [Fluffy Chat](https://fluffy.chat/en/)  
	Beautiful UI and more text oriented, with experimental audio/video calls support and end-to-end encryption. Does not support Windows or Mac outside of the web client.
* [Neochat](https://apps.kde.org/neochat/)  
	Text/file focused chat app, with no support for calls.
* [Mozilla Thunderbird](https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/)  
	Surprisingly this e-mail client also supports text-messages and end-to-end encryption, but not calls.

Feel free to use whatever client suits better your needs and taste, even as many of them as you want – since your account is totally independent of the chose client. I am using Element currently, but looking forward for Cinny to solve [their problem with audio rooms](https://github.com/cinnyapp/cinny-desktop/issues/545).

## What Homeservers are available?

A true answer to this question would be YES. But this would not be of any use, so lets focus on the Homeservers I personally recommend and why:

* [Unredacted](https://unredacted.org/services/si/matrix/) (unredacted.org)  
	One of the many free services provided by the US-based non profit of the same name, focused on free-speech with simple and objective rules. Might be a bit unstable to audio/video rooms depending on your location.
* [Nope.chat](https://nope.chat/) (nope.chat)  
	One of the many free services provided by a german private citizen on the [adminForge](https://adminforge.de/) platform, with rules simple enough to be readable on machine translation that apply over all other services of the platform. On my experience it is more stable for audio/video rooms than Unredacted, but this is probably because of my location.
* Your own  
	If you got a spare computer and a domain you can host your own Homeserver, having full control over infra-structure and setting your own rules. This is outside of the scope of this article, but there are tons of tutorials on how to do it online.

You might have noticed that I did not include the Matrix Homeserver (matrix.org), and that is fully intentional: because [they folded to the Online Safety Act](https://matrix.org/blog/2025/07/terms-update/#online-safety-act-and-digital-services-act-related-changes), as expected from a company based in the tyrannical UK, so their home-server should not be used. The Matrix network is made to resist censorship, so you don’t need to panic: just avoid the servers that fold to absurdities.
I strongly recommend Unredacted and Nope.chat as Homeservers, both provide a great service for free and several other great tools. If you have the money to spare, they definitively deserve donations to keep their excellent work.

# Joining a Homeserver

Now that all the explanation is out of the way, let’s join a Homeserver! For this tutorial I’ll be using the Unredacted Homeserver (unredacted.org) as example – because all it’s pages are in english – and their instance of Element web as client, to makes things simpler.

Before anything else, [READ THE F-ING RULES](https://unredacted.org/services/si/matrix/)! It was not once or twice that I saw people crying about being banned from “supposed” free-speech platforms because they said/did whatever they wanted without even looking at the rules of said platform. From random commenters on websites to relatively popular content creators, always creating some personal theories to why “they are persecuted for saying things as they are” while blatantly going against rules.
So do not be an idiot like them, make sure to always read all Rules/Guidelines, Terms of Service and Privacy Policies before even creating an account. If Unredacted’s rules do not look great to you, feel free to use another Homeserver, most of the tutorial won’t change over this.

After reading the rules, go for the Unredacted Element web-client and click on “Create Account”:

![Create Account](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/account_1.jpg)

The next screen will ask you all the information you need to have an account: username, password and an e-mail.

![Account Info](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/account_2.jpg)

Remember to save your chosen **username** and **password** somewhere safe, preferably an offline password-manager like KeepassXC. After filling the info and clicking on “Register”, you will receive a confirmation e-mail to finish your account creation. Opening the link address on the e-mail will finish this process.
Now that you are ready to use Matrix, we can do an optional step to make easier for you to use other clients – and have some extra security.

## Saving your recovery key

Besides providing you a secure way to get back into your account in any emergency, having your recovery keys saved outside the Matrix client (KeepassXC is a good place for that) will make easier to log in your account using other devices/clients.
On Element click on the gear button at the bottom left corner and then on the “All settings” button.

![Recovery Key](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/recovery_1.jpg)

On the following window, go for the “Encryption” tab and follow the instructions to generate a Recovery Key for your account – that you must save somewhere safe. After creating it, Element will ask you to confirm the key to finish setting it.

![Recovery Key](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/recovery_2.jpg)

## Using a local Client

Let’s say that, like me, you don’t want to open a website every time to use Matrix, instead you want an application on your PC/Phone just for that. Lets see how you can use the account created previously for that. Assuming you already installed an application on your device, let’s proceed to the login normally:

![Local Login](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/local_client_1.jpg)

After clicking on the “Sign in” button, we will be asked which Homeserver to sign-in to. Since we are not using the default “matrix.org”,  we click on the “Edit” link to change it to the one we will use.

![Homeserver](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/local_client_2.jpg)

After setting the Homeserver to use, you can proceed to login:

![Ready to go](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/local_client_3.jpg)

Remember the (optional) step of Saving your recovery key? If you did it, you will be able to verify your account on the device by inserting the same key after the login. If you did not, you will have to match emotes on both the web client and in your device to verify your identity. Either way, after this verification you are good to go.

For the rest of this tutorial is does not matter which version of Element you use, since the desktop version is nearly identical to the web version.

# Rooms and Spaces

Ok, you got your account and now can use it to talk to people, but how exactly? The first thing is knowing how to find people, or letting people find you: your Matrix Username, a simple combination of the username you inserted to register your account and the Homeserver where you did it. To check your Matrix Username, return to the “All settings” dialog and go for the Account tab:

![Matrix Username](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/account_3.jpg)

If you look closely at this Username, it kinda resembles an e-mail address. This similarity is fully intentional, because you can use the same name in different Homeservers and also use a singe account to communicate with people across different Homeservers - just like e-mail.

## Rooms

With your Matrix Username in hands, you can share it with other people so they can find you and have messages in Rooms: text-focused chats, that also allow sending images, audios, video, files, making polls, doing audio/video calls, message replies, pinning messages and creating threads. It does not matter if it’s a direct message or a group, all Room features are always available.
One easy way to start a Direct Message is to click the “Search” bar on the top left of the screen, and paste the Matrix Username of who you want to talk to:

![Search](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/rooms_1.jpg)

You could also use the compass button on the right of the “Search” to find public rooms – but don’t expect any guidance for this from an anti-social person like myself. Another possibility is creating a room on the edit icon bellow the “Search”, which will give you the following options:

![Create](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/rooms_2.jpg)

In “Start chat” you can create Rooms dedicated to direct messages with someone and/or get an invite link for other to send direct messages to you, either way end-to-end encryption will be active.
In both “New room” and “New video room” you can create a dedicated room to share with any number people, that by default will be private (not listed on the Homeserver for anyone to find) and have end-to-end encryption enabled. The difference is that Video rooms work primarily as an audio/video call with an (optional) text chat, while common rooms work primarily with the text chat and have calls as an option.

![Create](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/rooms_3.jpg)

## Spaces

You might eventually end up with lots of Rooms talking to people or groups of people, which can become hard to navigate. To make things more organized, enter Spaces: groups of Rooms under a same place – roughly equivalent to Discord’s “servers”. To create a new Space, go for the plus button on the leftmost bar:

![New Space](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/spaces_1.jpg)

As shown bellow, you can create two types of spaces: Public (visible for anyone in the Homeserver) and Private (only you and who you invite will see it). You can also search for already existing Public Spaces to find communities you are interested in.

![Space Access](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/spaces_2.jpg)

Once you chose which kind of space you’ll create, provide a Name, a Description, an Image and finish clicking the “Create” button:

![Space Details](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/spaces_3.jpg)

After the space creation is finished you will be prompted to (optionally) configure it, but you can skip this step and enter the Home of your Space. There, you can create new Rooms – that will be contained only in this Space – or adding already existing rooms for organization.

![Space Home](../../../images/Blasty/joining_matrix/spaces_4.jpg)

You can also invite people to your Spaces or Rooms, either by their Matrix Username or creating an Invite Link. But there is a catch on invite links: at least for now, they work only in Public Rooms/Spaces, if you try to invite by link to a private Room/Space it will not work – and don’t ask me why, on this project I’m just a regular user. :v

# Conclusion

Freeing your communication from closed ecosystems and big corporations is not that hard, there are already existing technologies that work very well and are quite easy to use – and the Matrix networks is among the best options available today. Try it out, freedom awaits you.

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See you on the next article! ^^