Matrix Clients and their pros and cons

matrix-client-comparisons.md

Matrix Client Comparison

Note

This provided list is based solely on my opinion. You may not care about some of these features, but some people who are transitioning from Discord to Matrix may care. The clients are taken from https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/

Last updated date: July 2026

Element

A glossy web and desktop client with an emphasis on performance and usability.

✅ Pros

• Fully cross-platform (Desktop, Web, Mobile)
• Free Open Source Software
• E2EE support
• Verification with other users
• Voice Chat support
  • Video
  • Screenshare
  • Multiple people (more than 2)
  • Supported even if the homeserver doesn't have support for it
• URL preview/embed support
• Polls
• Voice Messages

❌ Cons

• Client is bloated and resource intensive
  • UI may not be pleasant to look at for some users
• Custom emoji/sticker pack support is limited
  • Reacting with and viewing emojis/stickers is supported, however only stickers can be sent if you integrate with the default integration manager (scalar.vector.im)
  • Sometimes custom emojis/stickers don't show at all, instead showing the mxc url rather than the image
• No multi-account support
• Custom theming requires enabling a configuration file
• Sub-spaces can't be pinned, and they are hard to navigate through
  • Additionally, sub-spaces don't act like other clients such as Cinny or Commet, requiring you to go in the sub-space to view the rooms, making it feel clunky / messy
• No markdown helper
• Some of markdown like this sometimes doesn't work
• Encrypted message searching is not supported on web, only desktop
  • Also, message filters do not exist, making it very limited if you want to search something from a specific date
• Image captioning is not supported (meaning messages for both the text and image would be separate events)
• Embeds are close to good but not that great
  • While it shows the needed information similar to discord, for embeds that are tenor images or similar, they do not play the gif automatically (despite the autoplay gif setting enabled) and require you to click on the image to view the gif.
• Media permissions is currently bugged on web, not allowing to video call
• No "mark all rooms in space as read" button, not allowing you to quickly dismiss notifications
• For most file formats such as a txt, you have to download the file to view it, rather than being able to preview it.
• No gif button
• Element X (mobile) seems to lack some features than its predecessor client

Conclusion Use if you want the most up to date for the matrix spec, as the team behind Element seems to mostly implement features ahead of time before other clients.

Cinny

A Matrix client focusing primarily on simple, elegant and secure interface.

✅ Pros

• Very pleasant UI to look at, while also using less resources
• Supports desktop & web
• Free Open Source Software
• E2EE support
• Markdown helper
• Custom Emojis/Stickers are fully supported
• Sub-spaces are easy to navigate, and mimic the look of Discord categories
• Message searching work in all platforms supported (as long as it's not encrypted)
• Sending both images and messages work
  • Image captioning does not seem to be supported, so that is also in the cons section.
• URL preview/embed support
• Custom role support with colors and icons
• Voice Messages
• Voice Chat support
  • Video
  • Screenshare
  • Multiple people (more than 2)
  • Supported even if the homeserver doesn't have support for it

❌ Cons

• Platforms limited to Desktop & Web
• Verification with other users
  • Shows as "Unsupported message" if another user attempts to verify. Also verification doesn't appear to exist at all.
• Polls not supported
• Custom themes not supported on any platform but web
  • You are required to use the web version of Cinny with the Stylus extension to have "custom theme support"
• Currently there is a bug where setting a room to be muted doesn't actually "mute" the room (still has unread indicator)
• There is also a bug where turning off typing/read indicator turns off visilbility for it entirely
  • This means you won't know if someone is typing or not
• No multi-account support
• Message searching in encrypted rooms does not work (cinnyapp/cinny#762)
  • Also, message filters do not exist, making it very limited if you want to search something from a specific date
• Image captioning is not supported (meaning messages for both the text and image would be separate events)
• Embeds are not as good
  • While it shows the needed information similar to discord, for embeds that are tenor images or similar, they do not play the gif. Unlike other clients like Element, clicking on the gif does not do anything, requiring you to click the link to see the gif.
• No gif button

Conclusion Use if you want a client that feels and looks like Discord, while looking modern and pleasing to look at. Some features may be missing as the team seems to focus more on user experience than feature bloat. I personally use this client.

gomuks (web)

TODO

FluffyChat

TODO

Commet

Focused on providing a feature rich experience while maintaining a simple interface

✅ Pros

• Fully cross-platform (Desktop, Web, Mobile)
• UI looks very similar to Discord
• Free Open Source Software
• E2EE support
• Voice Chat support
  • Multiple people (more than 2)
• URL preview/embed support
• Custom Emojis/Stickers are fully supported
• Sub-spaces are easy to navigate, and mimic the look of Discord categories
• Gif button
• Multi-account support

❌ Cons

• Custom theming does not exist (Stylus?)
• Image captioning is not supported (meaning messages for both the text and image would be separate events)
• No "mark all rooms in space as read" button, not allowing you to quickly dismiss notifications
• Gif button, despite using tenor, appears to upload the file rather than send the link
• Image captioning is not supported (meaning messages for both the text and image would be separate events)
• Registering is not implemented
• Somewhat buggy (Joining rooms sometimes shows "Empty Room" and requires clearing cache, also encrypted rooms appear to somewhat be broken)

Conclusion Currently I have not fully looked into using this client. However based on user reviews, it seems to be the closest Discord-look alike. It does not however have the role implementation Cinny has, but it does look very similar to Discord.

Nheko

TODO

Client Chart

Client	Platforms	Spaces & Subspaces	Custom Emojis/Stickers	Voice Chat	URL preview/embed support	Multi-accounts	Image captioning	GIF button	Preview File	Message Searching (Partial means only unencrypted is supported)
Element	Desktop, Web, Mobile	✅	⚠️	✅	⚠️	❌	❌	❌	❌	⚠️ (Desktop Client-side only)
Cinny	Desktop, Web	✅	✅	✅	⚠️	❌	❌	❌	✅	⚠️
gomuks (web)	Web	⚠️	✅	❌	➖	❌	❌	✅	➖	➖
FluffyChat	Desktop, Web, Mobile	✅	✅	⚠️	➖	➖	✅	❌	➖	➖
Commet	Desktop, Web, Mobile	✅	✅	✅	⚠️	✅	❌	✅	❌	⚠️

• ✅ = Supported
• ⚠️ = Partial
• ❌ = Not supported
• ➖ = Have not tested

Suggestion that most clients don't have

• Improve message searching (adding filters like who sent what mesasge, when the message was made, searching in encrypted rooms, etc)
• Full cross-platform support
• Accept all invites/deny all invites button
• Block homeserver button (Instead of blocking users, block their homeserver)

Was working on this exact kind of comparison with the goal of finding the easiest one to recommend to casual Discord users. Thank you for sharing your findings! Very helpful.
Commet seemed great to recommend at first but I got frustrated with its text formatting issues and the mobile app has been slow/crashed for me and others in my circle. The uncanny valley effect where I expect things to work like Discord, but also lack Space/Room management like Element also feels kind of stiff and I abandoned it for Cinny.
Fluffychat's truncating of long messages and inability to see thread posts at all makes it a bit frustrating too, even if I like it better than the other mobile options.
In case what I've been working on is helpful i'll upload my current draft, hopefully clear enough even if messy:

Update: cinny voice call / video call / screensharing is supported! Both for voice rooms and direct messages.

Never realized this has gotten attention! I will look into updating it and taking a look at the clients again, plus fill in the TODO as well. Also thank you very much for sharing your draft for others @retineye !

@MerijnHendriks I have also updated cinny to show it has VC support.

I also find this overview useful, thanks! Could you possibly add encrypted room search to the feature matrix, both for desktop and mobile?

encrypted room search

This is my only hard requirement, and it seems to always be excluded of matrix clients comparisons every time

@geckolinux @Malix-Labs Just updated! During my testing, I have also recently found out that message searching in cinny isn't buggy, it's more that it doesn't support searching in encrypted rooms at all.

Thanks @FireMario211! I think I would rate Element as only "Partial" for search, because encrypted room searches only work on the desktop app, not on mobile or web browser versions.

Yep, maybe something like "⚠️ encrypted search in desktop only"