Hi fellow self-hosters! Has anyone ran Element Server Suite or updated their existing Synapse to include Element Call? How many users do you have?
I have been running Matrix Synapse server on a 1 CPU 1 GB RAM VPS for about 5 years. Just a few close people and a WhatsApp bridge (also for just a few people who use that). It worked fairly well.
Now that Element took over many of the Matrix things, they are expanding the server architecture and bundling the server install as Element Server Suite. The Community Edition is said to be aimed at “small to mid-sized deployments (1–100 users)”, but looking at the architecture and requirements… the setup requires Kubernetes (!), at least 2 CPUs and 2 GB RAM, a handful of services, each with their own sub-domain.
Is this corporatesque setup overkill for only a handful of users, or is this my inner Luddite talking? For comparison, Snikket (bundled XMPP server that provides very similar functionality) requires only 128MB RAM. Not sure if it’s worth it trying to set up Element Call alongside existing Synapse, starting over with ESS, or going to Snikket.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I think it’s better hooking up Element Call to your current setup, and remove Element Web if you can BYO client.
For a more lightweight alternative, I personally find continuwuity to be reasonably stable for the specs you mentioned. It does admin tasks in an #admins room, use an embedded database, and has no client UI so less containers needed. So continuwuity + EC should be able to run under the constraints you mentioned
The lightest would still be any XMPP server, though its functionality does differ from Matrix overall