Element X
Ranked 18 of 48 messaging apps by recommenders
Free Matrix chat app for iOS and Android that many find much improved, with a simpler interface and reliable encryption. Critics say it still lacks features from the older Element apps.
Free Matrix chat app for iOS and Android that many find much improved, with a simpler interface and reliable encryption. Critics say it still lacks features from the older Element apps.
43 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 18
- criticize it
- 25
- approval share
- 42%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 18 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Much improved over the past year
“Both Matrix the protocol and implementations like Element X have improved immeasurably over the last year or so.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams” “Element X has finally gotten better over the past year.”
Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: Which Matrix and Mastodon servers are you using and why?” “Element X has improved loads over the years”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Running My Own XMPP Server” - Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory”
Simpler, better-looking interface
“Element X does honestly look a lot better. But it's been mobile-only for years.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams” “Element X (their beta mobile app) has a greatly simplified interface”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory” Strong encryption, on par with Signal
“Encryption these days (in Element Web/Desktop and Element X at least) should be pretty robust”
Comment from 29 Dec 2025 in “Gpg.fail” “it's objectively at least as good as WhatsApp/Signal/iMessage”
Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “The Internet Doesn't Suck: Blame Big Tech, Not the Internet” Video calls work well
“Element X does video calls fine. It's been ages since it was the messy beta you describe it as.”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “A Week in Matrix” “Video calls, chat etc over Matrix”
Comment from 25 Jun 2026 in “The Other Side of Android: My Favorite F-Droid Apps”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Missing features from old Element
“It is really annoying that Element X is missing so many things Element had”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “A Week in Matrix” “my issues with element x are with the client itself, mostly missing features and bad UX”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory” “feature parity with the old apps and parity with the web experience was a hard blocker”
Comment from 6 Feb 2026 in “European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams” - Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams”
Buggy, alpha-quality, messy
“It currently feels like an alpha-quality release: buggy and lots of missing features.”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years” “the Element X client that was advertised as Matrix 2.0 client and that did not work”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years” “the new 'element x' is a bit of a mess and loses the background sync feature”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory” Mobile-first, weak on desktop
“Element X does honestly look a lot better. But it's been mobile-only for years.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams” “Element X requires sliding sync and Element X cannot be installed on macOS if you have System Integrity turned off”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “A Week in Matrix”
Other messaging apps people recommend
The four most recommended other messaging apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 48 messaging apps, rankedWhat people said
40 of the 65 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“ElementX works for non-tech people around me. No problem.”
“Yes, just tried it between Element X Android and Element Desktop”
“Element X does video calls fine. It's been ages since it was the messy beta you describe it as.”
“The new breed of clients (Element X) has this, along with many other improvements.”
“Element X requires sliding sync and Element X cannot be installed on macOS if you have System Integrity turned off”
“the main concern I have is the same with Element vs Element X vs Fluffy”
“It is really annoying that Element X is missing so many things Element had”
“Element X solved a lot of the pains of Element (iOS)”
“Video calls, chat etc over Matrix”
“Element X has improved loads over the years”
“it works great with Element X”
“We are in the process of porting this to Element X (and Element Web)”
“Element X feels really really good - especially on iOS”
“the Element X app uses a new Livekit based call server while other clients/apps use a different approach is also something not great.”
“Element X on my Android seems butter smooth.”
“feature parity with the old apps and parity with the web experience was a hard blocker”
“a new client that doesn't implement important functionality like Spaces and Threads”
“all the heavy lifting shared between iOS & Android via matrix-rust-sdk”
“Element X does honestly look a lot better. But it's been mobile-only for years.”
“Both Matrix the protocol and implementations like Element X have improved immeasurably over the last year or so.”
“it's objectively at least as good as WhatsApp/Signal/iMessage”
“Element X has finally gotten better over the past year.”
“Encryption these days (in Element Web/Desktop and Element X at least) should be pretty robust”
“is a real wart; we're finally at the point now where the push notification process can synchronise with the main process”
“There's a filter now but then you don't see group chats at all unless you turn that off again”
“I have heard you have to use it on Mobile using the ElementX.”
“It does (now), been using it daily for months now”
“the Element X client that was advertised as Matrix 2.0 client and that did not work”
“the threads support in labs lets you create threads and navigate into them as you expect”
“One of the hurdles with the Rust client on Fdroid was it was too new for the OS on the device it needed to be used on”
“It currently feels like an alpha-quality release: buggy and lots of missing features.”
“This was an Android specific bug which was fixed a few weeks ago”
“yeah, X solves it (via sliding sync)”
“my issues with element x are with the client itself, mostly missing features and bad UX”
“with Element X they have greatly improved the UX”
“Element X has a single field, that supposedly takes both passphrases and recovery keys, but if I enter the recovery key I'm directed to a”
“I get notifications with message contents without any delay”
“Element X (their beta mobile app) has a greatly simplified interface”
“the new 'element x' is a bit of a mess and loses the background sync feature”
“Just tried threads on Element X after activating the experimental option, it works !”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.