# Fractal

6 Hacker News commenters recommended Fractal and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Linux chat client that people say works better than others and runs well with self-hosted servers; caveat: it has lacked spaces and threads.

## Why people recommend it

- Works well as a Linux client (2 comments): "It's not perfect, but it's a Linux client that works better than any other client I've used" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47036646)) "Similiar native applications integrate much better and use a fraction of memory" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46083151))
- Works well for daily use (2 comments): "It's not perfect, but it's a Linux client that works better than any other client I've used" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47036646)) "I use fractal and a self-hosted server and it works great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47037558))
- Broad range of clients and uses (2 comments): "I also liked the fractal gnu app & it has tons of clients." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46956820)) "So many use-cases for this" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48997287))

## What people warn about

- Missing spaces and threads (2 comments): "there were some issues in Fractal where it didn't support spaces sometime back" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899356)) "it still misses some fairly major features like spaces and threads" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48903730))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Facebook Messenger](https://hackerapproved.com/p/facebook-messenger.md): 36 recommend
- [Pidgin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pidgin.md): 30 recommend
- [Beeper](https://hackerapproved.com/p/beeper.md): 29 recommend
- [Dino XMPP client](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dino.md): 21 recommend
- [Element X](https://hackerapproved.com/p/element-x.md): 18 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Fractal", https://hackerapproved.com/p/fractal/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).