Snikket
Hacker ApprovedChat server in Productivity & writing
An out-of-the-box XMPP server and client that is easy to self-host and actively maintained. Caveat: self-hosting needs a routable IP, and mobile notifications can be unreliable.
An out-of-the-box XMPP server and client that is easy to self-host and actively maintained. Caveat: self-hosting needs a routable IP, and mobile notifications can be unreliable.
18 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 67%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not 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: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 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
Easy out-of-the-box setup for self-hosting
“Snikket aimed to fill the gap for people who wanted an "out of the box" XMPP distribution kind of thing, and it's good at that.”
Comment from 14 Sep 2026 in “Jabber/XMPP: How Do We Gain Traction?” “essentially an opinionated all-in-one configuration setup based on Prosody, barely any config needed”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “Jabber/XMPP: 25 Years of Digital Independence” “Really easy to set up, with sensible defaults.”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “Jabber/XMPP: 25 Years of Digital Independence” - Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Running My Own XMPP Server”
Fits specific needs well
“I found snikket to be pretty much perfect for the use case I wanted”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “Jabber/XMPP: 25 Years of Digital Independence” “more likely aligned with what you are looking for”
Comment from 13 Jun 2026 in “Leaving Mozilla” “This project is exactly what I hoped existed.”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Running My Own XMPP Server” Federates and works with other servers
“a chat server that doesn't federate is as absurd as setting up an email server that doesn't federate”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Running My Own XMPP Server” “The snikket client works with many different XMPP servers, why wouldn't it?”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Running My Own XMPP Server”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Self-hosting is complex and demanding
“just recently I tried to self-host prosody/snikket service for a group of people”
Comment from 21 Apr 2026 in “What we once had (at the height of the XMPP era of the Internet) (2023)” “running it natively on FreeBSD is complex”
Comment from 14 Sep 2026 in “Jabber/XMPP: How Do We Gain Traction?” “assumes it's got a routable IP address”
Comment from 14 Sep 2026 in “Jabber/XMPP: How Do We Gain Traction?”
What people said
21 of the 22 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“useful to talk to people who are behind the great Russian firewall”
“Snikket aimed to fill the gap for people who wanted an "out of the box" XMPP distribution kind of thing, and it's good at that.”
“assumes it's got a routable IP address”
“running it natively on FreeBSD is complex”
“I found snikket to be pretty much perfect for the use case I wanted”
“Really easy to set up, with sensible defaults.”
“essentially an opinionated all-in-one configuration setup based on Prosody, barely any config needed”
“more likely aligned with what you are looking for”
“just recently I tried to self-host prosody/snikket service for a group of people”
“It has been smooth, everything works without issue: read receipts, audio/video calls, status.”
“a chat server that doesn't federate is as absurd as setting up an email server that doesn't federate”
“the site was just too "non technical" and went over my head when I tried to grok it”
“This project is exactly what I hoped existed.”
“Snikket has a different scope. It is specifically an answer to a question like”
“notifications working reliably on mobile (a constant bug bear for users in the Siskin and Snikket user base)”
“The snikket client works with many different XMPP servers, why wouldn't it?”
“Everything about the project has alarms going off for me.”
“an easier way to self-host an XMPP server”
“The developer is very active in updating and maintaining the software (both client and server), and it already supports most of the XEPs.”
“Requires hosting of the private server (security/privacy implications) or renting it from the third party.”
“A jabber server costs essentially nothing to run. Highly recommend.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.