# Synapse Matrix homeserver

28 Hacker News commenters recommended Synapse Matrix homeserver and 33 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 2 years (7 owners).

**Verdict:** Matrix chat server people run for small groups and find easy to update; critics say it is heavy on memory and storage.

## Why people recommend it

- Runs well for small groups (3 comments): "You can run one for a few friends and it scales just as well as a private discord for a few friends." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46998224)) "its still the daily driver for me and about five other people" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46115804)) "this is what I have been using for my self and I like it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47500660))
- Easy to run and update (3 comments): "I've been running my homeserver happily for > 5 years and it was fairly straightforward." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46118536)) "Synapse itself has been a pleasure to maintain" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46110665)) "it just works and is trivial to update" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46712768))
- Faster and lighter since 2022 (3 comments): "it has improved lately despite losing some of the team, and thanks to having stopped dispersing the resources" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46946761)) "Synapse took up a lot of memory, with occasional slowdowns. But then, circa 2022, Synapse improved" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46165153)) "Synapse is faster now, and Synapse Pro is apparently even faster." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46109326))
- Features work, no corruption (2 comments): "Reactions, emojis, media, it all just works." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749645)) "I haven't noticed any corruption at all" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46107601))

## What people warn about

- Uses lots of memory and storage (4 comments): "Synapse took up a lot of memory, with occasional slowdowns. But then, circa 2022, Synapse improved" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46165153)) "Synapse eating your VPS is the direct consequence of that design choice." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47035887)) "Synapse is very heavy, other implementations are less production ready" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46944618))
- Inefficient state storage hurts performance (3 comments): "If it weren't for the convoluted state resolution system, there wouldn't be a need to store gigabytes worth of state groups in the database." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46377480)) "it's due to Synapse's implementation deliberately cutting corners on storage efficiency while trading off for speed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46376818)) "Synapse's unperformant implementation has decreased general confidence in the protocol itself" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46595668))
- Hard to set up and administer (3 comments): "Matrix/synapse is one of the more difficult / PitA projects I've ever gotten up and running." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46944884)) "running a homeserver sucked. Really hard to do on limited resources." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46591261)) "quite a resource hog and not even remotely easy to setup/administer" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46786596))
- Federation and compatibility problems (2 comments): "is violating the Matrix protocol, making it impossible to invite users to chat if they are on compliant Matrix servers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49694712)) "you would be at the mercy of very real and frequent federation problems" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49431461))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Conduit Matrix homeserver](https://hackerapproved.com/p/conduit.md): 15 recommend

## Cite as

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