Matrix bridges. I run my own matrix instance with bridges to the services I use (google messages, whatsapp, irc, discord; there are other bridges available) so I can use one client for all.
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
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Thanks for sharing this. It sounds like a powerful setup, but I’m not very technical, so managing a Matrix instance feels a bit complex for my use case. I’ve also tried integrating Google Chat, but it hasn’t been possible due to recent changes in Google’s security policies, which makes it harder to rely on as a complete solution
I'm a bit late to the party but the stack I run is what Beeper uses. If you don't mind handing them your IMs it's exactly what they host and it works great (used it for a year before I decided to host my own things). They make you use their client but AFAIK beeper.com is really just a very fancy matrix instance so you could use probably any Matrix client.
As for managing an instance, see my recent comment about DB maintenance. There's nothing more to it than that as far as maintenance is concerned for just a few users instance. Then installing the bridges isn't hard because the docs are really good.
Yeah, I agree, it’s a solid approach in theory.
But coming from a non coding background, setting up and maintaining something like that feels a bit difficult for me to realistically manage.
I’m more leaning towards something that’s easier to get started with and doesn’t need much setup or ongoing effort.
Unrelated to self hosting: jira or whatever ticketing system your company uses. They tend to have integrations into those other apps where you right click and create a ticket. Then the ticket list is my source of truth.
Yeah, makes sense, thanks for sharing.
Having a ticketing system as the source of truth for tasks and assignments is definitely helpful. But I still feel it lacks the live communication part across multiple platforms, so there’s still some switching involved.
We used https://meetfranz.com/ at my previous job where we had tons of external clients with different messengers.
Thanks for sharing this. Yeah I have this platform, it definitely helps bring everything into one place. But I feel it is missing a to do or task management side, which is pretty important for me.
Do you know any tools that handle both messaging and tasks well?
No idea, I quit that rat-race job 4 years ago and haven't used it since then. I am never gonna work a job that requires being online and available all the time ever agan.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| NAS | Network-Attached Storage |
| SSH | Secure Shell for remote terminal access |
| VPN | Virtual Private Network |
| XMPP | Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol ('Jabber') for open instant messaging |
4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 14 acronyms.
[Thread #179 for this comm, first seen 17th Mar 2026, 09:50] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
@InsightSeeker@thelemmy.club In theory you could use Matrix and use bridges to access these. On the other hand it kills encryption because now Your endpoint is where it decrypts and re-encrypts the new messages.
Spantaleev's Matrix Docker Ansible remains the most popular project for this (lots of documentation, good community): github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
Thanks for sharing this, hadn’t really looked into it in this much detail before.
Matrix bridges do sound pretty powerful in theory, but yeah, the encryption part you mentioned does make me pause a bit. Feels like a trade-off I’d need to really think through. Also, I’m not a coder so setting something like Spantaleev’s setup might be a bit much for me to handle regularly.
Have you tried this yourself? Was it difficult to get up and running?
@InsightSeeker@thelemmy.club Spantaleev's setup is probably the easiest way to get matrix setup honestly. Otherwise bridges etc tend to be a pain. You don't necessarily need to be a coder -- just follow documentation instructions step by step, and ask in their matrix channel if you get stuck.
You could also set it up on a device that's already encrypted on boot (via luks), so you'd have some protections if turned off.
I've been running it close to 5-7 years (don't remember lol).
That actually makes it sound a lot more approachable. I’m not too deep into coding, but if it’s mostly about following the docs step by step, I can give it a shot.
Will definitely try this out and see how it goes.