Rocket.Chat VS Mumble

It's funny because recently there was some drama around Rocket Chat with release 6.5.0. They introduced a new "free" tier in addition to the "community" version where the latter introduced a user limit of 25. During the upgrade to 6.5.0 existing Rocket installations also were switched to the new "free" tier and thus got the new user limit. It was possible to uncheck some boxes to get back to "community" but it caused a lot of confusion among Rocket users/admins.

https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/issues/31149

Rocket.Chat (version 4.40.0): Team Communication Tool

Rocket.Chat is an alternative to discord for companies and teams.

I'm considering switching from Matrix / Element to rocket.chat for a small instance (< 10 people) I host for my friends. However there is something during the setup process that gives me pause:

Depends on what do you exactly mean, but the obvious answers to this question are either: Revolt, Matrix(for instance, Element, etc.), Guilded, etc. I suppose rocket.chat and Slack could be considered as well.

Revolt, Guilded, Element (Matrix Client), Matrix, Cinny (Matrix Client), Spacebar, Rocket Chat, Mikoto, Mattermost, Teamspeak and Nertivia

trying to setup rocket.chat in portainer. Can anybody post correct docker compose here?

I think Sonobus is overkill. I suggest you look at a couple of relatively old-school gamer voice chat tools - Mumble or Teamspeak. Mumble is open-source and the connection is always encrypted, Teamspeak is commercial but the free tier should be fine for you - but you have to make sure to manually turn encryption on yourself. It has been a long time since I used either, so I don't know which is easier. Both of them require you to run their matching server software.

Mumble's latency is unbeatable imo, it's basically their main focus and shows.

The sticking point for me is the lack of persistent messages, something the devs strangely think is a privacy plus. Issue open since 2016: https://github.com/mumble-voip/mumble/issues/2560

If you drop out for a minute you won't have access to anything that was posted in chat, which makes it useless for anything other than voice only comms, that might suit some business purposes but I've always needed to post links or screenshots in chat during meetings.

There's any number of alternative chat applications available, like Element, Mumble, Teamspeak etc.

Mumble?

I think Mumble might fit what you're looking for. It's been a very long time since I've used it, but it seems to still exist: https://www.mumble.info/ - I've used previously for exactly what you're describing, events with lots of crew dispersed around and no budget for radios. I had it installed on an AP running OpenWRT so it was just a case of plugging that in and getting people to install the app and connect to it.

Along with the options already mentioned, if you're not into TeamSpeak, there is an open source alternative called Mumble which operates in the same manner. No internet required, and is supported on multiple platforms.