dendrite VS Ligase

Matrix already has key-based identity in the works at https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/keg... (and implemented in Dendrite at https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3A...). Matrix is set up to let folks go wild and change fundamentals like this; basically every Matrix Spec Change (MSC) is a small fork, which then gets merged into the main spec if it can be proven to work well in the wild.

I really hope that Dendrite is getting more traction and maybe there's an OIDC solution for Matrix one day.

This is what the Matrix team is developing Dendrite for. To have a feature-complete yet small server software. But it's still in beta.

Pinecone, which is an experimental overlay routing protocol used by P2P Matrix. It and Dendrite are extremely important to P2P Matrix.

Dendrite, meanwhile, can be found here. They say it's in beta. I think it's a late Alpha. Dendrite's primary mode is "Monolith"; this will have many of the same scalability/balancing options that Synapse does. However the true benefit to Dendrite as I see it is the "polylith" mode where workers can swap around which worker is the master without any interruption of service. I do not think that Dendrite polylith works yet, but I might be wrong. I'll be looking at running it on a test server in January to see if it's time to upgrade from Synapse (and time to invest in 4-6 SBCs to keep three here and send 3 to 3 of my buddies to make my Matrix even more reliable).

Initially I started with Matrix-Synapse. The toughest part was figuring out how to setup a subdomain to host my matrix server on, while still being able to point users to the main domain when they sign-up. (@user:example.com instead of @user:matrix.example.com). Once I figured out how delegation worked with a reverse proxy I got it working and figured id try dendrite. Dendrite is the second generation matrix server written in Go and it I think its configuration is easier and its footprint is smaller than matrix-synapse. However since its still a work in progress and its in beta stages some features aren't implemented and there were a few hiccups that made me switch back to matrix-synapse. So when dendrite is good to go I'll definitely be switching to that.

Like the other comment pointed out, Conduit is the "very active" implementation.

https://github.com/finogeeks/Ligase

This is the Chinese implementation. From the README and website it seems its being heavily used in production but the website is Chinese so I dont know for sure.