ratox VS Converse.js

I don't think raTox receives nearly enough attention: https://github.com/pranomostro/ratox

I'm not a fan of IPFS (I've tried it many times, from the beginning), but Hypercore has made significant improvements. If you're looking for FLOSS mutable torrents, that's probably the best we've got right now (as scary as that may be). Cockroachdb, VPNCloud, and raTox might also be worth your time. At the very least, I could see value in making it expensive to play whack-a-mole on those who are willing to host. Ideally, it would be effortless to mirror or contribute back.

ConverseJS is a popular Javascript XMPP client that implements a full range of XMPP extensions. Also available as a plugin for openfire — inverse-openfire-plugin and can be installed on openfire with a few clicks.

I agree. IMHO the best variant is then to use something that is truely free. Like XMPP. There are a lot of servers and many clients to chose from and I can strongly recommend converse.js as a web client. It supports different ways of end to end encryption but I would recommend OMEMO which is basically the same encryption idea that you find in Signal.

Hello, I recently started exploring xmpp, with snikket app and conversejs.org

It is Converse.js (https://conversejs.org/) packaged into a one-click install for openfire (from the web admin). So, one-click install for an xmpp web client.

My choice, because it's the stack I know very well, would be Prosody ( https://prosody.im/ - I'm one of the devs) and a web client such as Converse.js ( https://conversejs.org/ ). XMPP is highly extensible, Prosody is highly modular, which make them a good foundation for building on top of.

That said, the right stack is generally the one that matches your requirements, and (if this isn't primarily a learning exercise) whatever you're most familiar with. The hardest part of building a Discord or Slack-like in 2022 is actually not the technical stuff. There are many comprehensive open-source products already out there that compete with these companies, such as Mattermost, RocketChat and Element.

Tried to register with conversejs.org today and got an error "your IP is not whitelisted".

Maybe you are remembering this bug from some months ago? It appeared exactly as if this was (accidentally) uploading keys to the user's XMPP server (not Converse.js's server) and publishing them.