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Prosody vs Synapse: catalog facts
Prosody	Synapse
Free Free and open source under the MIT licence.	Free Free under the AGPL; Element sells commercial licenses, support subscriptions and ESS Pro.
Self-hosted	Self-hosted
Simple setup and low resource use Federates with other XMPP servers	Reference Matrix homeserver maintained by Element Works with any Matrix client
Requires a server and some administration Users need a separate XMPP client	Running a homeserver takes server administration work No support from Element without a paid subscription
Self-hosted	Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License: MIT	License: AGPL-3.0
Not stated if an account is needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.