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Synapse vs Prosody: catalog facts
Synapse	Prosody
Free Free under the AGPL; Element sells commercial licenses, support subscriptions and ESS Pro.	Free Free and open source under the MIT licence.
Self-hosted	Self-hosted
Reference Matrix homeserver maintained by Element Works with any Matrix client	Simple setup and low resource use Federates with other XMPP servers
Running a homeserver takes server administration work No support from Element without a paid subscription	Requires a server and some administration Users need a separate XMPP client
Self-hosted	Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License: AGPL-3.0	License: MIT
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.