[canofbars]

Its a valid comment. I tried to run synapse on a reasonable VM and it was unusably slow. Essentially you either use the main server or you are a large org that can pay for a powerful machine to run it. The average person can not run a matrix server.

[feanaro]

> The average person can not run a matrix server.

Please don't repeat falsehoods like this. The average person can not run anything because software is black magic to them. If you meant the average knowledgeable computer engineer (or similar, as opposed to a large org), then you are simply wrong.

I'm running a Synapse instance for ~25 people (friends and family). We are federated and joined to many large rooms. Synapse is using about 400-600M memory (RSS, varies depending on circumstances) and about 8-10% CPU. This is all on a 2 core Hetzner VPS which costs less than 20 USD per month.

[zepto]

“Please don't repeat falsehoods like this.”

You accuse the parent commenter of making a falsehood, but then you go on to confirm their statement as true.

[feanaro]

> Essentially you either use the main server or you are a large org that can pay for a powerful machine to run it.

To be perfectly clear, the above was the original statement I was referring to and it is completely false.

[zepto]

That statement isn’t strictly true in the most literal sense, but neither is it a clear falsehood, specially given that it is prefixed with the word ‘essentially’, meaning that it is a generalization.

It’s also not going to remain true over time.

But it’s not a false characterization in practical terms for most people.

[feanaro]

I'm saying it's not true in the general case either. In fact, taking into account other things I've said, my claim is that Synapse can easily run on a home computer or a relatively cheap/weak VPS.

In what sense is it then true that you have to be a large organization and have a powerful machine to be able to run it?

[zepto]

The fact that you are disputed in saying this by multiple comments on this thread suggests it’s not as simple as just accusing someone of spreading falsehoods.

Here is a quote:

“speaking as the project lead for Matrix.

1. It's true that Synapse can use a lot of RAM.”

[Teever]

This has not been my experience. I run three servers in separate VMs on a Lenovo T420 laptop. These laptops run for about $200USD on Ebay though you'll need to upgrade the ram and the HDD to an SSD, so the cost is about $300USD.

[omnimus]

Do you federate or these are silos for few users?

[Teever]

The three servers are federated with each other and the one of them is federated to the broader matrix.org network.

I've found that loading the larger rooms from the matrix.org network can cause a bit of lag for the few dozen or so users on my servers but once the rooms have synced up that issue goes away.

I don't administer the servers personally so I don't know exactly what the issue is but I have a feeling it's due to the limited ram that is provisioned to the VMs running the instances of synapse as there are many other VMs running on that same laptop.

If the instances of Synapse were the only things running on the laptop and they had 12gb of ram each (1/3 the total 32gb limit of the laptop) I would imagine that this issue would go away.

[omnimus]

Is seems that this just helps the argument of how inefficient Synapse is. 12GB ram is quite beefy server. the issue is that when you want to federate your server needs to be able to handle similar loads as the server you are federating with....

So not like email where you can have tiny server and still be part if the network.

[Teever]

You're right, let me explain my perspective.

I have an old laptop running a bunch of different services, three of which are matrix servers. The matrix servers generally run fine with the modest amount of ram provisioned to them (2-4GB IIRC) with the exception of hiccups that occur when a user joins large federated rooms (we're talking several thousand users) and these hiccups only last for a few seconds and until the room has finished syncing to my server. The hiccups manifest as "Unable to connect to server" messages on clients which only delays messages from being transmitted to the server by a few seconds.

From my understanding once a single user has joined these rooms and triggered the server side sync these hiccups will not happen again once another user on my server joins the same rooms as the data is already synced on the server. Furthermore there are relatively few rooms that have the number of users necessary (1000s) to trigger the issue one time join issue.

To remedy this issue and for general network reorganization purposes I intend to migrate non-synapse VMs off of the laptop and onto other hardware and then I would simply delegate the old laptop for the matrix servers and scale the three VMs to give them 1/3 of the available ram whether they need it or not. I mispoke last night when I said 12gb by the way, as the laptop only holds 32gb ram so the available ram could be (32 - (ram for hypervisor) / 3)

To bring it all back to the thing I care most about which is the over all cost, if the laptop cost $300USD and I run 3 servers on it my hardware cost per server is $100 which I consider to be trivial. This is 20 cups of fancy coffee and more importantly many hobbyists already have a spare laptop sitting around or can find one for quite an affordable price.

I hope this clarifies my comment.