Essentially [MATRIX]. element is a client app that connects to a MATRIX home-server (a parallel is drawn to email. Matrix would be your MTA, and element would be your thunderbird or OUTLOOK.) Matrix is amazing because you can roll out your own, it's federated and end to end encrypted. Also, they are fighting the good fight, to liberate us from vendor lock-in (whatsapp, messenger, skype etc). Europe has made major strides in this direction. Some big vendors have seen the light and are already begin to align themselves with the MATRIX project.. read here.... https://matrix.org/blog/2022/05/30/welcoming-rocket-chat-to-...