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Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

element.io

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Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#11

Post by decrypt »

estaseuropano wrote: post #10
decrypt wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nickel is one of their existing plans, and Home is their new plan. Both offer the same features, except that Nickel offers an ability to use custom domains and is aimed at businesses. More on their pricing page [1] [1] https://element.io/pricing

It looks like Nickel is $2/user, with a minimum of $10. So for a family a fixed $10 is probably the smarter choice, rather than to have $2 more for every user added. EDIT: it seems Home is limited to 5 users, which means it's actually the same price. May i ask what would be the benefit of having your own DNS? I don't understand what your average group chat would gain...

The primary and only advantage that I can think of is, personalized addresses. It's better to have one's address as `@james:potter.family` instead of `@james:potter.ems.host`, where `potter.family` is my custom domain.

Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#13

Post by emaro »

estaseuropano wrote: post #10
decrypt wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nickel is one of their existing plans, and Home is their new plan. Both offer the same features, except that Nickel offers an ability to use custom domains and is aimed at businesses. More on their pricing page [1] [1] https://element.io/pricing

It looks like Nickel is $2/user, with a minimum of $10. So for a family a fixed $10 is probably the smarter choice, rather than to have $2 more for every user added. EDIT: it seems Home is limited to 5 users, which means it's actually the same price. May i ask what would be the benefit of having your own DNS? I don't understand what your average group chat would gain...

Maybe your own domain. In the home expamples all usernames are `@name:subdomain.ems.host`.

Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#14

Post by treve »

estaseuropano wrote: post #10
decrypt wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nickel is one of their existing plans, and Home is their new plan. Both offer the same features, except that Nickel offers an ability to use custom domains and is aimed at businesses. More on their pricing page [1] [1] https://element.io/pricing

It looks like Nickel is $2/user, with a minimum of $10. So for a family a fixed $10 is probably the smarter choice, rather than to have $2 more for every user added. EDIT: it seems Home is limited to 5 users, which means it's actually the same price. May i ask what would be the benefit of having your own DNS? I don't understand what your average group chat would gain...

Owning your domain has the same advantage for element than it would for, for example email. If your company has their own domain for email, but hosts at Gmail, Google can one day decide to kick you off their platform. But, because you have a domain, you can take your business somewhere else.

On the flipside, if your email and personal identity is tied to an @gmail.com address, you are stuck at that vendor.

A second reason is vanity. Full matrix usernames and channels do appear from time to time, and it's nice when it's our own address. (we self-host matrix)

Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#15

Post by gorgonzolachz »

This seems like a great move forward for Element, looks like this is angling to replace the New Vector offering they had a while back?

The pricing is certainly odd, though. For 5 bucks a month I run my own server with almost a dozen folks on it, which requires basically zero maintenance (I can count the number of times I've had to go in and restart it over the past two years on one hand). Double that for a limit of 5 users (with another $2/user surcharge) is high for what I'd expect is a logical separation of tenants under the hood.

I know some of the Matrix folks pop in to HN threads from time to time, and I'll readily admit my woeful inexperience in all things business. That said, could someone enlighten me as to how the pricing strategy was determined? It seems like the better route would have been to create an obscenely cheap plan on the low end for groups/families and push for enterprise adoption (perhaps even with increased prices, $75/mo for 25 users seems on the low end at first glance).

Edit: Just re-read the first paragraph and caught this: "You can just enjoy the fact you know you chose someone you trust (us!) with your data." The whole reason I'm using element is because I don't trust anyone else with my data & social connections, and so I'd like to own as much of that scope as possible. I'm sure it's just a poorly worded marketing zinger, but it's unfortunate nonetheless.

Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#16

Post by zaik »

estaseuropano wrote: post #12

The day the element and jitsi projects marry and offer a single $10 plan for secure chat and group video all the commercial providers can pack up... But I fear the day may never come.

I think Jitsi is build on XMPP for chat right? XMPP already offers federated and e2ee chat.

Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#20

Post by jtsiskin »

vbezhenar wrote: post #19

"Dedicated server" mentioned 4 times in that article. In hosting world, dedicated server means real physical server. I wonder if that's just marketing speak and in reality it's virtual server or they really install a separate server for every customer.

Its $10 a month - unless they're using raspberry pi's, I think you can assume virtual servers.
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