// the take
Element is the flagship Matrix client for the web, also shippable as an Electron desktop app, built on top of matrix-js-sdk. It's for teams wanting a self-hostable, E2E-encrypted Slack/Discord alternative that speaks an open federated protocol.
Mature monorepo with real CI rigor: SonarCloud coverage/vulnerability gates, static analysis, and an extensive Playwright e2e suite covering crypto flows, device verification, OIDC, dehydration, room list behavior, etc. Translation pipeline (Localazy) with 40+ locale files already wired into both web and desktop builds. Triple licensing (AGPL/GPL/commercial) gives flexibility for both community and enterprise self-hosters, and the desktop app has real native integration work (tray, auto-launch, protocol handlers, x509 cert handling).
This is a huge, heavy codebase - not something you casually fork or hack on; onboarding requires reading several docs (developer guide, monorepo structure, code style) before you're productive. Browser support tiers explicitly deprioritize anything outside latest Chrome/Firefox/Edge/Safari, so older enterprise environments get second-class treatment. Mobile is pushed off to separate element-x-android/ios repos, so this README doesn't actually tell you much about the mobile story. The sheer number of GitHub workflow files and build targets (debian, docker, desktop per-OS, netlify) signals significant CI/release complexity that a smaller team would struggle to replicate or maintain if they fork it.
We read the README, the directory tree and a key source file in October 2026. Nobody pays to be listed. How we judge →