> Is one of the protocols better than the other one?<p>This question is not very well defined.<p>However, since both protocols have basically the same goal (federated instant messaging) and there are working implementations with basically the same features for either one, I consider this to be less a technical problem, but a problem of standardization. There are a lot of federated instant messaging protocols to choose from (XMPP, Matrix, Wire, Session, Tinode, ...) each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but all doing their thing and no real interoperability between them (unencrypted messages only, if you're lucky).<p>I think in order to escape the fragmentation/walled garden situation we need to built on (and thus improve) existing internet standards, even if that means you might need to work with '<' and '>' instead of '{' and '}'. Currently, IRC and XMPP are the RFC Internet Standards and XMPP is designed to be extensible, so in theory you can do whatever you want with it (including, for example, building an eventually consistent message archive, if you really need it).