What runs here, what it can do, and where the limits are.
New and small — run by one personThe best alternative to WhatsApp is not the next central provider. It is an open network.
Matrix is an open protocol for messages, much as email is one for mail. If you have an account with one provider, you can write to people at every other provider. Nobody owns the network, and nobody can switch it off.
This server is one among many. It is not “Matrix” — it is a way in. You are welcome to use a different provider or run your own server. That is the point, not a loophole.
An overview of public servers, with location, rules and software status, is kept at servers.joinmatrix.org.
Staying honest also means this: end-to-end encryption means the operator cannot read private conversations — not even if they wanted to, or were told to. Moderation therefore rests on reports, room management and account measures, not on reading along.
The operator can suspend local accounts, block rooms locally, quarantine media and shut out abusive peers. They cannot decrypt encrypted messages and cannot delete copies held on other servers.
Lose your recovery key and you lose access to older encrypted messages. That is not a defect; it follows from nobody else being able to read them.
The hard part is never the technology. It is that everyone else is still somewhere else. An invitation link dropped into the old group does more than any argument.
You need no phone number. It is enough that the other person knows your address — just like email. It even looks almost the same:
For comparison, an email address:
anna@knoten.chat. Same parts, different arrangement.
The part after the colon is the important one: it says which provider you
are with. Just as with email, it lets you reach anyone, wherever they are —
@tom:matrix.org works from here just as well.
This is where most people stop. Every app asks for the server — and does not mean the address you use to open the chat in your browser.
Server / homeserver
knoten.chat
If an app insists on a full URL: https://matrix.knoten.chat
A way to remember it: the server name appears in your own address, after the colon.
These addresses are not it:
app.knoten.chat — the chat in your browseraccount.knoten.chat — account managementThey produce an error such as “no Matrix server found”. Nothing is broken — that is the correct answer to the wrong address.
Matrix does not prescribe an app. The same account works in every client, and you can switch at any time without losing contacts or history.
Some apps ship a list of suggested servers. If this one is not on it, that is fine — the name can always be typed by hand. That is rather the point of an open network.
Costs, working hours and operating figures belong in the open. If a service is carried collectively, people should be able to see what it costs and how it runs.
The figures will contain aggregates only — no account names, no addresses, no room titles. This page sets no cookies and loads nothing from other servers.
The service is carried by gifts with nothing in return: how to support it (in German).
The network lives on there being many nodes. If you have the means, run one. The effort is manageable, the documentation is good, and every additional server makes the network harder to break.