synapse #

• ‘reference’ implementation in python
• Can be slow at times.
• Creates a huge on disk cache for images.
• has a very long configuration file.
• requires to have a valid TLS certificate in the config

dendrite #

• does not always provide meaningful error messages, e.g. when files are inaccessible due to permission issues.
• does not yet have a lot of documentation
• seems to maintain its cache status in the database. Clearing the cache in the file system is not enough.

conduit #

• works really good.
• adds a lightning to user names by default (can be deactivated in the config)

conduwuit #

• fork of conduit
• works as drop in replacement
• not yet available as binary package on FreeBSD :(
• development seems to move faster.