[!TIP] This page assumes you know a little bit about chat apps in general. Which you likely do if you ended up here. Welcome!

Matrix is, at it's core, another chat-app. Similar to Discord, Signal, WhatsApp or whatever else you might be using.

It has some important differences though, that makes it resistant to many of the reasons you probably seek refuge here; But let's not get ahead of ourselves and actually talk about what Matrix is.

Matrix is a decentralized approach to messaging. Instead of having one, single provider, we have multiple! And thanks to the underlying tech, we can all talk to one another regardless of the provider you choose.

Think of it a little bit like cities. Everyone has a city they call their home, but not everyone lives in the same city, under the same government or even the same country. Yet, we have divised clever systems that let us send letters to anyone in the world. This is exactly what Matrix lets us do, but for instant messaging.

It's an open network, where the entire text and technical information on how it works is publicly accessible, and a collaborative effort. Everyone is allowed to improve on it for everyone.

Anyone can create a chat-app using it and is encouraged to share their efforts, so that others can also implement eachother's features. Using it, everyone can start their own little "city" to provide a home for themselves and friends.

Sable is but one player in the wider ecosystem, there is many more out there, including server-software for those of us that want to become their own provider ("city").

One more thing to note, if the link above wasn't clear, there is multiple apps you can install and use! Pick the one you like most, but judging from the site you're on, you probably came here for Sable.

But enough with the sales pitch, let's get to actually hopping on Matrix.

Getting Started: For regular users

To get started, you can Download Sable or use it on the web at https://app.sable.moe

You can leave options at their default and just hit Continue with Matrix.org and create an account. Though, it should be stated that further down in this guide, we list some reasons as to why you might wanna consider spending a little extra time picking out another provider (or "city").

Regardless, you can continue and register, and when you're done you'll be at an empty screen that looks and feels a bit like Discord!

From here you can:

• Create a room from the sidebar > Home > Create room
• Create a space (more on that later) from the sidebar > [+] > Create new space
• Join an existing room from the sidebar > Home > Join with Address
• Swap over to Direct Messages with the icon below Home in the sidebar

Useful words and terminology

• Spaces: A collection of rooms! This can either be for private use, or for public communities. They have separate permissions from the rooms inside, and act a little bit like Discord Servers or Slack Workspaces.
• Direct Message: Anything that appears in the Direct Messages tab, usually one-on-one discussions.
• Alias or Address: The human-readable address to a room or space, usually something like this: #example:matrix.org.
• Invite: manually inviting a specific user to a room or DM using the UI; Links to rooms/spaces are not called invites by most people.
• MXID: Short for "Matrix ID", it's your unique username+provider combo, like @bob:matrix.org.

Joining a community

If you're looking for a community to join, there is places like the Sable Community Space and there is many more out there! A good place to start outside of the Sable space is the "Explore" or "Discover" section in the sidebar. It'll list up rooms and spaces on your server ("city") that people chose to publish.

Why you should consider signing up somewhere other than Matrix.org

Matrix is decentralized, as previously discussed, and this gives it one major strength: There's no one company or anything else that can dictate the rules, whether or not your account gets banned, or whether you can keep talking to your friends.

Though, by principle, this becomes less and less relevant if everyone is using the same provider. That freedom is lost, because it means a majority of the users can still be screwed over by that large provider.

To avoid this, all you need to do is sign up on a different server, one that isn't the default Matrix.org. Not only will you not have to worry about this hypothetical, but chances are the provider will be faster because there will be much less people using it at the same time :)

There is a list of public servers, together with security information and data about how long they've been operating at https://servers.joinmatrix.org

[!WARNING] Do note: This page is not maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation, neither is it maintained by us.