Yes! I don't get why Matrix is the one that's more popular now. My Prosody is botherless, consumes little RAM and does not have storage concerns like Matrix does. It just does all the messaging basics. It needs more love.
Yep. It works and it's awesome.
I use conversations on android devices and dino and gajim on desktops, various family members use siskin on iOS.
With zero app or server-software or provider lock-in, and an actual in-practice diversity of apps and providers, the whole thing seems pretty immune to enshittification.
With XMPP you can self-host a server or you can have your own custom domain hosted with XMPP via the Conversations developer. Signal is a centralized service in the USA, hosted on Google servers. And yes, one more app on the phone will cost more battery life.
XMPP implementations have been around so much longer than signal, to me signal would be "just another messaging app"
XMPP doesn't require my phone number. Signal might give you the option to use usernames with your contacts, but still requires a valid number for registration last I checked.
I can self host an XMPP server instead of trusting/depending on someone else.
Snikket launched their XMPP hosting in March this year. From the looks of it you can pay for one account where you'd be admin for a group of friends, family and give them accounts.
For Android Conversations is really nice I think.
Conversations is available for free on F-Droid but you can support the developer by buying the app on Google PlayStore. Does OMEMO by default.Video calls with Conversations always worked very well for me (but this depends on which XMPP provider the other person uses), better than Signal. There are some Conversation forks on F-Droid as well with different features.
There is even an integration with Lemmy that server admins can use to give every account on their Lemmy server also an XMPP account with the same handle/address.