Conduit vs Novu
| Tagline | Blazing fast Matrix homeserver written in Rust for small communities | Open-source notification infrastructure for multi-channel developer alerts |
| Category | Team Chat & Collaboration | Team Chat & Collaboration |
| Replaces | Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams | Slack, Microsoft Teams |
| GitHub stars | 3.2k | 39k |
| Language | Rust | Docker |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Docker Manual | Docker Docker Compose |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 1 month ago | 5 days ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Conduit
- Does not yet support all Matrix room versions or advanced federation features
- No built-in web client; needs Element or another client
- Bridges to other networks (Slack, Discord) require separate bridge services
Novu
- Not a real-time team chat; it is a notification delivery layer, not a conversation platform.
- Self-hosted setup requires Postgres, MongoDB, Redis, and S3-compatible storage, adding operational burden.
- Managed cloud features (advanced analytics, SLA guarantees) are not available in the open-source edition.
- Mobile SDK for in-app notifications has fewer features than commercial equivalents like OneSignal.
Bottom line
Choose Conduit if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Novu for the larger community and ecosystem. Novu has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.