Matrix is quietly becoming the chat layer for governments chasing digital sovereignty

One-to-one and group messaging, encrypted VoIP calls, video conferencing – the open protocol handles them all

FOSDEM 2026 Amid growing interest in digital sovereignty and getting data out of the corporate cloud and into organizations' ownership, the Matrix open communication protocol is thriving.

The project was co-founded by Matthew Hodgson and Amandine le Pape, and The Reg FOSS desk met both at this year's FOSDEM for a chat about what's happening with Matrix.

The Register has covered Matrix and its commercial Element side quite a few times over the years, but we thought it might make things a little clearer to first explain the two sides of the Matrix project. It has existed since 2014 when it separated from its parent and sponsor, telecoms vendor Amdocs, which we've covered since at least 2000.

The Matrix project has two main public faces: Matrix.org represents the nonprofit foundation behind the Matrix protocol, while Element (formerly Vector and later Riot) is the name of the client app. Element the company, originally called New Vector Ltd, was spun out of Amdocs in 2017. A for-profit business, it rebranded as Element in 2020. Element.io provides both client apps and server software that run the Matrix protocol. As well as free FOSS versions of both, there are also paid-for commercial tools: the Element Pro client and the Element Server Suite Pro.

Because Matrix is an open protocol, anyone is free to implement it, and various apps have, so you don't have to run Element in order to be on Matrix and to talk to other users. As an example, this vulture usually has Thunderbird running in the background, quietly syncing our mail, and ever since version 102 in 2022 it's included native Matrix support. We have used that since, which saves the memory of having the Element web app open in a tab in Ferdium or similar.

Before FOSDEM, le Pape was on stage talking about "Europe's Software Challenge" at the Open Source Policy Summit, which we reported on earlier this week. Matrix seems to be doing well thanks to the EU's growing interest in digital sovereignty. The other co-founder, Hodgson, told us that interest was rising.

Matrix is currently talking to circa 35 countries about FOSS communications infrastructure. For instance, Hodgson told us the United Nations is on board: it's using Matrix as the basis of its own in-house air-gapped communications tool, which helps it to remain independent of any country or hosting provider.

It's also being adopted at the International Criminal Court (ICC), which as The Register reported in October 2025 is busily ditching Microsoft Office. After the Trump administration imposed sanctions on ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan, he reported losing access to his email and banking, disrupting the court's work.

The ICC is switching to OpenDesk instead, which uses Element for chat. This is provided by a German organization called ZenDiS (short for Zentrum für Digitale Souveränität der Öffentlichen Verwaltung – the Center for Digital Sovereignty of Public Administration). As a German project, it's also being adopted by the Bundeswehr, the German armed forces, and its IT supplier BWI GmbH.

Elsewhere in the DACH Region, Switzerland's national postal service, Swiss Post, has adopted it, as has the healthcare system of Austria.

In France, the government is adopting a digital workspace called La Suite. Two components of La Suite are based on Matrix: its chat component, called Tchap, and its video conferencing tool, Visio. Non-Francophones may find the recent Reg coverage of Visio more helpful. (Apparently, France's newfound disdain for American technology also extends to names of diagramming software.)

It's also in use in Ukrainian officialdom and a new peer-to-peer network in the Netherlands. Hodgson told us that ten more national governments sent representatives to the 2025 Matrix conference to discuss its use.

The last time we saw Hodgson speak was at the Ubuntu Summit in 2024, where he presented on version 2.0 of Matrix protocol. This was officially released in late 2024, and among other new features it allows faster sync and client startup, and multi-user video or VoIP chat via Element Call. As we've not heard much since, we asked how adoption of that was going. Although the foundation has yet to publish a final formal specification, the code is out there and in use. Indeed, we were rather startled to find that we were already using it: the modern default mobile client for Matrix is the Rust-based Element X, which uses the version 2 protocol by default where it's available.

Although The Reg has previously referred to Matrix as "a relatively niche messaging technology," it is out there, slowly and steadily gaining users, traction, and presence. It's a more generalized sort of tool than, for example, FOSS team chat tool Zulip, which The Reg looked at in 2021. We plan to return to Zulip soon – the company told us a new version is looming.

What's a little different about Matrix is that thousands of people are using it every day without ever having heard of it, because it's implemented inside other tools and applications.

It may be relatively niche compared to some big companies with larger advertising budgets, but that doesn't mean it's not significant. For instance, we suspect that some windswept little islands in the Northeast Atlantic look niche to the big government across that ocean, but that doesn't mean they aren't important. ®