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.
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