Hey, all.
Is it possible to skip this ‘register your server’ step when creating a self-hosted Rocketchat instance? I just don’t want to, ya know? Regular websearching is just giving a lot about how to disable user registration rather than skipping the server registration with Rocketchat HQ.
what about an actually free alternative, like matrix + element?
I’ve set up a test server for matrix as well, wanted to compare to rocket since I see it mentioned a lot.
When I told a friend (the one I’d need on board to get the group of friends to use it) he said “does it have the gifs?” Matrix has a years-long enhancement request for native giphy support which is yet resolved. I dabbled with a giphy plugin with matrix and it worked alright, but I dunno if it was good enough to win my friends over.
I see. I’m an old fart and couldn’t care less about gifs. But I do care about stuff being open instead of someone suddenly telling me the conditions have changed.
Element does the same without even asking.
I started toying with mattermost as well and then saw in the logs things going to “matteranalytics” or something like that… Shouldn’t be too surprised, but seemed ironic since I looked it up to avoid the similar thing with rocket
These all have Venture Capital funding, so they need analytics to convince new buyers in the next funding round. Which is why is remains complex to opt out in Element/Matrix despite long being a user complaint.
This is BTW also why the user numbers of Matrix are so artificially inflated, it is basically an investor scam.
Only IRC and XMPP do not do this, as there is no financial incentive for it.
Not an answer, just a warning: This is par for the course when it comes to Rocketchat, every major version seems to come with another piece of nagware, another limit, another thing paywalled. I run a server for the non-profit I work for and they haven’t even replied to my mails about maybe offering a more affordable licensing tier before Enterprise.
We don’t need a lot, just push notifications (which they have to pay for, so absolutely fair to limit) and LDAP integration that isn’t intentionally gimped. A supporter tier with no real extra features (we don’t need their customer-facing-type features) and very limited tech support would be really nice, but I guess they don’t want our poor people money. Gotta try just really hard to squeeze something from that stone instead.
Example: First they removed automatic LDAP syncing, then they blocked people from still doing it with cron. You now have to enter your admin password every time to sync “for security reasons” unless you pay at least $10 per user and month or something ridiculous (for a non-profit) like that. Not that you’d know from their website, they’ve removed all pricing information from there.
They’ve also limited the amount of (free, third-party) add-ons you can install while also adding a new feature that lets users see and request add-ons from admins. So many dark patterns.
Rocketchat narrowly won out over Matrix when Covid started but it sure as hell wouldn’t now.
I haven’t tried any of the following, just my 0.02.
Idea0: is there any way to install your instance without using the setup wizard ?
Idea 1: installing and older version (below 6.x) and upgrading it to current version ?
The official documentation page about registration states:
When deploying a self managed Rocket.chat >=6.x workspace you are automatically required to register your workspace upon completing the Setup Wizard
According to the same page, for versions below 6.x you have to manually register your instance.
Idea 2: I noticed a few references to air-gapped installations, and I guess they can’t be connected to anything from Rocket.chat HQ. Could Iistalling your server as air-gapped and completing a bogus registration work ?
Official documentation page about Air-gapped installs registration
Hope any of this helps. I’m quire surprised (and not in a good way) to see this mandatory requirement from Rocket.chat. Even if kt means functionality loss (access to their push notif framework for example) you should be able to decline it.
I ran mine without registration. Can’t remember if that changed the functionality at all.
