I think both have a place in the world (as another comment pointed out, similar to NNTP vs SMTP). Does it really need to be an "us vs them" eat each other's lunch kind of a deal to you?
I use both. Conversations works well out-of-the-box on Android. I use Vector on my desktop, Matrix Console Android, and Vector Android, but none of them work very smoothly. I'm hopeful they will improve as time goes on as I tend to use XMPP more since I have more personal contacts that I can communicate with via that protocol, but I also like and use Matrix.
You don't seem to be aware, but there was an XMPP<->IRC bridge long before Matrix existed. It was about as satisfying as the Matrix version, though that's still improving.
I'm running my own matrix server (synapse), and my own XMPP server (ejabberd), and honestly ejabberd was easier to get off the ground. Again, I'm hopeful that synapse will improve with time, but I really think there's room for both to exist since they do have slightly different use cases.
What are the main not-working-smoothly problems you're seeing with Vector Web/Android out of interest? Matrix Console is very much a raw dev-focused app on top of the SDKs, but at this point in its life Vector should be relatively polished...
ejabberd obviously is much more mature than synapse, but i'd be interested to know where synapse had problems getting off the ground - it's been a few years since I've run ejabberd, but it wasn't particularly fun at the time, and I'd hope that synapse can do better! :)
> Does it really need to be an "us vs them" eat each other's lunch kind of a deal to you?
The present state of messaging affairs is that 99.9% of the market is proprietary spy apps that lock users in to one platform to try to force their acquaintances onto said platform for monetization purposes.
That is an undesirable state to be in for anyone advocating for open and private communications.
So you are either splitting efforts between the two, or saying damn one for the others benefit. I would gladly accept an XMPP implementation that could outpace Matrix / Vector's current performance and accept it wholeheartedly - there just isn't one, and as long as Matrix is at the forefront of usable federated open secure extensible private messaging thats who I'm putting my eggs behind, to the degree where I would say "damn XMPP" only insofar as free software developer hours are precious and wasting them are two different implementations of the same thing (much like Tox vs Ring for secret messaging) wastes a ton of effort that could be better spent making one of the two excellent rather than having two working solutions nobody uses.
> as long as Matrix is at the forefront of usable federated open secure extensible private messaging
You say this as if the truth of this statement was obvious to everyone.
> free software developer hours are precious and wasting them are two different implementations of the same thing (much like Tox vs Ring for secret messaging) wastes a ton of effort that could be better spent making one of the two excellent rather than having two working solutions nobody uses.
That's precisely the reason I work on ejabberd/XMPP rather than just throwing everything away and starting from scratch.
Conversations is ok, but Vector is already better because they can focus on usability instead of implementing an inane amount of protocol specs.
Also the bridges to IRC and slack are very helpful.
Oh and running your own matrix server is much easier as it only needs to expose the https port.