Matrix is a Distributed Real-time Database

09:30 - 11:00 Saturday 9th April 2022 BST

Intermediate

The Matrix network provides messaging (like WhatsApp or Slack) that offers all the features you expect, but without centralised control: it’s an open standard, and anyone can run a server. The servers link together, so you can talk to other people even if they use a different server (kind of like email).

In the first half of this session, we will explore the basics of the protocol: making simple HTTP requests to send and receive messages, and discuss some of the interesting distributed-systems issues that make writing a server exciting.

In the second half we will explore the fact that messaging is only one potential use of this network, and look into some examples of other real-time use cases that are in active development, taking note of how these use cases benefit from the real-time and distributed nature of the network.