Next on our radar: FOSDEM 2027! Planning is well underway, and we're happy to share the Call for Participation in the Decentralised Messaging Devroom. If your talk did not make it onto the schedule for The Matrix Conference, why not consider submitting it for FOSDEM? We'll have more information to share about our broader plans for FOSDEM over the next few weeks.
More than 340 attendees, exciting next-generation features ready to ship, Matrix powering more and more government communications, practical updates from the community, and the occasional shark: dispatches from Malmö 2026!
"Matrix has gone from being an interesting experiment to an existential requirement," said Matthew at the opening to the 2026 edition of The Matrix Conference, a sentiment that could be felt throughout this year's edition.
Civil servants from 15 different nations and intergovernmental organizations shared their decisions and experiences migrating to Matrix in response to an urgent need for digital sovereignty; we also heard from regulated industries like healthcare who cannot compromise on privacy or security and are increasingly looking to Matrix as a solution. Matrix is growing in response to this need: representatives from Matrix's rapidly expanding ecosystem came to present the varied projects built on Matrix specification, and members of both the Spec Core Team and the ecosystem came to demonstrate the expanding features that will make up Matrix 2.0.
A demo of Matrix real-time communication (MatrixRTC), was one of the highlights, as Matthew created a group call with himself using three different applications: Visio, Tammy and Element Call.
This year we introduced the community attendance sponsorship package, which allowed us to fund travel for the maintainers of one of the community-created Matrix homeservers called Continuwuity; their talks and workshop were among the most popular of the event. Thanks to Famedly for supporting this initiative via the community attendance sponsorship option.
Of course, we took advantage of being in the home of IKEA to adopt some Blåhajar:
A lot more happened, so read on for more highlights from The Matrix Conference 2026.
The Matrix.org Foundation, together with our friends from the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) and Delta Chat communities, is organising a Decentralised Messaging devroom at FOSDEM 2027, and we are looking for speakers!
Focused on federated and self-hostable chat, this devroom brings our ecosystems together to tackle shared challenges. Although our architectures look pretty different under the hood, we face many of the same hurdles. We want to get together to share operational and implementation experiences, discuss shared technical challenges, and look at practical ways our networks can cooperate.
We hosted over 340 people across two days of talks and workshops, with three rooms of content streamed and available for interaction via our live Matrix rooms during the event.
If you came to the conference, send us your best Blåhaj photos! You'll find us on Matrix and also on Mastodon.
As you can see in Matrix Live this week, we are into the final few days before the Conference!
The event is a team effort, and we're very appreciative of the help of our volunteers (40 of you!). We have a couple of slots (and hoodies!) left if you're willing to help out - just take a look at the volunteer schedule. Maybe there is a free shift during a talk you want to see? How about you help film or record it! If you are willing and able to help out, book a slot!
We are also grateful to our sponsors - their contribution plays a critical role in the Foundation’s ability to run the Conference and progress towards sustainability in general. Thank you!
We're looking forward to seeing many of you in Malmö and Copenhagen!
If you're not able to join us in person, we hope you'll be following along online.
A few years ago, it would have been unthinkable that Governments could have dedicated open source and digital commons strategies championed by ministers. But that has changed profoundly: in June, the European Commission unveiled a European Tech Sovereignty Package, which identified some €264 billion spent annually on proprietary, non-European products and services as a strategic risk. The Matrix Foundation has been a driving force in this change. Last week, I was in Paris representing Matrix at an event hosted by the General Directorate for Enterprises to discuss the vital role open source plays in Europe’s digital policy agenda. The event was opened by the French Minister Delegate for AI and Digital affairs Anne Le Henanff and the German State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation (BMDS) Markus Richter. At the same time our Developer Relations lead, Andy Piper, was in Luxembourg speaking on a panel with a new European body that grew out of the Tech Sovereignty Package: the Digital Commons European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (DC-EDIC).
The French and German ministers opened the DGE open source event.
The DC-EDIC was created in December last year with the mission to “develop, maintain, and scale digital commons for Europe”. The finalisation of an open call for expert advisors completed the set-up of a first-of-its-kind governmental body that aims to strengthen European digital sovereignty by building, financing, and deploying open source infrastructure solutions. The DC-EDIC is an exciting opportunity for the whole of Europe to catalyse the use of digital commons and ensure the commons are sustainable.
With 12 years under our belt spent building and maintaining Matrix as an open standard, taking it to the point where it serves as the backbone of communications for millions of European civil servants, we have built a strong understanding of the gaps in the market and ecosystem that hold back the sustainable use of digital commons. Here are our recommendations for how the DC-EDIC can maximise the impact of its five goals.
One of the highlights of the early days of Matrix was attending the inaugural Decentralised Web Summit back in July 2016 at the Internet Archive. This was an amazing opportunity to meet and collaborate with a huge range of decentralisation projects trying to "lock the web open" and fight back against the perils of centralisation: ranging from the original gangsters (the Web, WAIS, Xanadu, and the Internet itself) through to the newer generation of projects.
Fast forward 10 years, and we were very happy to be able to attend the July 2026 incarnation too! This time it was held outside Berlin at the amazing Alte Hölle collective; what better place to fight surveillance capitalism from than a former Stasi holiday camp. Happily many of the faces and projects from earlier DWebSummits and DWebCamps were present and it was fantastic to sync with folks from ATProto, Spritely, Iroh, P2Panda, Willow and others.
Communication for the camp ran primarily on Matrix, and we were very grateful to end up with Matrix featuring in 4 different sessions: A dedicated talk on the current state of Matrix and all the new P2P Matrix development; a fireside chat on 12(!) years of Matrix and what comes next; a panel looking at how decentralisation has evolved since the 2016 summit and where it might go next; and finally a panel on the state of P2P in general.
The reason for talking about it now is that all the videos have now been published - so, if you missed out on attending at the time, now is the opportunity to sit back, relax, return to the beginning of summer and catch up on what happened at DWebCamp. For your convenience and viewing pleasure, here are the main sessions which featured Matrix:
It's finally October, the month of The Matrix Conference 2026! Within only 18 days from publishing this blog, the Matrix community and ecosystem meets in Malmö, Sweden for 3 days of conference, followed by another day of hacking and collaborating in Copenhagen, Denmark!
While the Conference is primarily an in-person event #LocalFirst, it will be accompanied with live streams from all 3 conference stages during the 2 main conference days, powered once more by the amazing c3voc! And of course we could not miss our chat rooms to virtually represent the physical stages on Matrix itself, a "General" chat for the hallway track, hackathon, and more. You can now find all of these grouped in this year's Conference space#conference-2026:matrix.org, and also on the Conference website soon. Naturally, the chats are just as practical if you will be attending in person, as we will be posting news and you can get in touch with other attendees, both remote and present! Note that rooms are read-only for now and will become available for chatting closer to the start of the Conference. Speakers and volunteers will also find that the respective private rooms are inside the same space.
Speaking of volunteers: Here's your chance to join the volunteer chat, get a limited Sweden-colored volunteer hoodie, and most importantly help make MatrixConf happen!
We have made some (hopefully final) adjustments so the shifts in our volunteering system match our schedule more precisely, and also added a couple more shifts! If you're interested in participating in one of our workshops, this should be particularly interesting to you!
Finally, our ticket reserves are starting to dwindle, so if you are planning to attend in person, get your ticket!
The Matrix Conference is happening in just a few weeks! (you may have heard about it? 😉)
Join us in Malmö for talks, workshops, and discussions about the future of Matrix. Go to the website for more details, and to get your tickets.
If you have already bought your ticket, these are now available for download or for adding to your digital wallet. Speakers should check their email to find their voucher for a ticket, and follow the instructions in the email to get invited to the speakers' room on Matrix.
The volunteer system has been updated, with some very last volunteer slots available.
We will have a new range of Matrix stickers available! If you have a Matrix-related project, make sure to bring your own stickers for the sticker exchange.
