There couldn’t be a more appropriate place for us to formally unveil our new Helm-based Element Server Suite (ESS) family of products than The Matrix Conference!
Our new Helm-based deployments simplify setup and modification, enable automation and support configuration versioning. They also match our customers’ GitOps-centric operations. Built according to industry standards to work with any Kubernetes distribution, our Helm-based ESS versions are quick and easy to deploy, even for those with limited Kubernetes knowledge, to deliver a great ‘out-of-the-box’ experience.
ESS is our polished backend for hosting and maintaining a Matrix-based system. ESS Pro was released in September 2025, ESS Community has been available since March 2025 and ESS for TI-Messenger since April. We’re delighted to report that feedback to date has been overwHelmingly positive. 😁
Element Server Suite Pro
Element Server Suite Pro is our solution for governments and other large organisations to run and control their own digitally sovereign and highly secure communications solution. At the heart of ESS Pro is Synapse Pro, a Rust-accelerated version of Synapse that delivers unparalleled performance and cost savings for large-scale deployments. ESS Pro provides enterprise-grade functionality such as autoscaling, multi-tenancy, advanced identity and role-based access management, advanced security advisories, security updates, auditing and other compliance requirements. ESS Pro supports all Matrix frontends, and can operate in air-gapped, self-hosted and SaaS environments.
Components
- Synapse Pro
- Matrix Authentication Service (MAS)
- Element Admin
- Element Call
- Advanced Identity and Access Management
- Richer SSO + LDAP support
- Secure Border Gateway
- Sygnal (Push Gateway)
- Auditing and Moderation
- Element Pro
Element Server Suite for TI-Messenger
Element Server Suite Pro for TI-Messenger is a backend designed for use in Germany’s healthcare sector. Compliant with gematik’s TI-M ePA and TI-M Pro specifications, it is built to enable service providers and software vendors to build TI-M compliant communications into their own offerings. For example ESS Pro for TI-Messenger is used by T-Systems to power its TI-M solution for BARMER. Of particular importance for the TI-Messenger marketplace, ESS Pro for TI-Messenger uses Synapse Pro to support multi-tenancy deployments. This enables a service provider to cost effectively configure and manage thousands of small hosts within a single deployment, which is crucial as TI-Messenger rolls out to local clinics and pharmacies.
Components
- Synapse Pro + TI-M modules
- SBG + TI-M modules
- Federation list service
- Push gateway (Sygnal)
Element Server Suite Community
Element Server Suite Community is our official open source distribution for non-commercial Matrix deployments. It provides a very simple setup for casual use, evaluations, and small to mid-sized deployments (1–100 users). ESS Community comes with no performance guarantees, no certifications, no Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) and is not Cyber Resilience Act compliant. There is no vendor responsibility, or security update management. ESS Community is distributed under AGPLv3.
Components
- Synapse
- Matrix Authentication Service (MAS)
- Element Admin
- Element Call
- Element Web
Our Helm-based Element Server Suite range is now our primary solution, and is what all new customers will deploy. We’ll still be supporting ‘ESS Classic’ which comes as a binary installer and monolithic kubernetes operator, but we plan for all existing customers to migrate to our Helm-based Element Server Suite over time.
Element Admin and ESS Pro
The latest addition to ESS is Element Admin, the much anticipated official admin interface for Synapse, available for both ESS Pro and ESS Community! It gives admins a quick and easy way to manage end-users and chat rooms across a deployment. As user numbers grow, so do Admin responsibilities and compliance requirements. That’s why ESS Pro is packed with additional enterprise-grade features (and one of the reasons why ESS Community is not suited to workplace use).
ESS Pro integrates with your organisation’s directory, so joiners, movers, and leavers can be automatically provisioned and deprovisioned. It also supports richer single sign-on via OpenID Connect and LDAP authentication, making access simple for users, and secure for you. Admins can manage end-user access across the organisation using group and role-based permissions.
ESS Pro ensures admins can create, structure and manage chat hierarchies for the whole organisation; whether it’s one-to-one rooms, team spaces, all-hands rooms or even announcement-only rooms. An organisation can also moderate individual chat rooms, ensuring room names, icons and behaviours are respected.
Auditing capabilities within ESS Pro are vital to ensure accountability and compliance across an end-to-end encrypted platform, with audited rooms clearly flagged to ensure end-users remain conscious that they are communicating on a platform provided by their employer. Where relevant, admins can also control federation, keeping a system fully private, or adding in trusted partners or choosing to be fully open.
Finally, at the core of ESS Pro is Synapse Pro - super-charged Synapse, built for maximum scalability, reduced resource utilisation and elastic scaling, thanks to new Rust implementations of key components. If you require an enterprise-ready Matrix server which can seamlessly scale, with a direct line of support from the Element team who wrote it, look no further.
ESS Community
We’re delighted to say that ESS Community has already received around 2.5M downloads (source: GitHub).
Feedback has been very positive. Most people report that they found ESS Community a straightforward and accessible way to create a self-hosted Matrix deployment, with minimal Kubernetes expertise required. Helm charts have been warmly welcomed, enabling a full Matrix stack to be deployed in just a few commands. The phrase we’re seen most often is “it just works,” part of which is a result of the learnings derived from developing the enterprise-grade level of polish within ESS Pro.
Most pleasing of all from our perspective, as the officially maintained distro from the creators of Matrix, it’s seen as credible and highly trusted. Please keep spreading the word about ESS Community, and feeding back on your experience of using it.
ESS Community and ESS Pro feature comparison
ESS Community is designed for personal, casual and community use. Large workplace deployments need a different level of performance and flexibility, and a broader enterprise-grade set of features. The main differences between ESS Community and ESS Pro are highlighted in this comparison table.
| Community | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Trusted software (Official Matrix distribution from Element; the creators of Matrix) | ✅ | ✅ |
| Synapse homeserver (Community edition homeserver, actively developed by Element, but not for use in production environments) | ✅ | ❌ |
| Synapse Pro (Next generation homeserver for professional use providing dynamic scaling and 80%+ resource savings compared to Community Synapse) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Element Admin (Configure and control your deployment from a single pane of glass) | ✅ | ✅ |
| Advanced Identity and Access Management (Integrate with enterprise identity management systems like LDAP and SCIM to automate user management and mirror organisational structures within room hierarchies) | ❌ | ✅ |
| LDAP/AD authentication (Authenticate users directly against an external LDAP or Active Directory system) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Single Sign On (Richer support for SSO through OIDC/OAuth) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Auditing and reporting (In-room auditing to capture an official record of discussion and decision-making for regulation and compliance purposes) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Moderation (Corporate oversight and management of your organisation’s conversations, disabled by default) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Retention policies (Configure rules-based retention policies for messages and media, to meet your organisation's processes and compliance requirements) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Data export (Easily migrate your data, protecting against vendor lock-in) | ✅ | ✅ |
| Secure border gateway (Rules-based application firewall with federation controls to securely manage your Matrix network) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Vendor-backed product (Supply chain security guarantee for CRA compliance with vendor Software Bill of Materials (SBOMs)) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Performance guarantees (SLAs-backed, high availability and dynamic scaling) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Resource efficiency & power usage effectiveness (PUE) (Low resource footprint and multi-tenancy support via Synapse Pro) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Management of frontend client (MDM, certificate pinning, branding and server-pushed configuration support) | ❌ | ✅ |
