Many who have causally read about Matrix and looked into running a homeserver have run across the reference implementation Synapse, which is (IMO only, pls no flame) a bloated python monstrosity. This turned me off for years.

A second-gen (?) alternative written in Go called Dendrite is much lighter weight, but is lacking in some features last I looked.

A couple of years ago, I found Conduit (https://conduit.rs/) an ultra lightweight homeserver implementation written in Rust with an engaged and responsive community. I've been running this for 18-24 months now and use it for family communications, as well as small business and my group at my $DAYJOB. I highly recommend anyone who hasn't already to check out Conduit :)