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If you want to self-host the actual free open-source software, you can totally do that. You just shouldn't go looking at the product page of the enterprise offering for it (:

It looks like ESS is mostly managed deployment of otherwise opensourced software like Synapse, Element Web, Element Call, and friends. And I guess they have some backoffice with a glossy web UI for account/user management.

https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy is a good starting point!

It is free and opensource, but there are different parts to it if you selfhost. Synapse is the Matrix server backend, and Element is the UI (web/mobile app). [0]

ESS is a paid, fully managed service by the Element team for ease of use.

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[0] https://github.com/element-hq/

You can also host it yourself, but what ESS offers is a combination of multiple discrete services. You’re gonna have to host Synapse itself, the Matrix Authentication Service (for native OIDC), Element Call (which requires LiveKit) and Element Web.