XMPP works pretty well, but it's not in the spotlight as much as Matrix right now. I get the sense that Matrix servers tend to be pretty heavy weight in comparison? Main problem with XMPP in my opinion is that there's no "one true app" available for every platform. There's something decent everywhere (with iOS being the worst supported, but getting better, Siskin is pretty solid), but it'd be really nice to have a decent app like Element everywhere so you could help your friends on different platforms better, and trust that they're getting a similar experience. Conversations is kind of an amazing app on android, I like Dino on Linux, Siskin is pretty good on iOS... Not entirely sure what's going on with Macs (I think you can get Dino to work, but otherwise I guess maybe Beagle?)... I'm REALLY not sure what's going on with Windows.

But, por que no los dos! A lot of us host stuff as a hobby, so it can just be fun to set up an extra thing if you've got nothing better to do :P.