I've been in the past few nights trying to build my own Matrix server with integrations to Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, IRC, Slack et.al. It is quite a lot of work, even with the Ansible script. First was the DNS SRV record, that is needed to federate with matrix.org. And the Signal integration happily sent messages to my friends, but I never got any messages back.
I have quite a lot of experience with Linux and server maintenance. And I know if I put enough time to this, I'll get everything to work eventually. I'm still saying that paying money for somebody else to do this feels like a nice investment at this point. The task of doing everything by yourself is quite tricky.
Need to add now I got everything working. Element running in my own domain, connecting Signal, Telegram, Matrix federation and IRC in a beautiful way.
It is a lot of work, some of the documentation can be a bit tough if you don't know how things work together and especially the DNS setup can take a bit of time to get the federation working.
Sorry, just to clarify - are you saying that self-hosting Beeper is a lot of work, or that self-hosting Matrix with bridges without Beeper is a lot of work?
I have quite a lot of experience with Linux and server maintenance. And I know if I put enough time to this, I'll get everything to work eventually. I'm still saying that paying money for somebody else to do this feels like a nice investment at this point. The task of doing everything by yourself is quite tricky.