A few SimpleX shortcomings beyond what you noted, in no particular order:
No multi-device support.
Adding contacts requires sharing somewhat large links (as either text or QR code) which can be inconvenient.
Messages are lost if not retrieved soon after they’re sent. (I think it’s 21 days by default. I’ve had vacations longer than that.)
No group calls.
Group messaging is full-mesh, meaning that as a group grows, the network traffic will balloon faster than it would with any other topology. This is generally bad for high-traffic groups, but it might be okay if they stay small or everyone always has great unmetered connectivity.
The claim to not have user IDs is misleading at best, and outright false in group chats.
The desktop app uses Java, which will be unappealing to more than a few people. (To be fair, several other messengers use Electron, which is also unappealing to more than a few.)
It does have some neat design ideas. I don’t consider it ready for general use, but I look forward to seeing how it develops.
That does seem like a decent workaround for the multi-device problem, if you only communicate in small groups and each member only has a couple of devices. Directly addressing each other could get unwieldy fast as a group (or the number of devices) grows, but I'm guessing you're not in that situation. Nice work.
From two days ago:
https://lemmy.ml/comment/13108576
We made a diff acc for each device and then added them all to groups
Works for us ymmv
That does seem like a decent workaround for the multi-device problem, if you only communicate in small groups and each member only has a couple of devices. Directly addressing each other could get unwieldy fast as a group (or the number of devices) grows, but I'm guessing you're not in that situation. Nice work.