I haven't had much occasion to use it (I dipped into a gaming group that used Matrix but quickly fell out of it) but https://github.com/poljar/weechat-matrix seems mostly adequate if you are a weechat user and just need the text chat features. Feels just like IRC.
It really doesn't. The best option is weechat-matrix, but that's already a dead project. The lack of good client diversity is what is holding me back from using Matrix.
With Matrix there is also a lack of good lightweight clients and servers. The official client uses Electron. It will never be an alternative to the IRC with this attitude. There is a Weechat plugin but it's in Python...
weechat-matrix works pretty well, tbh. but agreed IRC is simpler to get right than XMPP & Matrix. Matrix stability at least is improving constantly though (but agreed it's not quite at the same level as IRC. Turns out decentralised E2EE is hard.)
using matrix via weechat using the new python weechat-matrix (https://github.com/poljar/weechat-matrix) plugin should give a very convincing IRC on steroids experience; it even has e2e encryption landing. The emacs matrix client (mclient.el) is also in active dev again.
Riot is also good, but probably too bloated for your tastes :)
This (and previously, https://github.com/torhve/weechat-matrix-protocol-script) has been my primary way of accessing Matrix for well over a year on PC-esque setups. It's amazing as long as you don't care about the video/call functionality. Much, much lighter than Riot yet more feature-full than most of the native GUI clients (nheko, fractal, etc.) IMO.
weechat-matrix gets a lot of attention, works really well, has full E2EE support, and weechat at least is in major package managers. Matrix is evolving pretty fast though, so you'll probably have to install your own matrix plugin from https://github.com/poljar/weechat-matrix.
Meanwhile gomuks also exists and is usable and not abandoned.
On GUI Desktop, various clients are in active dev - e.g. Fractal for GTK/Rust, Quaternion for Qt/C++, Nheko for Qt/QML, etc. They are not as complete as Riot yet, but I'm sure PRs are welcome...
I am hoping they go with Matrix, least then I will be able to have the choice of having a client appropriate to my needs.
I do prefer my chat client to not be a part of my browser. That way I can close my browser, start my browser and chat client on login ie from i3/sway etc. A tab in a browser runs the risk of getting closed.
Other people who want to use Riot can if they want at the end of the day I think matrix is probably the best option as it will cater for many people's needs.
Matrix is really nice. I hope that some of the TUI clients improve a bit, though. I absolutely loved the weechat plugin made in lua, but it'd often take several tries to connect. One day I couldn't connect at all, and there hasn't been github activity lately. It was the only client I found that let me actually reorder rooms and people manually. I really hate the constantly changing order that I can't seem to configure in Riot. Gomuks lacks a lot of good keybinds and stuff that weechat did right by default for being weechat. The emacs package matrix-client.el is alright but tricky to get going due to using quelpa, which none of my other stuff uses. I also have only used it graphically in emacs, so not sure how it is in non-graphical emacs. These little disappointments in the clients make me still prefer irc for a lot of things, but easily sharing images and such on matrix is pretty nice.
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