There is a growing number of XMPP Extension Protocols (XEPs) that provide different building blocks for XMPP-based applications. XMPP software developers are confronted with the challenge of finding the right combination of XEPs for a given application profile. Users need a way to compare applications without resorting to comparing for individual XEP numbers.
This document defines XMPP application Categories based on typical use cases (Core, Web, IM, Mobile) and Levels (Core, Advanced) based on functionality in the respective category. For each combination of those, the required XEPs are referenced. As the protocol landscape changes over time, this document is updated roughly once a year.
For developers, this document provides guidance on which specifications they need to consider when implementing an application of a certain kind. By completing a compliance test or performing a self-assessment, they can advertise their implementation as compliant with a given Category and Level.
For users, this provides an easy way to compare implementations based on their respective advertised compliance levels and year.
Unless explicitly noted, support for the listed specifications is REQUIRED for compliance purposes. A feature is considered supported if all comma separated feature providers listed in the "Providers" column are implemented (unless otherwise noted).
The following changes were made to the Compliance Suites since XMPP Compliance Suites 2020 (XEP-0423) [1]:
The following changes were made to the Compliance Suites since XMPP Compliance Suites 2019 (XEP-0412) [6]:
| Feature | Core Server | Core Client | Advanced Server | Advanced Client | Providers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core features | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | RFC 6120 [19] [20] |
| TLS | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | RFC 7590 [22] |
| Direct TLS | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ [23] | ✓ | SRV records for XMPP over TLS (XEP-0368) [24] |
| Feature discovery | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Service Discovery (XEP-0030) [25] |
| Feature broadcasts | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Entity Capabilities (XEP-0115) [26] |
| Server Extensibility | ✓ | N/A | ✓ | N/A | Jabber Component Protocol (XEP-0114) [27] |
| Event publishing | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ [28] | ✓ | Personal Eventing Protocol (XEP-0163) [29] |
To be considered XMPP web compliant, all features from the core compliance category must be met, as well as all features in this suite.
| Feature | Core Server | Core Client | Advanced Server | Advanced Client | Providers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web Connection Mechanisms | ✓ [30] | ✓ [31] | ✓ [30] | ✓ [31] | RFC 7395 [32], XMPP Over BOSH (XEP-0206) [33] (See also: BOSH (XEP-0124) [34]) |
| Connection Mechanism Discovery | ✕ | ✕ | N/A | ✓ | Discovering Alternative XMPP Connection Methods (XEP-0156) [18] |
To be considered XMPP IM compliant, all features from the core compliance category must be met, as well as all features in this suite.
Further specifications of note, which are not required for compliance:
To be considered XMPP mobile compliant, all features from the core compliance category must be met, as well as all features in this suite.
| Feature | Core Server | Core Client | Advanced Server | Advanced Client | Providers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stream Management | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Stream Management (XEP-0198) [54] |
| Client State Indication | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Client State Indication (XEP-0352) [58] |
| Third Party Push Notifications | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ [30] | ✓ [59] | Push Notifications (XEP-0357) [60] |
Further specifications of note, which are not required for compliance:
To be considered XMPP A/V calling compliant, all features from the core compliance category must be met, as well as all features in this suite.
| Feature | Core Server | Core Client | Advanced Server | Advanced Client | Providers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Call Setup | N/A | ✓ | N/A | ✓ | Jingle RTP Sessions (XEP-0167) [61], Jingle Message Initiation (XEP-0353) [62] |
| Transport | N/A | ✓ | N/A | ✓ | Jingle ICE-UDP Transport Method (XEP-0176) [63] |
| Encryption | N/A | ✓ | N/A | ✓ | Use of DTLS-SRTP in Jingle Sessions (XEP-0320) [64] |
| STUN/TURN server discovery | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | External Service Discovery (XEP-0215) [65] |
| Quality and Performance improvements | N/A | ✕ | N/A | ✓ | Jingle RTP Feedback Negotiation (XEP-0293) [66], Jingle RTP Header Extensions Negotiation (XEP-0294) [67], Jingle Grouping Framework (XEP-0338) [68], Source-Specific Media Attributes in Jingle (XEP-0339) [69] |
This section outlines the protocol specifications that are relevant for developers, but are not ready yet to be required for Compliance. Developers are encouraged to implement those and to share their experience and feedback.
Some of the protocol specifications referenced herein have their own dependencies; developers need to consult the relevant specifications for further information.
This document introduces no additional security considerations above and beyond those defined in the documents on which it depends.
This document requires no interaction with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) [84].
This document requires no interaction with the XMPP Registrar [85].
The author would like to thank Guus der Kinderen, Dele Olajide, Marc Laporte, Dave Cridland, Daniel Gultsch, Florian Schmaus, Tobias Markmann, and Jonas Schäfer for their suggestions.
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This XMPP Extension Protocol is copyright © 1999 – 2020 by the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF).
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this specification (the "Specification"), to make use of the Specification without restriction, including without limitation the rights to implement the Specification in a software program, deploy the Specification in a network service, and copy, modify, merge, publish, translate, distribute, sublicense, or sell copies of the Specification, and to permit persons to whom the Specification is furnished to do so, subject to the condition that the foregoing copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Specification. Unless separate permission is granted, modified works that are redistributed shall not contain misleading information regarding the authors, title, number, or publisher of the Specification, and shall not claim endorsement of the modified works by the authors, any organization or project to which the authors belong, or the XMPP Standards Foundation.
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This XMPP Extension Protocol has been contributed in full conformance with the XSF's Intellectual Property Rights Policy (a copy of which can be found at <https://xmpp.org/about/xsf/ipr-policy> or obtained by writing to XMPP Standards Foundation, P.O. Box 787, Parker, CO 80134 USA).
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The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is defined in the XMPP Core (RFC 6120) and XMPP IM (RFC 6121) specifications contributed by the XMPP Standards Foundation to the Internet Standards Process, which is managed by the Internet Engineering Task Force in accordance with RFC 2026. Any protocol defined in this document has been developed outside the Internet Standards Process and is to be understood as an extension to XMPP rather than as an evolution, development, or modification of XMPP itself.
The primary venue for discussion of XMPP Extension Protocols is the <standards@xmpp.org> discussion list.
Discussion on other xmpp.org discussion lists might also be appropriate; see <http://xmpp.org/about/discuss.shtml> for a complete list.
Given that this XMPP Extension Protocol normatively references IETF technologies, discussion on the <xsf-ietf@xmpp.org> list might also be appropriate.
Errata can be sent to <editor@xmpp.org>.
The following requirements keywords as used in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119: "MUST", "SHALL", "REQUIRED"; "MUST NOT", "SHALL NOT"; "SHOULD", "RECOMMENDED"; "SHOULD NOT", "NOT RECOMMENDED"; "MAY", "OPTIONAL".
1. XEP-0423: XMPP Compliance Suites 2020 <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0423.html>.
2. XEP-0393: Message Styling <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0393.html>.
3. XEP-0433: Extended Channel Search <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0433.html>.
4. XEP-0424: Message Retraction <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0424.html>.
5. XEP-0425: Message Moderation <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0425.html>.
6. XEP-0412: XMPP Compliance Suites 2019 <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0412.html>.
7. XEP-0245: The /me Command <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0245.html>.
8. XEP-0363: HTTP File Upload <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0363.html>.
9. XEP-0234: Jingle File Transfer <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0234.html>.
10. XEP-0261: Jingle In-Band Bytestreams Transport Method <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0261.html>.
11. XEP-0411: Bookmarks Conversion <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0411.html>.
12. XEP-0077: In-Band Registration <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0077.html>.
13. XEP-0157: Contact Addresses for XMPP Services <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0157.html>.
14. XEP-0392: Consistent Color Generation <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0392.html>.
15. XEP-0066: Out of Band Data <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0066.html>.
16. XEP-0385: Stateless Inline Media Sharing (SIMS) <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0385.html>.
17. XEP-0286: Mobile Considerations on LTE Networks <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0286.html>.
18. XEP-0156: Discovering Alternative XMPP Connection Methods <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0156.html>.
19. RFC 6120: Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP): Core <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6120>.
20. RFC 7622 [21] is not listed due to the unclear interoperability impact of using PRECIS and Stringprep in the same ecosystem.
21. RFC 7622: Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP): Address Format <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7622>.
22. RFC 7590: Use of Transport Layer Security (TLS) in the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7590>.
23. Server support of XEP-0368 means having the ability to accept direct TLS connections.
24. XEP-0368: SRV records for XMPP over TLS <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0368.html>.
25. XEP-0030: Service Discovery <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0030.html>.
26. XEP-0115: Entity Capabilities <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0115.html>.
27. XEP-0114: Jabber Component Protocol <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0114.html>.
28. While 'Personal Eventing Protocol' does not require all the features of 'Publish-Subscribe' to be available on the users' JIDs, and nor does this suite, it is desirable for this to be the case and it is expected that this will a requirement of future Compliance Suites.
29. XEP-0163: Personal Eventing Protocol <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0163.html>.
30. Support can be enabled via an external component or an internal server module/plugin. If claiming compliance using such an addition, the necessary components/modules/plugins MUST be detailed.
31. Only one of the recommended providers must be implemented for compliance.
32. RFC 7395: An Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) Subprotocol for WebSocket <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7395>.
33. XEP-0206: XMPP Over BOSH <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0206.html>.
34. XEP-0124: Bidirectional-streams Over Synchronous HTTP <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0124.html>.
35. RFC 6121: Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP): Instant Messaging and Presence <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6121>.
36. Not required for command line or terminal based interfaces.
37. XEP-0084: User Avatar <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0084.html>.
38. XEP-0398: User Avatar to vCard-Based Avatars Conversion <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0398.html>.
39. XEP-0153: vCard-Based Avatars <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0153.html>.
40. XEP-0054: vcard-temp <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0054.html>.
41. XEP-0280: Message Carbons <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0280.html>.
42. XEP-0191: Blocking Command <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0191.html>.
43. Support for the Entity Use Cases and Occupant Use Cases is REQUIRED; support for the remaining use cases is RECOMMENDED.
44. XEP-0045: Multi-User Chat <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0045.html>.
45. Implementations should take note that future versions of these compliance suites may rely on Mediated Information eXchange (MIX) (XEP-0369) [46] instead.
46. XEP-0369: Mediated Information eXchange (MIX) <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0369.html>.
47. XEP-0249: Direct MUC Invitations <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0249.html>.
48. XEP-0048: Bookmark Storage <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0048.html>.
49. XEP-0313: Message Archive Management <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0313.html>.
50. Support for requesting history from a MUC archive as opposed to from the user's account.
51. XEP-0410: MUC Self-Ping (Schrödinger's Chat) <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0410.html>.
52. XEP-0223: Best Practices for Persistent Storage of Private Data via Publish-Subscribe <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0223.html>.
53. XEP-0049: Private XML Storage <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0049.html>.
54. XEP-0198: Stream Management <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0198.html>.
55. XEP-0184: Message Delivery Receipts <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0184.html>.
56. XEP-0085: Chat State Notifications <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0085.html>.
57. XEP-0308: Last Message Correction <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0308.html>.
58. XEP-0352: Client State Indication <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0352.html>.
59. Only on platforms that disallow long-lasting background connections.
60. XEP-0357: Push Notifications <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0357.html>.
61. XEP-0167: Jingle RTP Sessions <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0167.html>.
62. XEP-0353: Jingle Message Initiation <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0353.html>.
63. XEP-0176: Jingle ICE-UDP Transport Method <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0176.html>.
64. XEP-0320: Use of DTLS-SRTP in Jingle Sessions <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0320.html>.
65. XEP-0215: External Service Discovery <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0215.html>.
66. XEP-0293: Jingle RTP Feedback Negotiation<https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0293.html>.
67. XEP-0294: Jingle RTP Header Extensions Negotiation <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0294.html>.
68. XEP-0338: Jingle Grouping Framework <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0338.html>.
69. XEP-0339: Source-Specific Media Attributes in Jingle <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0339.html>.
70. XEP-0386: Bind 2.0 <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0386.html>.
71. XEP-0409: IM Routing-NG <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0409.html>.
72. XEP-0397: Instant Stream Resumption <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0397.html>.
73. XEP-0401: Easy User Onboarding <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0401.html>.
74. XEP-0379: Pre-Authenticated Roster Subscription <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0379.html>.
75. XEP-0333: Chat Markers <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0333.html>.
76. XEP-0380: Explicit Message Encryption <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0380.html>.
77. XEP-0420: Stanza Content Encryption <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0420.html>.
78. XEP-0384: OMEMO Encryption <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0384.html>.
79. XEP-0396: Jingle Encrypted Transports - OMEMO <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0396.html>.
80. XEP-0374: OpenPGP for XMPP Instant Messaging <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0374.html>.
81. XEP-0402: PEP Native Bookmarks <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0402.html>.
82. XEP-0225: Component Connections <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0225.html>.
83. XEP-0390: Entity Capabilities 2.0 <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0390.html>.
84. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is the central coordinator for the assignment of unique parameter values for Internet protocols, such as port numbers and URI schemes. For further information, see <http://www.iana.org/>.
85. The XMPP Registrar maintains a list of reserved protocol namespaces as well as registries of parameters used in the context of XMPP extension protocols approved by the XMPP Standards Foundation. For further information, see <https://xmpp.org/registrar/>.
Note: Older versions of this specification might be available at http://xmpp.org/extensions/attic/
First draft based on XEP-0423.
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