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...any particular reason to use this over Signal, SimpleX, XMPP, Matrix, etc?
There are a lot of reasons for each of those will try to provide some at a glance:
SimpleX, XMPP, Matrix: The client is more user friendly, less buggy and less "this is for nerds" UI than the clients of those networks, ArcaneChat is more on the WhatsApp-like UI
Signal is centralized, depends on phone numbers so can't be used by children in the family that don't have access to SIM card yet etc. Registering in Signal is also more complicated, SMS verification, solving captcha etc. No good multi-account and multi-device as ArcaneChat.
Groups in ArcaneChat are managed independent of the server while in XMPP they are created on a given server and if the server dies the group is lost, while in matrix a lot of group state is replicated and tracked by the servers, in XMPP is easy to end up with unencrypted groups and in Matrix you often get "unable to decrypt" and emoji reaction are not even encrypted, ArcaneChat groups are always encrypted and safe against MITM (green checkmark displayed in the group name)
ArcaneChat has in-chat mini-apps that work independent of any server, communication is only between chat members and e2e encrypted, for example collaborative editor in chat, shopping list, split bill app, several mini games with shared scoreboards etc.
ArcaneChat works offline-first unlike many(all?) of the previous mentioned apps you can even create groups while being offline use and modify the in-chat apps and all state will be synchronized when you are back online. The app also works in slow and unstable connectivity when most of the other mentioned apps would simply not manage to connect.
Along this line what about how it compares to Threema or Session?
Threema is paid (registration tied to payment is already bad for privacy, most people will not register with some crypto-coin etc) and centralized, any centralized service is vulnerable to enshitification, none of them start evil, also it is easier to block by authoritarian governments and can't be used in a sovereign/independent way (ex. own independent server in a local community)
Session: it has been a long time since I last used Session, at the time my impression was that it was a bit hacky and it was draining my battery and using a lot of mobile data, more importantly Session doesn't seem to have multi-account support, also doesn't seem to support using your own independent server "off-the-grid". Session groups have a limit of only 100 members while in ArcaneChat groups can have 1000 members for now (or even more depending on the server you use, ex. your own)
none of them have in-chat collaborative/interactive apps (ex. collaborative editor, calendar, shopping lists, split bills, polls, etc.) and games that can be used even while offline