4 ms·

Have you ever looked at Discord? Slack isn't the only choice if you want a nice UI that works on all of your devices. https://discordapp.com/ https://discordapp

by NDizzle 10y ago

Have you ever looked at Discord? Slack isn't the only choice if you want a nice UI that works on all of your devices. https://discordapp.com/ https://discordapp.com/

kbenson 10y ago
No, but from looking at it now that's likely because they've targeted themselves towards more informal (game) voice chat. It actually looks like it could be a good contender in this space if they decided to not only compare themselves to voice chat systems[1] (Skype, Ventrilo, Teamspeak), and didn't specifically market to gamers. That is, assuming the service is good, since I haven't tried it. 1: https://discordapp.com/features https://discordapp.com/features
- vehementi 10y ago
  My gaming group switched from Slack to Discord. Not having history is the only negative, otherwise it's basically an upgrade for our usage. It uses the same codecs as mumble and lets you have all your shit in one place, so you can see who's online playing what, join voice channels with them and have chat. You can also join an unlimited number of communities which are essentially just tabs all in the same experience. It's zero effort to spin up a new group for a new game or group of friends, and you can just paste a link that gets people talking with no registration needed at first. Can't say enough good things about discord!
- iamatworknow 10y ago
  It works very well in the context of games. Skype can can awkward for gaming and Vent/Teamspeak require someone to pay for a dedicated server (not an issue for the HN crowd, but for your typical gamer it is). Discord is free, has better audio quality than other services (in my opinion), in-game overlays, the ability to connect to multiple servers/groups at once...it's pretty slick. I think they would do well to continue focusing on the gamer market.
- rudolf0 10y ago
  I think Discord is on a path to be a suitable replacement for IRC, Slack, and Skype. They still need some polishing, but once they fix some bugs and add good support for history and searching, I think it'll be fantastic.
  - aseipp 10y ago
    IMO, the main worrying thing is that Discord is propped up entirely by VC money right now, and there's absolutely no telling how the hell they're going to monetize it. Slack at least has the obvious "pay us money" model, so they can survive on that even with competitors. IRC (decentralized) and Skype (Microsoft, unlimited money) could practically survive nuclear apocalypse, by comparison. They promise the core features will remain free, but I don't trust that when investors come knocking for a return, and I expect unless they find a very suitable model, it will slowly start to get worse at some point. I seriously doubt their core audience (people playing games) is going to throw money at them for things, like, skins, or something. Maybe they plan on more "B2B" style profitability where they do deep integration with partners like Youtube, Twitch etc behind the scenes? FWIW: I say this as someone who's extremely happy with Discord since I switched me and my friends over to it for playing games, and as someone who thinks they really do have a solid product. And as someone who'd hate to see it go into the shitter just because of the above. It's wonderfully stable for its youth, and it's light years ahead of Skype, Vent, Mumble in terms of "Just Works", and has every feature we've needed, and more (the moderation/ACL, and external service features keep getting better, for example). Maybe my only complaint with Discord is that, because it's so feature rich, it's actually a bit confusing to initially wrap your head around, in terms of UI/UX. I had to guide a few of my more non-technical friends through the UI when they first used it. Things like, non-obvious buttons and stuff like that.
    - rudolf0 10y ago
      Valid point. I personally like the UI/UX, except some of the channel management features. It took me some time to figure out how to set ranks and give permissions.
  - jhgg 10y ago
sciolistse 10y ago
Discords the voice chat works great and is super easy.. But without search there's just no way it could replace Slack for us.
kevingadd 10y ago
Discord is a bad alternative to Slack for anything you care about. It often fails to deliver messages for multiple minutes at a time and will deliver messages out of order or only sparsely deliver some of your messages. It's a nice option for small communities and people who need voice chat, though.

by NDizzle 10y ago

Have you ever looked at Discord? Slack isn't the only choice if you want a nice UI that works on all of your devices. https://discordapp.com/ https://discordapp.com/

kbenson 10y ago

No, but from looking at it now that's likely because they've targeted themselves towards more informal (game) voice chat. It actually looks like it could be a good contender in this space if they decided to not only compare themselves to voice chat systems[1] (Skype, Ventrilo, Teamspeak), and didn't specifically market to gamers. That is, assuming the service is good, since I haven't tried it. 1: https://discordapp.com/features https://discordapp.com/features

vehementi 10y ago
My gaming group switched from Slack to Discord. Not having history is the only negative, otherwise it's basically an upgrade for our usage. It uses the same codecs as mumble and lets you have all your shit in one place, so you can see who's online playing what, join voice channels with them and have chat. You can also join an unlimited number of communities which are essentially just tabs all in the same experience. It's zero effort to spin up a new group for a new game or group of friends, and you can just paste a link that gets people talking with no registration needed at first. Can't say enough good things about discord!
iamatworknow 10y ago
It works very well in the context of games. Skype can can awkward for gaming and Vent/Teamspeak require someone to pay for a dedicated server (not an issue for the HN crowd, but for your typical gamer it is). Discord is free, has better audio quality than other services (in my opinion), in-game overlays, the ability to connect to multiple servers/groups at once...it's pretty slick. I think they would do well to continue focusing on the gamer market.
rudolf0 10y ago
I think Discord is on a path to be a suitable replacement for IRC, Slack, and Skype. They still need some polishing, but once they fix some bugs and add good support for history and searching, I think it'll be fantastic.
- aseipp 10y ago
  IMO, the main worrying thing is that Discord is propped up entirely by VC money right now, and there's absolutely no telling how the hell they're going to monetize it. Slack at least has the obvious "pay us money" model, so they can survive on that even with competitors. IRC (decentralized) and Skype (Microsoft, unlimited money) could practically survive nuclear apocalypse, by comparison. They promise the core features will remain free, but I don't trust that when investors come knocking for a return, and I expect unless they find a very suitable model, it will slowly start to get worse at some point. I seriously doubt their core audience (people playing games) is going to throw money at them for things, like, skins, or something. Maybe they plan on more "B2B" style profitability where they do deep integration with partners like Youtube, Twitch etc behind the scenes? FWIW: I say this as someone who's extremely happy with Discord since I switched me and my friends over to it for playing games, and as someone who thinks they really do have a solid product. And as someone who'd hate to see it go into the shitter just because of the above. It's wonderfully stable for its youth, and it's light years ahead of Skype, Vent, Mumble in terms of "Just Works", and has every feature we've needed, and more (the moderation/ACL, and external service features keep getting better, for example). Maybe my only complaint with Discord is that, because it's so feature rich, it's actually a bit confusing to initially wrap your head around, in terms of UI/UX. I had to guide a few of my more non-technical friends through the UI when they first used it. Things like, non-obvious buttons and stuff like that.
  - rudolf0 10y ago
    Valid point. I personally like the UI/UX, except some of the channel management features. It took me some time to figure out how to set ranks and give permissions.
- jhgg 10y ago

sciolistse 10y ago

Discords the voice chat works great and is super easy.. But without search there's just no way it could replace Slack for us.

kevingadd 10y ago

Discord is a bad alternative to Slack for anything you care about. It often fails to deliver messages for multiple minutes at a time and will deliver messages out of order or only sparsely deliver some of your messages. It's a nice option for small communities and people who need voice chat, though.