4 ms·

What's the best Free alternative? Since WebRTC is pretty powerful & cross platform, is there a really good WebRTC text + audio chat system that matches the core

by sxp 7y ago

What's the best Free alternative? Since WebRTC is pretty powerful & cross platform, is there a really good WebRTC text + audio chat system that matches the core functionality of Discord?

fladd 7y ago
https://matrix.org https://matrix.org with https://riot.im https://riot.im as a client.
- przmk 7y ago
  I do not use Discord but I'm under the impression that it has voice channels like Mumble and Teamspeak whereas Matrix does not (yet) have them. This is a big deal-breaker for many teams and I'm definitely waiting until it has that feature before I deploy my own server. For a chat-only replacement, it's definitely perfect.
  - petersjt014 7y ago
    Voice chat is apparently harder to implement, but it's still possible to do right now with Jitsi [1]. And even without it, Matrix supports an 'opt-in' style of voice channel that should work fine with smaller groups. [1]: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/6471 https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/6471
- cwyers 7y ago
  For anyone without the wherewithal to deploy their own Matrix server and without a friend who has one, it looks like there's nothing like the (generous) Discord free tier. Looking at the recommended hosting provider on Riot.im's website: https://modular.im/services/matrix-hosting#fair-billing-policy https://modular.im/services/matrix-hosting#fair-billing-poli... It looks like if I wanted to invite 10 friends to my room on Modular.im, I'd have to pay $17.50, compared to $0 for Discord.
  - petersjt014 7y ago
    A closer equivalent would be riot.im's servers, which are free in the same way as Discord/IRC's public rooms are. If you wanted custom integrations or the like you'd have to pay out for it, but the free option's still there. You can find a decent number of communities there--#GnuLinuxLovers comes to mind.
  - petersjt014 7y ago
    I should also say that Matrix has a lot of other really nice aspects to it that give Discord and friends a run for their money: - Open source. Self-explanatory. - Federated. Sure, you can probably redundant-ify your IRC server with Apache Something and Amazon AWS/ Cloudflare whatever if you really wanted to, but I regularly see Matrix rooms with 10+ addresses because the protocol's designed around that redundancy, not the other way around. And of course with Discord none of this even applies...good luck if Intern Greg elbows the Big Red Button, or they pull a yahoo groups/google+/etc. - The protocol leaves a lot of room for experimentation that Discord isn't nearly open enough for. [1][2][3] - There's bridges to other discord, irc, and dozens of other platforms, sidestepping the adoption problem (note that there's been even more added since this graphic was made). [4] They aren't exactly languishing in obscurity either: the government of France is one of their userbases [5]. Yeah, I'd say Discord-style VC would be nice, but the lack if it isn't exactly holding them back. [1]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/matrix-live/ https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/matrix-live/ [2]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/freebird/ https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/freebird/ [3]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/lightrix/ https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/lightrix/ [4]: https://matrix.org/blog/2017/03/11/how-do-i-bridge-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/ https://matrix.org/blog/2017/03/11/how-do-i-bridge-thee-let-... [5]: https://vector.im/#case-studies https://vector.im/#case-studies
  - Nuzzerino 7y ago
    I'm not a fan of paying per user, but the usage is only counted towards the billing when they stick around for two days. That makes it a better deal than if you were charged per invite.
  - fladd 7y ago
    Oh, sorry, I didn't know Discord gives people their own exclusive servers to host their rooms on for free. I assumed you just create new rooms on their main server, in which case it would be comparable to signing up to the matrix.org homeserver for free and create as many rooms there and invite as many users to those rooms as you want.
- clarry 7y ago
  How about a portable & lightweight client?
  - jeltz 7y ago
    For the chat there is weechat, but I do not think any of lightweight the clients with audio support are mature.
  - petersjt014 7y ago
    If you want a _really_ lightweight matrix client, I'd say <300 lines of Go would be pretty light. Go is quite portable too: https://gitlab.com/meutraa/mm/tree/master https://gitlab.com/meutraa/mm/tree/master
arminiusreturns 7y ago
I would say mattermost and/or mumble. Each has it's strengths and weaknesses, and neither completely fills the discord role, but I think as soon as mattermost has a murmur integration it will be the place to be. Also irc is totally underrated.
- croon 7y ago
  I've been on IRC more or less 24/7 since 1996 and love it, and started using Mumble in 2005 or 6. While I think they're both great, neither of them are an alternative to Discord. Getting in? One click on email/URL and then sign up. Join a channel? One click. Voice chat? One click. Stream your game? One click. Seamlessly switch to mobile app? Done. I have yet to meet a user that can't get into it with just an invite link. It's amazingly user friendly. And if I want to, I can granularly create roles for users and administrators of arbitrary levels and access rights. I share the privacy concerns, and that I can't grep any logs easily (though with voice chat that's harder regardless), but simply from a user perspective if it wasn't for the network effect of my IRC communities, and Messenger groups, I could happily just use Discord tomorrow. I strongly dislike that it's closed source and partly Chinese owned, but I've been using Messenger to reach people I couldn't on IRC for years already, and that experience is much worse, with no privacy gain. Credit where credit is due, they knocked it out of the park in most aspects.
- przmk 7y ago
  There are no web clients for Murmur that supports voice to my knowledge. What makes you think it will be possible to integrate both?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - arminiusreturns 7y ago
    There is one: https://github.com/Johni0702/mumble-web https://github.com/Johni0702/mumble-web Also the protocol is open so it should be doable: https://mumble-protocol.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://mumble-protocol.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ For those curious about the switch from murmur to mumble in our conversation, murmur is the server side, while mumble is the client side.

by sxp 7y ago

What's the best Free alternative? Since WebRTC is pretty powerful & cross platform, is there a really good WebRTC text + audio chat system that matches the core functionality of Discord?

fladd 7y ago

https://matrix.org https://matrix.org with https://riot.im https://riot.im as a client.

przmk 7y ago
I do not use Discord but I'm under the impression that it has voice channels like Mumble and Teamspeak whereas Matrix does not (yet) have them. This is a big deal-breaker for many teams and I'm definitely waiting until it has that feature before I deploy my own server. For a chat-only replacement, it's definitely perfect.
- petersjt014 7y ago
  Voice chat is apparently harder to implement, but it's still possible to do right now with Jitsi [1]. And even without it, Matrix supports an 'opt-in' style of voice channel that should work fine with smaller groups. [1]: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/6471 https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/6471
cwyers 7y ago
For anyone without the wherewithal to deploy their own Matrix server and without a friend who has one, it looks like there's nothing like the (generous) Discord free tier. Looking at the recommended hosting provider on Riot.im's website: https://modular.im/services/matrix-hosting#fair-billing-policy https://modular.im/services/matrix-hosting#fair-billing-poli... It looks like if I wanted to invite 10 friends to my room on Modular.im, I'd have to pay $17.50, compared to $0 for Discord.
- petersjt014 7y ago
  A closer equivalent would be riot.im's servers, which are free in the same way as Discord/IRC's public rooms are. If you wanted custom integrations or the like you'd have to pay out for it, but the free option's still there. You can find a decent number of communities there--#GnuLinuxLovers comes to mind.
- petersjt014 7y ago
  I should also say that Matrix has a lot of other really nice aspects to it that give Discord and friends a run for their money: - Open source. Self-explanatory. - Federated. Sure, you can probably redundant-ify your IRC server with Apache Something and Amazon AWS/ Cloudflare whatever if you really wanted to, but I regularly see Matrix rooms with 10+ addresses because the protocol's designed around that redundancy, not the other way around. And of course with Discord none of this even applies...good luck if Intern Greg elbows the Big Red Button, or they pull a yahoo groups/google+/etc. - The protocol leaves a lot of room for experimentation that Discord isn't nearly open enough for. [1][2][3] - There's bridges to other discord, irc, and dozens of other platforms, sidestepping the adoption problem (note that there's been even more added since this graphic was made). [4] They aren't exactly languishing in obscurity either: the government of France is one of their userbases [5]. Yeah, I'd say Discord-style VC would be nice, but the lack if it isn't exactly holding them back. [1]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/matrix-live/ https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/matrix-live/ [2]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/freebird/ https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/freebird/ [3]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/lightrix/ https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/lightrix/ [4]: https://matrix.org/blog/2017/03/11/how-do-i-bridge-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/ https://matrix.org/blog/2017/03/11/how-do-i-bridge-thee-let-... [5]: https://vector.im/#case-studies https://vector.im/#case-studies
- Nuzzerino 7y ago
  I'm not a fan of paying per user, but the usage is only counted towards the billing when they stick around for two days. That makes it a better deal than if you were charged per invite.
- fladd 7y ago
  Oh, sorry, I didn't know Discord gives people their own exclusive servers to host their rooms on for free. I assumed you just create new rooms on their main server, in which case it would be comparable to signing up to the matrix.org homeserver for free and create as many rooms there and invite as many users to those rooms as you want.
clarry 7y ago
How about a portable & lightweight client?
- jeltz 7y ago
  For the chat there is weechat, but I do not think any of lightweight the clients with audio support are mature.
- petersjt014 7y ago
  If you want a _really_ lightweight matrix client, I'd say <300 lines of Go would be pretty light. Go is quite portable too: https://gitlab.com/meutraa/mm/tree/master https://gitlab.com/meutraa/mm/tree/master

arminiusreturns 7y ago

I would say mattermost and/or mumble. Each has it's strengths and weaknesses, and neither completely fills the discord role, but I think as soon as mattermost has a murmur integration it will be the place to be. Also irc is totally underrated.

croon 7y ago
I've been on IRC more or less 24/7 since 1996 and love it, and started using Mumble in 2005 or 6. While I think they're both great, neither of them are an alternative to Discord. Getting in? One click on email/URL and then sign up. Join a channel? One click. Voice chat? One click. Stream your game? One click. Seamlessly switch to mobile app? Done. I have yet to meet a user that can't get into it with just an invite link. It's amazingly user friendly. And if I want to, I can granularly create roles for users and administrators of arbitrary levels and access rights. I share the privacy concerns, and that I can't grep any logs easily (though with voice chat that's harder regardless), but simply from a user perspective if it wasn't for the network effect of my IRC communities, and Messenger groups, I could happily just use Discord tomorrow. I strongly dislike that it's closed source and partly Chinese owned, but I've been using Messenger to reach people I couldn't on IRC for years already, and that experience is much worse, with no privacy gain. Credit where credit is due, they knocked it out of the park in most aspects.
przmk 7y ago
There are no web clients for Murmur that supports voice to my knowledge. What makes you think it will be possible to integrate both?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- arminiusreturns 7y ago
  There is one: https://github.com/Johni0702/mumble-web https://github.com/Johni0702/mumble-web Also the protocol is open so it should be doable: https://mumble-protocol.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://mumble-protocol.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ For those curious about the switch from murmur to mumble in our conversation, murmur is the server side, while mumble is the client side.