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$27.7 billion. Seems quite high given Discord’s momentum. Haven’t really been spending much time on Slack for a couple years and most new companies/projects see

$27.7 billion. Seems quite high given Discord’s momentum. Haven’t really been spending much time on Slack for a couple years and most new companies/projects seems to be selecting Discord. I suppose Salesforce has the money, though. I wonder if they are going to try to reposition it.

mpeg 5y ago
Discord is used heavily by OSS communities and other such projects; but I've yet to see it used by companies. It really doesn't target the enterprise customer, or even SMEs
- halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
  Also Gitter?
slap_shot 5y ago
Is Discord used in the enterprise? I've only used it for a gaming community a long time ago.
- impendia 5y ago
  I'm an academic. Since the pandemic began I've used Discord on multiple occasions for work -- for example, if someone runs an online conference it's common to create a Discord and encourage chat among the conference participants. But these are all fairly informal use cases, initiated by individual academics and not by "the university".
  - bachmeier 5y ago
    If you ask university IT about Discord, they'll probably tell you emailing .docx files back and forth is just as good.
    - impendia 5y ago
      My university's IT staff is surprisingly good. But they seem to be hamstrung by questionable decisions being made over their head.
- tracedddd 5y ago
  To be honest, I’m not that in touch with enterprise. Despite Discord’s appearance as a platform for gamers it has pretty much dominated slack for a non-self hosted solution for the areas I’m familiar with. Small teams, OSS, cryptocurrency, strongly distributed WFH type startups, conferences, etc. Private channels are role based so the general public can integrate communication tightly with the main team while they work behind the scenes. I wouldn’t be surprised if Discord launches a professional de-gamer-branded version soon. Target markets aside you simply get more from Discord for most general use cases and it feels like Slack is playing catch up rather than leading (like they used to) on some popular features.
  - dannyw 5y ago
    Also, Discord has capable APIs and a fairly open developer program. You can make some really amazing and useful bots.
danpalmer 5y ago
Discord seems like a good choice for communities, but I've never seen a company use Discord for internal company chat, whereas almost everyone seems to use Slack or Teams. Anecdotally, I see Slack as something I use for professional purposes, and Discord as something I chat with my friends on. I have Slack on my work Mac, and Discord on my personal Mac. I see Slack as an extension of Skype for Business/Lync/other business tools, and I see Discord as a better Mumble/MSN Messenger.
- hu3 5y ago
  To add to anecdotes here, I've consulted in two companies that started using Discord this year. They replaced Teams+Slack with Discord.
- dannyw 5y ago
  Discord could easily fix that with a more professional offering (perhaps under a sub-brand with slightly tweaked designs, but general UI familiarity).
- wallacoloo 5y ago
  I think a good third of the engineering teams at my company tried out Discord at the start of stay-at-home because of the way it integrates voice chat right next to the text channels. It was probably the most similar replacement to an open-office floor plan we could find (very low friction to start conversations, and anyone watching can choose to hop in if they want). We quit that after screensharing was super low quality compared to Zoom — apparently (even paid for a Discord “server boost”, but no fix. I think it was an issue with the Mac client or something). I think one or two teams still use it, but for the most part everyone’s back to slack + Zoom now.
  - perryizgr8 5y ago
    > We quit that after screensharing was super low quality compared to Zoom Zoom's screen sharing is really far and above all others. The quality is razor sharp (framerate suffers but who cares about that when sharing a terminal or document), the collaboration features are amazing (scribble on the content), it has so many useful niche features (draw on your ipad/iphone).
bdcravens 5y ago
When I freelance, I bounce around a lot of different Slacks. I've yet to see a company use Discord.
crowbahr 5y ago
I'd use discord over slack if they had account switching, but there's no way I'm going to cross pollinate my leisure communications platform with work.
- syntheticnature 5y ago
  I'm not even thrilled about integrating all of my leisure time stuff under one identity (you can have a different nickname per-server, but the underlying account name is still quite visible).
  - Nuzzerino 5y ago
    I posted a comment here about why this is a problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24832204 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24832204
chrisseaton 5y ago
I don't think enterprises are using Discord. It's a gamer thing really isn't it? It doesn't have a very grown-up image.
PascLeRasc 5y ago
On the topic of Discord for professional use, does anyone know if it’s possible to have different display accounts for the same login? I’m in a few different Discord groups for real-life friends, an online-only game, and one for FOSS development. I’d like to have different display names and profile pictures for each one, but so far all I’ve found is having to maintain 3 email login accounts and log out and back in when I want to switch communities. Is this really the intended way to do this?
- tracedddd 5y ago
  You can change your display name on a per channel basis after you join. They can still see your account tag if they click on your account, so there’s no way to disassociate accounts with a single login. There’s also no way to change avatars per channel, AFAIK.
  - Navarr 5y ago
    Per-server* and only if that server has it turned on. Servers can disable the ability for users to change their name
    - tracedddd 5y ago
      Yes, per server, thanks for the correction. I believe it’s on by default, I’ve rarely seen it turned off.

mpeg 5y ago

Discord is used heavily by OSS communities and other such projects; but I've yet to see it used by companies. It really doesn't target the enterprise customer, or even SMEs

halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
Also Gitter?

slap_shot 5y ago

Is Discord used in the enterprise? I've only used it for a gaming community a long time ago.

impendia 5y ago
I'm an academic. Since the pandemic began I've used Discord on multiple occasions for work -- for example, if someone runs an online conference it's common to create a Discord and encourage chat among the conference participants. But these are all fairly informal use cases, initiated by individual academics and not by "the university".
- bachmeier 5y ago
  If you ask university IT about Discord, they'll probably tell you emailing .docx files back and forth is just as good.
  - impendia 5y ago
    My university's IT staff is surprisingly good. But they seem to be hamstrung by questionable decisions being made over their head.
tracedddd 5y ago
To be honest, I’m not that in touch with enterprise. Despite Discord’s appearance as a platform for gamers it has pretty much dominated slack for a non-self hosted solution for the areas I’m familiar with. Small teams, OSS, cryptocurrency, strongly distributed WFH type startups, conferences, etc. Private channels are role based so the general public can integrate communication tightly with the main team while they work behind the scenes. I wouldn’t be surprised if Discord launches a professional de-gamer-branded version soon. Target markets aside you simply get more from Discord for most general use cases and it feels like Slack is playing catch up rather than leading (like they used to) on some popular features.
- dannyw 5y ago
  Also, Discord has capable APIs and a fairly open developer program. You can make some really amazing and useful bots.

danpalmer 5y ago

Discord seems like a good choice for communities, but I've never seen a company use Discord for internal company chat, whereas almost everyone seems to use Slack or Teams. Anecdotally, I see Slack as something I use for professional purposes, and Discord as something I chat with my friends on. I have Slack on my work Mac, and Discord on my personal Mac. I see Slack as an extension of Skype for Business/Lync/other business tools, and I see Discord as a better Mumble/MSN Messenger.

hu3 5y ago
To add to anecdotes here, I've consulted in two companies that started using Discord this year. They replaced Teams+Slack with Discord.
dannyw 5y ago
Discord could easily fix that with a more professional offering (perhaps under a sub-brand with slightly tweaked designs, but general UI familiarity).
wallacoloo 5y ago
I think a good third of the engineering teams at my company tried out Discord at the start of stay-at-home because of the way it integrates voice chat right next to the text channels. It was probably the most similar replacement to an open-office floor plan we could find (very low friction to start conversations, and anyone watching can choose to hop in if they want). We quit that after screensharing was super low quality compared to Zoom — apparently (even paid for a Discord “server boost”, but no fix. I think it was an issue with the Mac client or something). I think one or two teams still use it, but for the most part everyone’s back to slack + Zoom now.
- perryizgr8 5y ago
  > We quit that after screensharing was super low quality compared to Zoom Zoom's screen sharing is really far and above all others. The quality is razor sharp (framerate suffers but who cares about that when sharing a terminal or document), the collaboration features are amazing (scribble on the content), it has so many useful niche features (draw on your ipad/iphone).

bdcravens 5y ago

When I freelance, I bounce around a lot of different Slacks. I've yet to see a company use Discord.

crowbahr 5y ago

I'd use discord over slack if they had account switching, but there's no way I'm going to cross pollinate my leisure communications platform with work.

syntheticnature 5y ago
I'm not even thrilled about integrating all of my leisure time stuff under one identity (you can have a different nickname per-server, but the underlying account name is still quite visible).
- Nuzzerino 5y ago
  I posted a comment here about why this is a problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24832204 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24832204

chrisseaton 5y ago

I don't think enterprises are using Discord. It's a gamer thing really isn't it? It doesn't have a very grown-up image.

PascLeRasc 5y ago

On the topic of Discord for professional use, does anyone know if it’s possible to have different display accounts for the same login? I’m in a few different Discord groups for real-life friends, an online-only game, and one for FOSS development. I’d like to have different display names and profile pictures for each one, but so far all I’ve found is having to maintain 3 email login accounts and log out and back in when I want to switch communities. Is this really the intended way to do this?

tracedddd 5y ago
You can change your display name on a per channel basis after you join. They can still see your account tag if they click on your account, so there’s no way to disassociate accounts with a single login. There’s also no way to change avatars per channel, AFAIK.
- Navarr 5y ago
  Per-server* and only if that server has it turned on. Servers can disable the ability for users to change their name
  - tracedddd 5y ago
    Yes, per server, thanks for the correction. I believe it’s on by default, I’ve rarely seen it turned off.