8 ms·

Ask HN: User communities that aren't Discord?

Anyone aware of a user community product that has the simplicity of chat threads without the complexity of Discord/Slack? We’re trying to build a space where people can give feedback and meet other users but most in our audience don’t already use Discord (and wouldn’t find a ton of value in it to make it worth the download).

Zambyte 2y ago
Zulip is a pretty nice option https://zulip.com/ https://zulip.com/
- Carrok 2y ago
  The only option imo.
- jFriedensreich 2y ago
  i tried contributing to a community on zulip and its a devastating borderline disfunctional user experience compared to discord
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - dingnuts 2y ago
    [flagged]
- the_duke 2y ago
  The idea behind Zulip is great, but the UI is horrible. (Slow, clunky, ugly) Developers can put up with it, but regular people will hate it.
  - esbeeb 2y ago
    I agree the slowness is a deal breaker. (Note: I tested it out a few years ago, but never went beyond that prototyping phase)
- jauntywundrkind 2y ago
  Zulip is stellar. I'd kind of forgotten about it, but I went on Bytecode Alliance's Zulip recently it was so much better having threads and conversation interleaved together like they do. I was quickly able to assess the last couple months, and subscribe to a couple async ongoing threads. Rarely have I experienced a chat system so able to be async.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
  https://github.com/zulip/zulip-terminal/releases/expanded_assets/0.7.0 https://github.com/zulip/zulip-terminal/releases/expanded_as... Does Discord even have a command-line client?
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  Thoughts on this comment about it? https://programming.dev/comment/11056421 https://programming.dev/comment/11056421
  - Zambyte 2y ago
    All they really say about Zulip is "it's just another corporate messenger". I don't really have much to say about that.
hauxir 2y ago
Kosmi https://kosmi.io https://kosmi.io
ranger_danger 2y ago
What do you mean by complexity? How is using any other solution less complicated?
- mronetwo 2y ago
  Discord's UX feels quite bad. It's overwhelming and readability is bad. That'd be my biggest complain when it comes to "complexity".
  - ranger_danger 2y ago
    Never heard this complaint ever. I would argue all other solutions that are usable for the majority of people have much worse UX.
  - endorphine 2y ago
    My thoughts exactly. It's one of the most overloaded and confusing UIs I've seen
rane 2y ago
Just one correction that Discord does not have to be downloaded as it works in the browser also. And you don't even need to provide an email address at first. As such, the barrier of entry is quite low.
- skidd0 2y ago
  You will quickly get flagged/banned and/or asked for a phone number/email address for verification. I've lost 2 accounts to this.
  - 3np 2y ago
    I refuse Discord after eventually having every account get blocked pending phone-number verification. In my country that's effectively KYC (impossible to get a SIM card without govt ID). Depending on IP and usage, this may happen at any point between registration and several years later.
spankalee 2y ago
If most of your audience doesn't use Discord, you're in a good spot. In the web dev world, so many projects use Discord that it's a massive benefit to just be in the server list with them. I felt my project had to use Discord. It's been a while since I investigated solutions, but I really wanted Matrix to be viable at the time. I would check out https://element.io/ https://element.io/ and see if it works for you.
stefan_ 2y ago
Theres gitter.im and the various "Matrix" clients but honestly it's horrible, it's the Linux desktop of chat.
solardev 2y ago
What about just an old fashioned forum? Discourse (not Discord) is still around and is great for threading.
- whyoh 2y ago
  To me an old fashioned forum would be something like phpBB. Discourse-style forums are relatively new and IMHO much worse in terms of UI. I really don't get the appeal.
  - solardev 2y ago
    What don't you like about Discourse? I grew up in the phpbb/vBulletin era, and even back then it was a common complaint when Discourse first came out. Never quite understood the hate myself, but I'd love to hear your thoughts?
    - whyoh 2y ago
      Frankly, I don't like almost anything about it. The dynamic loading/endless scrolling instead of pages, the silly navigation bar, the "x time later" instead of the exact date and time, the narrow post width... I get "dumbed-down, mobile first" vibes from the UI, kinda like Twitter, which is the last thing I want for a forum with thoughtful discussions. And it's also more bloated/slower than classic forums (https://danluu.com/slow-device/ https://danluu.com/slow-device/). I think the best forum software right now is XenForo. But even phpBB and many similar free alternatives (MyBB, SMF,...) are better than Discourse. Those can also be heavily customized (might be true for Discourse too, but I doubt it would improve it much).
      - solardev 2y ago
        I see. Thank you for sharing! I'm not affiliated with the forum software, but I do manage a discourse instance at work and was just curious about your UX thoughts. I appreciate the details! I don't like infinite scrolling either, and I agree that there's a lot of wasted space in the default layout.
8b16380d 2y ago
Element
dist-epoch 2y ago
The big problem Discord solves is that nobody wants to create YetAnotherForumAccount.
- olavfosse 2y ago
  do people really consider this that much of a hassle takes 1 minute to do and no need to make/remember passwords with a password manager
  - gwbas1c 2y ago
    > do people really consider this that much of a hassle Yes, I consider this a huge hassle
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  IMO Discord is a non-starter for many tech people due to privacy issues and frequent/random phone number requirements. I and many others are completely unable to use it even if we wanted to, because immediately after logging in you get hit with a phone wall. Not everyone gets this but it indeed happens to a wide enough array of people to be quite problematic IMO.
- wavemode 2y ago
  TBH I consider that a feature, to guard against spam and trolls. My ideal project forum is one where anyone on the internet can read the forum, but contributing to the forum requires some bare minimum effort of creating and verifying a new account. Both of those are the opposite of what Discord does.
  - KomoD 2y ago
    > TBH I consider that a feature, to guard against spam and trolls. It doesn't stop spam and trolls though, that will always exist, it stops real users who can't be bothered with yet another account.
    - wavemode 2y ago
fallinditch 2y ago
Have a look at Discourse https://www.discourse.org/ https://www.discourse.org/ Also, BuddyPress has a new major update (v14) that's worth checking out.
SushiHippie 2y ago
I'd also say Matrix, as this is where the most communities are today that are not on propietary platforms. Although the UX is not that great, when logging in via a new device, as it takes long to do the first sync (the new syncv3 protocol is supposed to fix this but it's still in beta) A direct Slack alternative would be mattermost. https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  matrix is like IRC + obligatory GPG. most new users keep losing identity because they have no idea they are using vector.im as their "nicksrv" of sorts and that their recovery code and password are not their session key. it's a disaster. but having webapp and phone apps help adoption.
  - Arathorn 2y ago
    this is very very confused. the key you use in Matrix to get at your historical messages /is/ your security passphrase/key (assuming you set it up). the vector.im identity server is just a phonebook to let people discover you based on email address if you so desire. the UX in Element is clearly a disaster, given nightmarish confusions like this. we have tried to fix it in Element X and stuff like https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/andybalaam/crypto-terminology/proposals/4161-crypto-terminology.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/and... which is looking promising
  - palata 2y ago
    IRC is very lightweight. Matrix feels rather at the other end of the spectrum. The IRC protocol is very simple. Matrix feels very complicated.
    - 1oooqooq 2y ago
      real-life IRC is also extremely complicated. But you can use it incrementally. e.g. no identity, no dcc, no figuring out the individual-and-very-particular nicksrv on each instance, etc.
altilunium 2y ago
OSM recently migrated to Discourse instead https://c.osm.org https://c.osm.org
heckerhut 2y ago
[flagged]
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  web3/crypto warning for anyone looking at this
  - solardev 2y ago
    Yuck. Thanks for the warning.
  - dankwizard 2y ago
    Is web3 just a synonym for 'trying to make $ from crypto / NFT / ponzi'?
    - ManlyBread 2y ago
      There will be people who will tell you otherwise but personally I've never seen "web 3.0" used in any different context
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  You advertise yourself as Discord
  - AA-BA-94-2A-56 2y ago
    Yep the copy needs to change to "Discord-alternative"
zacharycohn 2y ago
Like, a forum?
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  Why not both? Zulip!
a1o 2y ago
I think Simple Machines still exists
jsemrau 2y ago
when I was building finclout, I thought it makes more sense to organize conversations horizontally and vertically instead of the current UI paradigm where everything is vertically scrolling.
- solardev 2y ago
  This makes my scroll wheel sad.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
monlockandkey 2y ago
Flarum is a really nice open source forum https://flarum.org/ https://flarum.org/
- esbeeb 2y ago
  I've been keeping my eye out for something more responsive (in an AJAX-like way) than phpBB, but less bloated than Discourse (as it's written in ruby). Something Open Source, decently low-effort to maintain (I like Debian), could run on a Raspberry Pi 5 for a small community, and doesn't require docker. This might be suitable. Thanks for the endorsement.
thesurlydev 2y ago
IRC
3np 2y ago
How about a reskinned Element Messenger Web or Hydrogen?
rcarmo 2y ago
I honestly don’t get chat for communities (and I spent a lot of time in IRC). Without starch and structure, knowledge is constantly being lost and there is no way for newcomers to quickly get up to speed if they happen to be a timezone or two away from the “core” community. Forums and Discourse are so much better that I have to ask why it isn’t obvious.
outcoldman 2y ago
Have you looked at Telegram? I do believe it might cover everything you need, very simple compared to Slack/Discord. Has groups and bots. I started using Telegram after trying to setup Slack as a family platform.
rswerve 2y ago
The Todoist folks also make Twist, which is in this family and looks simple and pretty nice. Not sure why it has so little uptake. https://twist.com/home https://twist.com/home
humane_tech 2y ago
https://usehall.com/ https://usehall.com/
NoMightDouble 2y ago
Saw that another user linked to Hall (https://usehall.com https://usehall.com). I'm the founder and we're building a customer community platform exactly for the use case you describe. Our focus is on a simple and intuitive user experience that is familiar to non-technical end-users. We've also tried to make it as frictionless for them to sign up and start contributing (nothing to download, passwordless sign up and login). You also maintain full control and data ownership of your users (unless Discord). Keen to hear any feedback, and why / why not if what we've built would work for you?

Zambyte 2y ago

Zulip is a pretty nice option https://zulip.com/ https://zulip.com/

Carrok 2y ago
The only option imo.
jFriedensreich 2y ago
i tried contributing to a community on zulip and its a devastating borderline disfunctional user experience compared to discord
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- dingnuts 2y ago
  [flagged]
the_duke 2y ago
The idea behind Zulip is great, but the UI is horrible. (Slow, clunky, ugly) Developers can put up with it, but regular people will hate it.
- esbeeb 2y ago
  I agree the slowness is a deal breaker. (Note: I tested it out a few years ago, but never went beyond that prototyping phase)
jauntywundrkind 2y ago
Zulip is stellar. I'd kind of forgotten about it, but I went on Bytecode Alliance's Zulip recently it was so much better having threads and conversation interleaved together like they do. I was quickly able to assess the last couple months, and subscribe to a couple async ongoing threads. Rarely have I experienced a chat system so able to be async.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
https://github.com/zulip/zulip-terminal/releases/expanded_assets/0.7.0 https://github.com/zulip/zulip-terminal/releases/expanded_as... Does Discord even have a command-line client?
ranger_danger 2y ago
Thoughts on this comment about it? https://programming.dev/comment/11056421 https://programming.dev/comment/11056421
- Zambyte 2y ago
  All they really say about Zulip is "it's just another corporate messenger". I don't really have much to say about that.

hauxir 2y ago

Kosmi https://kosmi.io https://kosmi.io

ranger_danger 2y ago

What do you mean by complexity? How is using any other solution less complicated?

mronetwo 2y ago
Discord's UX feels quite bad. It's overwhelming and readability is bad. That'd be my biggest complain when it comes to "complexity".
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  Never heard this complaint ever. I would argue all other solutions that are usable for the majority of people have much worse UX.
- endorphine 2y ago
  My thoughts exactly. It's one of the most overloaded and confusing UIs I've seen

rane 2y ago

Just one correction that Discord does not have to be downloaded as it works in the browser also. And you don't even need to provide an email address at first. As such, the barrier of entry is quite low.

skidd0 2y ago
You will quickly get flagged/banned and/or asked for a phone number/email address for verification. I've lost 2 accounts to this.
- 3np 2y ago
  I refuse Discord after eventually having every account get blocked pending phone-number verification. In my country that's effectively KYC (impossible to get a SIM card without govt ID). Depending on IP and usage, this may happen at any point between registration and several years later.

spankalee 2y ago

If most of your audience doesn't use Discord, you're in a good spot. In the web dev world, so many projects use Discord that it's a massive benefit to just be in the server list with them. I felt my project had to use Discord. It's been a while since I investigated solutions, but I really wanted Matrix to be viable at the time. I would check out https://element.io/ https://element.io/ and see if it works for you.

stefan_ 2y ago

Theres gitter.im and the various "Matrix" clients but honestly it's horrible, it's the Linux desktop of chat.

solardev 2y ago

What about just an old fashioned forum? Discourse (not Discord) is still around and is great for threading.

whyoh 2y ago
To me an old fashioned forum would be something like phpBB. Discourse-style forums are relatively new and IMHO much worse in terms of UI. I really don't get the appeal.
- solardev 2y ago
  What don't you like about Discourse? I grew up in the phpbb/vBulletin era, and even back then it was a common complaint when Discourse first came out. Never quite understood the hate myself, but I'd love to hear your thoughts?
  - whyoh 2y ago
    Frankly, I don't like almost anything about it. The dynamic loading/endless scrolling instead of pages, the silly navigation bar, the "x time later" instead of the exact date and time, the narrow post width... I get "dumbed-down, mobile first" vibes from the UI, kinda like Twitter, which is the last thing I want for a forum with thoughtful discussions. And it's also more bloated/slower than classic forums (https://danluu.com/slow-device/ https://danluu.com/slow-device/). I think the best forum software right now is XenForo. But even phpBB and many similar free alternatives (MyBB, SMF,...) are better than Discourse. Those can also be heavily customized (might be true for Discourse too, but I doubt it would improve it much).
    - solardev 2y ago
      I see. Thank you for sharing! I'm not affiliated with the forum software, but I do manage a discourse instance at work and was just curious about your UX thoughts. I appreciate the details! I don't like infinite scrolling either, and I agree that there's a lot of wasted space in the default layout.

8b16380d 2y ago

Element

dist-epoch 2y ago

The big problem Discord solves is that nobody wants to create YetAnotherForumAccount.

olavfosse 2y ago
do people really consider this that much of a hassle takes 1 minute to do and no need to make/remember passwords with a password manager
- gwbas1c 2y ago
  > do people really consider this that much of a hassle Yes, I consider this a huge hassle
ranger_danger 2y ago
IMO Discord is a non-starter for many tech people due to privacy issues and frequent/random phone number requirements. I and many others are completely unable to use it even if we wanted to, because immediately after logging in you get hit with a phone wall. Not everyone gets this but it indeed happens to a wide enough array of people to be quite problematic IMO.
wavemode 2y ago
TBH I consider that a feature, to guard against spam and trolls. My ideal project forum is one where anyone on the internet can read the forum, but contributing to the forum requires some bare minimum effort of creating and verifying a new account. Both of those are the opposite of what Discord does.
- KomoD 2y ago
  > TBH I consider that a feature, to guard against spam and trolls. It doesn't stop spam and trolls though, that will always exist, it stops real users who can't be bothered with yet another account.
  - wavemode 2y ago

fallinditch 2y ago

Have a look at Discourse https://www.discourse.org/ https://www.discourse.org/ Also, BuddyPress has a new major update (v14) that's worth checking out.

SushiHippie 2y ago

I'd also say Matrix, as this is where the most communities are today that are not on propietary platforms. Although the UX is not that great, when logging in via a new device, as it takes long to do the first sync (the new syncv3 protocol is supposed to fix this but it's still in beta) A direct Slack alternative would be mattermost. https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost

1oooqooq 2y ago
matrix is like IRC + obligatory GPG. most new users keep losing identity because they have no idea they are using vector.im as their "nicksrv" of sorts and that their recovery code and password are not their session key. it's a disaster. but having webapp and phone apps help adoption.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  this is very very confused. the key you use in Matrix to get at your historical messages /is/ your security passphrase/key (assuming you set it up). the vector.im identity server is just a phonebook to let people discover you based on email address if you so desire. the UX in Element is clearly a disaster, given nightmarish confusions like this. we have tried to fix it in Element X and stuff like https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/andybalaam/crypto-terminology/proposals/4161-crypto-terminology.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/and... which is looking promising
- palata 2y ago
  IRC is very lightweight. Matrix feels rather at the other end of the spectrum. The IRC protocol is very simple. Matrix feels very complicated.
  - 1oooqooq 2y ago
    real-life IRC is also extremely complicated. But you can use it incrementally. e.g. no identity, no dcc, no figuring out the individual-and-very-particular nicksrv on each instance, etc.

altilunium 2y ago

OSM recently migrated to Discourse instead https://c.osm.org https://c.osm.org

heckerhut 2y ago

[flagged]

ranger_danger 2y ago
web3/crypto warning for anyone looking at this
- solardev 2y ago
  Yuck. Thanks for the warning.
- dankwizard 2y ago
  Is web3 just a synonym for 'trying to make $ from crypto / NFT / ponzi'?
  - ManlyBread 2y ago
    There will be people who will tell you otherwise but personally I've never seen "web 3.0" used in any different context
jncfhnb 2y ago
You advertise yourself as Discord
- AA-BA-94-2A-56 2y ago
  Yep the copy needs to change to "Discord-alternative"

zacharycohn 2y ago

Like, a forum?

bryanlarsen 2y ago
Why not both? Zulip!

a1o 2y ago

I think Simple Machines still exists

jsemrau 2y ago

when I was building finclout, I thought it makes more sense to organize conversations horizontally and vertically instead of the current UI paradigm where everything is vertically scrolling.

solardev 2y ago
This makes my scroll wheel sad.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

monlockandkey 2y ago

Flarum is a really nice open source forum https://flarum.org/ https://flarum.org/

esbeeb 2y ago
I've been keeping my eye out for something more responsive (in an AJAX-like way) than phpBB, but less bloated than Discourse (as it's written in ruby). Something Open Source, decently low-effort to maintain (I like Debian), could run on a Raspberry Pi 5 for a small community, and doesn't require docker. This might be suitable. Thanks for the endorsement.

thesurlydev 2y ago

IRC

3np 2y ago

How about a reskinned Element Messenger Web or Hydrogen?

rcarmo 2y ago

I honestly don’t get chat for communities (and I spent a lot of time in IRC). Without starch and structure, knowledge is constantly being lost and there is no way for newcomers to quickly get up to speed if they happen to be a timezone or two away from the “core” community. Forums and Discourse are so much better that I have to ask why it isn’t obvious.

outcoldman 2y ago

Have you looked at Telegram? I do believe it might cover everything you need, very simple compared to Slack/Discord. Has groups and bots. I started using Telegram after trying to setup Slack as a family platform.

rswerve 2y ago

The Todoist folks also make Twist, which is in this family and looks simple and pretty nice. Not sure why it has so little uptake. https://twist.com/home https://twist.com/home

humane_tech 2y ago

https://usehall.com/ https://usehall.com/

NoMightDouble 2y ago

Saw that another user linked to Hall (https://usehall.com https://usehall.com). I'm the founder and we're building a customer community platform exactly for the use case you describe. Our focus is on a simple and intuitive user experience that is familiar to non-technical end-users. We've also tried to make it as frictionless for them to sign up and start contributing (nothing to download, passwordless sign up and login). You also maintain full control and data ownership of your users (unless Discord). Keen to hear any feedback, and why / why not if what we've built would work for you?