15 ms·

Discord Alternatives, Ranked

674 points by pseudalopex 9mo ago

docmars 8mo ago
Don't forget Flotilla Social! TeamSpeak also has a newer client, but its design decisions are a little odd. Still worth checking out though.
- pseudalopex 8mo ago
  Could you compare Flotilla Social to alternatives in the article?
  - docmars 8mo ago
    I'm not sure I would do the marketing site justice — but check it out, they compare themselves to Discord in their introduction video, it's well done!
hippycruncher22 8mo ago
[flagged]
Brajeshwar 8mo ago
When you rank something with numbers, I’d love it to be more like 1 of 5 (1/5) even when you said it before. When you are reading at that line, I had to recalibrate, if that is 4 (out of 10), which is what most people try to rank against.
notepad0x90 8mo ago
Honorable mentions worthy of your support: https://wiki.bitmessage.org/index.php/Main_Page https://wiki.bitmessage.org/index.php/Main_Page https://vituperative.github.io/i2pchat/ https://vituperative.github.io/i2pchat/ Bring this back!, for sentimental reasons: https://dcplusplus.sourceforge.io/webhelp/chat_commands.html https://dcplusplus.sourceforge.io/webhelp/chat_commands.html
MarsIronPI 8mo ago
I'm sad to see XMPP missing from this list. I wonder if the author was simply unaware of it or simply ignored it. IMO XMPP is technically superior to Matrix. It "only" needs a cross-platform high-quality, branded app àla Element. There's underlying protocol support for all the features: video/audio calls, group calls, threads and reactions. Maybe missing are custom emoji (I think?) and channel grouping (which is still in the works). And of course all these protocol features work fine with federation.
- fishgoesblub 8mo ago
  Same here, I was hoping to see it listed in the article. XMPP is close to being right there in being able to compete with Discord. It just needs a good client with Spaces support (XEP-0503), along side user roles with permissions, and server side voice channels.
  - Semaphor 8mo ago
    > It just needs a good client Generally an XMPP issue :/ The protocol is amazing and selfhostable servers (I use prosody) are great. But The only client I enjoy is conversations, and that’s mobile while my main usage is always desktop. There are decent clients, but none I’d say are great.
- cookiengineer 8mo ago
  The problem with XMPP is that it's a suite of RFCs. It's like describing DNS, which is a conglomerate of RFCs so complex that it's unlikely to be implemented correctly and completely. XMPP is a design fail in that regard, because if you have to tell your chat contacts to download a different client that fulfills OMEMO or XEP-whatever specs, then yeah, ain't gonna happen for most people. (I am still a proponent of XMPP, but the working groups need to get their shit together to unify protocol support across clients)
  - aaravchen 8mo ago
    This has been brought up on HN before, and people smarter than me identified that this view is about 10 years out of date. Yes it's a bunch of XEPs, but there are standardized "sets" apparently that include all of the things any other similar tools do. It sounds like only very niche old/minimal XMPP clients don't support encryption by default for example, and virtually all servers have supported it for many years.
jszymborski 8mo ago
This does miss a major feature of Discord and why, imo, it got such an huge following among gamers at first: voice and video chat. I've really had a hard time finding a Discord alternative that has the same kind of first-class voice and video chat support that Discord does. Back to Ventrilo and Mumble I guess /s
- warmedcookie 8mo ago
  It would be nice if Valve filled in the gaps here. They already got a lot of community features built into Steam.
  - stryan 8mo ago
    Steam Group Chats are sort of there; no video chat but text chats and drop-in voice chats like Discord. On the other hand they're basically ephemeral, with messages disappearing from history at some given point. I also can't figure out a way to access them outside of the Steam client and in DOTA where I believe they're tied to the in-game guild system.
    - warmedcookie 8mo ago
      Outside of Dota, it's called "Group Chats" (below your friends list) and it looks very similar to a basic Discord interface. You may have to join a dota guild in order to see it, although everyone in my guild just uses discord.
  - opan 8mo ago
    Steam itself is proprietary, and I imagine they'd expand the existing Steam chat and not do something separate like Proton. I don't think jumping into the arms of another company managing a centralized proprietary social platform is a good idea, even if Valve tend to be "good guys".
- mgrandl 8mo ago
  Yeah it’s so odd that none of the open-source alternatives have this feature. No video calls are not an option. We need video/voice rooms!
phailhaus 8mo ago
Great writeup! Looks like this is going to be relevant very soon. > Tools do not make a culture; the people engaging on it do Absolutely, but it's also important to keep in mind that the tool has a big impact on culture by virtue of what behaviors it encourages and what limitations it has. "The medium is the message" is very true here, so think carefully about which tool you hop onto.
cbdumas 8mo ago
I know I'm in the small minority of Discord users who mostly uses it as a voice chat room while gaming with my friends, but for that use case the best alternative I've found seems to be Mumble. I recently set up a Mumble server on my home server and it seems great so far, was able to get my friends connected pretty easily. We'll see how the voice quality and latency compare to Discord.
- SkiFire13 8mo ago
  > I recently set up a Mumble server on my home server That makes you an even smaller minority unfortunately. Most people are not going to set up a home server.
  - beart 8mo ago
    Mumble servers used to be just a few dollars a year (haven't looked in a long time). But even that is enough friction to prevent adoption. Plus it doesn't support any of the non-voice features.
  - opan 8mo ago
    It's semantics, really. Run the server executable on any computer in your house. Done. If you don't leave your computer on 24/7, the Mumble server isn't up 24/7. Oh well. If you use it to talk to friends, you'll presumably have your computer on when you want to use it yourself anyway.
    - Sohcahtoa82 8mo ago
      I ran it on a Raspberry Pi (I think first or second gen) for a few years. It requires next to no CPU time, since the server is effectively just a packet relay.
    - SkiFire13 8mo ago
      > If you use it to talk to friends, you'll presumably have your computer on when you want to use it yourself anyway. I tried this in the past but it didn't work. Now if your friends want to play you need to start the server for them. What if you're not at home? You basically end up making your pc a 24/7 server. Or you need to coordinate so that someone else runs the server in those cases, but that ends up creating more confusion. And let's not start talking about port forwarding issues... All these issues are solvable, but they add so much friction when all you want to do is play with some friends.
aaravchen 8mo ago
Ironically, Signal actually ranks a -1 for privacy in this use. Presumably you're already using Signal and getting mainstream contacts to start using it too. You probably have a basic profile that at least includes your real name, and might also have your picture. Maybe you're even one of the 7 people in the world that use the Stories feature in it. Well good news, now all of that is also unconditionally available to anyone in any group you ever join, including any future changes you ever make to that info, unrevocably forever into the future. Signal has a fun dark pattern where it unrevocably grants permissions for anyone you allow to contact you to see everything in your profile for the rest of time. It has only a single trust level with contacts effectively: full trust. This is unacceptable in any tool you use for online community, unless you exclusively use it for online community and can decline to provide any info in this full-trust level. Unfortunately Signal also makes very sure you can't have a second account, by tying your account to a phone number, and only allowing one Signal instance per mobile device. Is Signal good? Yes, but only exclusively for communication with people you already trust. EDIT: typos
- mastermage 8mo ago
  [flagged]
- ozlikethewizard 8mo ago
  You can have multiple instances of signal on a mobile device, and you can use VoiP or eSIMs to register. Signal with an online persona revealing no identifying information, registered to a cash purchased eSIM on an ungoogled android is as good as your getting. Why do you think so many jurisdictions are trying to ban both GrapheneOS and Signal.
  - dns_snek 8mo ago
    You can do all of that but you shouldn't have to when using a privacy-focused messenger, and most people won't so they'll be exposed and suffer the consequences if they use Signal expecting a certain level of privacy (and pseudo-anonymity). It's a terrible anti-feature and the only reason they're not being punished for it is because there aren't many alternatives to pick from.
apitman 8mo ago
Matrix is the only one that offers the killer feature of Discord, which is being able to join many communities from a single login. Sadly Matrix has never had a good UX for me. IMO they spent too many complexity tokens on e2ee and there are simply not enough left.
- vaylian 8mo ago
  What is your greatest UX concern that you would like to see fixed?
  - dahrkael 8mo ago
    when coming back to a community after a long period of time i have to follow a trail of links to rooms that say they have been upgraded and the current one abandoned until i reach the current one. thats stupid, confusing and time wasting
    - opan 8mo ago
      It is up to the room admin to upgrade or not, I still have some v1 rooms. Some features like knocking require a newer version, though.
  - throwawayk7h 8mo ago
    for me, I'd say: occasional cryptic error messages that prevent conversation, even using encrypted DM across multiple devices
  - rebolek 8mo ago
    randomly telling me that my connection is not secure and as a result randomly hiding messages. and then, if I try to fix it somehow, it will tell me it's nearly impossible or that they'll delete my whole history. the security model is hostile towards user.
- igotdiscord2015 8mo ago
  Actually, the true killer feature for discord back in the day was something much dumber, but still heavily related to on-boarding and community transference. You could join a discord server with a single link. Account creation could come later. Considering the competition at its heyday was Teamspeak or Skype, the mere fact you could just actually see the hell you were getting into without some stupid ass "Hol' Up!" instantly made it popular with basically everyone who didn't even know what it was. My account is dated June 2015 which is apparently a month after it launched, and both me and every single one of the early adopters in that channel that is still up to this day have this same story to tell. We used it because we didn't even have to login at all in the first place when we first got it.
shreyaspapi 8mo ago
Most Discord alternatives fail not on tech, but on polish. Signal → private but bad for communities Matrix → flexible but rough UX XMPP → powerful but fragmented Discord → centralized but frictionless Users pick frictionless every time. We probably don’t need new apps or protocols we need a client that works well.
- joshuat 8mo ago
  IRC → perfection, impossible to improve
  - mastermage 8mo ago
    isn't IRC only Text? What about the Voice Chat?
    - OsrsNeedsf2P 8mo ago
      Yes, GP already said it was perfection
      - hnlmorg 8mo ago
        Except the reason for Discords initial success, and the literal only reason I have it installed, is for voice chat when playing certain online games. I love IRC, I even wrote my own IRC client in the 90s, but it’s clearly not going to be suitable for gaming in this context.
        opan 8mo ago
        IRC for main chat, Mumble for voice chat when gaming. Been solid for decades. I have at least 3 functional Mumble servers saved (including my own) in my client, most of them are associated with an IRC community. I occasionally hear "Anyone down for some Quake? Hop on Mumble." or something to that effect. Mumble is pretty easy to host, so if you're using it with a small to medium group of friends, I'd say just throw up a server on your LAN somewhere. It's got decent mobile clients on F-Droid as well if you need one.
thefz 8mo ago
There is zero chance that the target users for Discord is going to try anything more complicated than Discord, so basically all the entries in this list. I recoil in horror thinking about me explaining Matrix even to the most tech savvy friends I use Discord with and I really really hope people would stop recommending it.
- throwawayk7h 8mo ago
  I use matrix with several non-technical friends. Its UI/UX has improved greatly over the last two years or so.
- Elosha 8mo ago
  The target user group for Discord actually is children and teens. Look at that UI and how it‘s trying to sell you „swag“. Then, Discord is not uncomplicated. From „Servers“ not being servers, multiple account onboarding levels, to what happens when Discord believes you are a bot or are using a blacklisted IP.
  - Mashimo 8mo ago
    I don't think I'm active on any "server" that is predominately used by Teens. I believe you underestimate the average age.
    - jvvw 8mo ago
      Minecraft servers are full of teens!
- opan 8mo ago
  Something I noticed recently is that explaining Matrix to someone is offputting, but I got my dad to just use it and it seems fine for him. Maybe they don't need to know how it works. You start talking federation and stuff and people's eyes glaze over. Simple instructions to sign up and get a desktop and mobile client are probably a better idea. Bury the technical info for those who really care.
koolala 8mo ago
Zulip actually looks pretty good if they made it a little sexier.
- yoavm 8mo ago
  Sounds like it doesn't look good, then?
- trueno 8mo ago
  my team tried it for a couple weeks. couldn't stand the threaded "only see what's important" style of chat. it's undoubtedly our least fav part of microsoft teams---the channels and the threads, we all operate in the chat tab and the channels tab has been relegated to announcement posts no one reads. huge shame zulip can't just like... have a toggle for normal chat chronology/presentation. some people have gone way too for trying to efficiency max or "cut out the noise" but chronological chat and a competent search feature will always be the goat.
  - crabmusket 8mo ago
    > have a toggle for normal chat chronology/presentation It does. https://zulip.com/help/general-chat-channels https://zulip.com/help/general-chat-channels But even without that, in a normal threaded channel, you can see all messages in all topics chronologically. IIRC that's the default view when you click a channel in the sidebar. Here's an example: https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/channel/138-user-questions https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/channel/138-user-questions the messages are grouped into runs of the same topic, but it's the whole channel.
    - trueno 8mo ago
      mother of god. its perhaps time to revisit zulip. now if I could perhaps disable the topic group heading this would make perfect sense and effectively be a chatroom.
      - deleted 8mo ago
        [deleted]
ekropotin 8mo ago
How about good’ol IRC?
- Mashimo 8mo ago
  Fun, until you want to share an image and have to upload it to a 3rd party, have to explain what a bouncer is to someone who just wants offline messages and AFAIK voice and video chat is not possible. Client dependent, but channel overview per server is also not that good.
- jagermo 8mo ago
  No voice chat.
  - opan 8mo ago
    IRC + Mumble is a good combo in my experience. I only fire up Mumble as-needed since I tend to prefer text chat.
    - jagermo 8mo ago
      i agree, but you need your people to have 2 logins. Great for friend groups, not working in scale.
      - opan 8mo ago
        Neither one strictly requires a login AFAIK, actually. You can chat with an unregistered nick on IRC, and Mumble has certs, but I think they're optional and don't have associated passwords.
DeathArrow 8mo ago
What about good old IRC?
sdrinf 8mo ago
can someone please try running the experiment of "but what if just forking&spinning up an OSS clone, scaling up to take in the migrants, acquire network effects, collect roughly same subscription revenue, but run on just, like, 10 people?" Discord has a financially and politically vulnerable posture that is downstream of having to operate a very large team, raise funding, be exposed to investor market pressure. However, it is also one of the rare instances of successful consumer freemium subscription monetization. A clone does not have to pay the tuition of "what makes this specific space compelling, and want-to-pay-for"; it just have to _exists_, passively soaking up migrants from each platform shift. ITT WTB 3rd place for my frens.
- dahrkael 8mo ago
  how is discords freemium successful when they are trying to put Nitro in your face at every step? trying so hard to me that sounds like not enough people pay
- troupo 8mo ago
  > scaling up to take in the migrants, acquire network effects, collect roughly same subscription revenue, but run on just, like, 10 people?" That's how discord started, too. And then they scaled up. You probably need 10 people to handle infrastructure alone.
- Nemo_bis 8mo ago
  Sounds like you're proposing Element (EMS)
emmelaich 8mo ago
Maybe there's a niche for Valve/Steam to step into here. They already have your data, and many people use Discord for gaming related chat.
- small_scombrus 8mo ago
  You can already make steam friend group chats, it was just a bit janky when I last used it like 5 years ago
  - Brybry 8mo ago
    I primarily use Discord but also have a long-running Steam group chat. Steam group chats are still janky and by no means a Discord replacement. It feels like an MVP that they lost interest in shortly after adding the feature. It's fine for a couple people with no real need for moderation but beyond that I don't think it's currently viable.
  - emmelaich 8mo ago
    Yeah, I was suggesting they make serious attempts to unjank it.
- keyringlight 8mo ago
  I've seen a lot of gamers mention this, but I'd wonder why it hasn't happened yet especially as there's a set of gamers that seem to love centralizing on steam already. One massive downside I can see is that the various public social areas of steam like the game forums are already a cesspool (and have been since they were vBulletin based) and I don't see that improving with more users in near real-time chat. Discord getting used as a knowledge base or download source for some areas is already seen as a convenience for those involved or a single point of failure by many 'outside', I wouldn't want to see more of PC gaming moving to one place.
- alfnor 8mo ago
  CurseForge (Overwolf?) tried with Curse Voice before Discord even existed, but it never made it big. Probably because Discord started taking over when Skype fell off (i.e. Discord had good timing, Curse Voice did not).
bob1029 8mo ago
I'm looking at modern browser APIs and wondering why no one else is trying certain things. getDeviceMedia and getUserMedia are very powerful these days. I haven't actually tested it but I believe a chromium browser would have no issue capturing the hw accelerated output from a game. You can pipe these media streams directly to WebRTC peers for playback on the other side. A server with a simple selective forwarding unit could enable larger scale meetings (100s of participants). All of this can happen in <1000 lines of JS and server code. Most of the heavy lifting happens in the browser engine. Concerns like automating browser permissions, global hot keys, etc. can be handled via electron or platform specific options like WebView2. Mobile clients are a bit cursed right now. The best solution is to maintain a standard client in the app stores. Forcing everyone to sign their own mobile apps is way too much friction. And you do need native for this on mobile. Browser only / PWA has no chance in hell of providing a smooth UX on iOS or Android.
yellowapple 8mo ago
> Anyway this thing [Revolt/Stoat] is so far from being ready for prime time, I only include it here to call out the project. I wish them the best and hope for good things, especially since you can self-host the server. But a lack of stability and features prevent this from being useful for anything beyond experimentation. Maybe someday. Curious what prompted this verdict. My only experience with Revolt/Stoat has been with the Handmade Cities instance, but said experience hasn't been anywhere near as bad as this writeup seems to suggest.
- jaculabilis 8mo ago
  I read in another post that HMC forked from before the Stoat rebrand and are maintaining their own fork until the rebrand settles down, so that probably reduces the instability.
bryanhogan 8mo ago
The title is about "Discord alternatives", the major core metric is: > Functionality: can it do everything required of a platform for building, organizing, and sustaining a community? Feels like these are two different things. What I expect from a Discord alternative is text messaging, voice and video call with screensharing, both possible on community spaces and with personal contacts in a way that is extremely easy to setup.
- Mashimo 8mo ago
  Discord can do quite a lot, which results in people using it in different ways. I'm quite active on multiple discord server and yet never use voice / video. But I get why people use it. If OP is looking for a platform not to replace Discord 1 to 1, but overall to have a community why not do a broader comparison. Then everyone can for themself see what fits their personal needs. > I expect from a Discord alternative is text messaging, voice and video call with screensharing, both possible on community spaces and with personal contacts in a way that is extremely easy to setup. Same. I'm somewhat sad that a lot of the FOSS community got stuck with IRC level of technology and ease of use :( I whish for more projects would subscribe to a low barrier of entry mantra. Learning reg-ex to ban a member is .. ughh
monocultured 8mo ago
I would love an updated KDX/Hotline server running an a RasPi or similar at home. This was a solved problem 20 years ago. The migration to online based platforms will always lead to network effects and enshittification, for very little gain.
- ranger_danger 8mo ago
  There are updated clients and servers for Hotline. https://hlwiki.com/index.php/Clients https://hlwiki.com/index.php/Clients https://hlwiki.com/index.php/Servers https://hlwiki.com/index.php/Servers But the number of users on any particular server these days is extremely small.
Elosha 8mo ago
One of the main problems in suggesting Discord alternatives is that Discord itself is an amalgamation of several apps. For some a Discord alternative needs to be a voicecall, for others it‘s game streaming, and for others it‘s just a chat, a bulletinboard or newsgroup, while they never used the Voice features.
- Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
  > We are also currently working on a privacy-focused alternative called Kloak, which is in its very early alpha stage. We would greatly appreciate your feedback on areas for improvement and any expectations you may have for the platform. Doesn't Matrix essentially satisfy all of them? Although the bulletinboard/newsgroup feature is something that I don't know but I feel as if that can be on matrix as well. Yes, I know Matrix is hard to host but I don't imagine discord if they release their source code to be easy either. So for a discord-like experience, I really prefer matrix.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 8mo ago
    Discord is real time chat, I thought matrix was not? And discord comes for gaming, voice chat is a key feature
    - jeltz 8mo ago
      Matrix is real time chat and it also supports voice chat, but I have not used it so I do not know if voice is good enough yet.
      - BikiniPrince 8mo ago
        I spent 10 minutes on it this morning. I would rather go with ts6.
  - duskdozer 8mo ago
    My only real experience with matrix was joining a community server for some program because I had a problem and couldn't get more info elsewhere. Started off that I couldn't read any past messages, I guess because encryption? Alright, so I asked my question. Come back the next day, and because my browser deletes cookies on close, I couldn't log in because I had no logged in device to confirm the login with, or something like this. Gave up. Maybe there was some recovery codes on sign up that I missed, but I always save those.
TheChaplain 8mo ago
What most people here seem to forget, is once a social platform gains traction and especially attention from the main masses, it undoubtedly require checks and balances. Predators, racism, gore, pedophilia, harassment, stalking and so on.. No matter how high you value security, these are matters that hurt real people today. If you attract the mainstream, you must deal with it.
- user205738 8mo ago
  I am in favor of kicking children, teenagers, and people with vulnerable minds and mental illnesses off the Internet. Then you won't have to make the decisions that most people suffer from.
  - voidUpdate 8mo ago
    Please don't kick people with mental illnesses off the internet. I barely have anyone to talk to as it is
    - DivingForGold 8mo ago
      Good one !
      - Take8435 8mo ago
        I don't think that post was made in jest.
      - ahhhhnoooo 8mo ago
        The number of people with mental illness is estimated at over 20% of adults in the U.S. I strongly doubt that was a joke.
  - gilrain 8mo ago
    And who gets to decide the membership of those groups? You?
ekianjo 8mo ago
> signal for secrecy What kind of secret system uses a phone number tied to your ID as a user name?
- coolThingsFirst 8mo ago
  I still can't wrap my head at all as to why a chatting app needs my phone number. It's totally ridiculous.
lakshikag 8mo ago
We are also currently working on a privacy-focused alternative called Kloak, which is in its very early alpha stage. We would greatly appreciate your feedback on areas for improvement and any expectations you may have for the platform. Here is a quick promo video as well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekOxAg7leXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekOxAg7leXM
- poolnoodle 8mo ago
  It is closed source, right?
  - lakshikag 8mo ago
    For now, yes
- pseudalopex 8mo ago
  It is not privacy focused seemingly.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46958000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46958000
dmonitor 8mo ago
What's the point of the licensing on these chat servers charging per-user when self hosting?
- small_scombrus 8mo ago
  A LOT of open source software offers features tiers with per user pricing even when self-hosting. They do need to fund development, but SSO is almost always in the top two level pricings :(
jrflowers 8mo ago
I like this page about how a paid forum is the best alternative to a free chat app. Trying to imagine saying “if you don’t like the whole ICQ numbers thing just buy a vBulletin license” in 2002
- pseudalopex 8mo ago
  Discourse was free to self host in 2024.[1] This changed? [1] https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-discourse-still-free-to-self-host/305454 https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-discourse-still-free-to-self...
  - jrflowers 8mo ago
    My mistake. I am now imagining hearing someone say that they do not like the MSN Messenger interface in 2003 and saying “have you heard of phpbb? The install script runs without a hitch if you chmod +777 every file and folder in public_html”
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
pmdr 8mo ago
Email + IRC (there are daemons that support chat history). Bouncers exist. Logging. This should be standard for OSS projects, not some private, unsearchable, data-mining platform. This is what happens when we reach for convenience over openness.
- rixed 8mo ago
  In my experience with the few communities I've dabbled in, it's more reaching for popularity than convenience. If I indulged myself with some grumpiness I'd say that's another source of enshitification that's rarely mentionned.
  - pmdr 8mo ago
    If anything, this should be a wake-up call at least for those managing tech-oriented communities. I don't expect gamer or normies to do anything about it, but hackers definitely should.
- outime 8mo ago
  As someone who spent countless hours on IRC when I was younger and enjoyed 99% of it to the fullest... I'd kindly suggest refraining from pushing IRC any further. It has had its run, and while I know it still exists, it's nowhere near what it once was and it's not coming back. Times have changed and people have different expectations. Nobody (except very few) is going to use multiple services and set up a bouncer just to get the basics working. It's better to spend time building a good replacement that keeps up with current needs than trying to push these old systems onto people, especially younger ones.
  - pmdr 8mo ago
    I'm all for alternatives as long they're based on open protocols and truly open apps -- not some where a corporate entity gets to dictate how many users one may have or how many lines you get to store. It should also be fairly easy to connect to and not every open-source project needs E2E encryption. Matrix is probably okay, but I found it (and the apps) fairly cumbersome. IRC obviously has its limitations, but it shines as an example of simplicity and maintainability with no corporate strings attached.
zer0zzz 8mo ago
I really do not like discourse. Mail lists are better because you stay in the loop, plus Gmail is better for searching emails than discourse searches itself.
- cl3misch 8mo ago
  How do you search messages from before you joined the mailing list?
  - m4rtink 8mo ago
    You check the mailing list archives - those usually have a web based interface.
    - cl3misch 8mo ago
      Admittedly I was being facetious: OP said mailing lists are better than a forum, but for searching the archive you need a forum-like interface anyway.
      - m4rtink 8mo ago
        Its a bit easier as it can be read-only & static generated. Though there are some attempts to make it possible to reply using the Web interface, like HyperKitty /Mailman 3.
      - zer0zzz 8mo ago
        Google? Actually back in the day, gmane was the shiznit.
  - zer0zzz 8mo ago
    Mail list archives. But at the point where the oss community I was part of switched, I had had a backlog of 8 years of mails.
haunter 8mo ago
Discord became popular because it was free group/team voice chat. Mumble, Ventrilo, Teamspeak all needed servers/clients, paid hosting etc. Discord is text chat (with history) + voice chat in one place. If you want an alternative it needs to do this both first and foremost. People saying IRC are trolling or never used Discord.
- xnorswap 8mo ago
  It's also images, videos and message boards.
  - juliangmp 8mo ago
    And screen sharing, like actually good screen sharing unlike Microsoft teams That is a huge feature for many people
    - forgotusername6 8mo ago
      What's wrong with Microsoft teams screen sharing?
      - BLKNSLVR 8mo ago
        The 'Teams' part
      - juliangmp 8mo ago
        Only one participant can stream in a call. An arbitrary restriction that I just dont understand. You also can't properly full screen when you're viewing a screen share, for whatever reason....
  - Buttons840 8mo ago
    It's also a UI that makes covert (bot) advertising basically useless. Any form of communication that is not one-on-one-real-time has a bad UI and is heavily deprioritized.
- 8mo ago
drcongo 8mo ago
Any other Zed users annoyed that they've removed the Help section from GitHub discussions to a sodding discord, please do chime in here: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/48737 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/48737
cl3misch 8mo ago
Tiny nitpick: you actually can pin messages in Signal group chats. It's a pretty recent addition though. Apart from that, I would have been interested in more details about the author's experience with ~Revolt~ Stoat. To my naive eyes it looks pretty nice. I really like the nuanced takes about the other platforms in this article, so I'd guess the author has some good reasons to dismiss Stoat like that.
getcrunk 8mo ago
Me and my buddies still use team speak. Anyone else?
- opan 8mo ago
  Have you tried Mumble? That's what me and my buddies use. We've been playing Barony lately.
bambax 8mo ago
I don't understand the appeal of any of those, least of all Discord itself. It's unsearcheable, focused on immediacy, confusing and full of blinking things. The old Reddit interface (or current HN one!) are unsurpassed IMHO.
- KronisLV 8mo ago
  Most people are on Discord, joining servers has very little friction (no separate accounts), there's decent bots and mod tools and such, ability to create as many channels per server as you want (e.g. for discussions, media, music, whatever) and participate in text based conversations more or less live. It's also easy to jump into a VC and chat while you play games with friends, share screen, stuff like that. Most alternatives suck for that purpose. There is search for server members and the "blinking things" keep you up to date with where the new stuff is and I presume give you dopamine hits. It's simply not old school forum software and considerations that'd make sites like that good don't enter the equation at all - which also makes attempts at turning Discord into a support forum for any "organized" group or project misguided at best, but also great for the more casual gaming/interest oriented communities.
  - dizhn 8mo ago
    It does have a weird source of friction. The need to find an invite to the "server". Sometimes you'll find one but it will be dead. There's no way to search to find a server then join it as far as I know.
- literalAardvark 8mo ago
  That's because you're not in the target market. And I guess not interested in the space. Discord's key value proposition is that it's a trusted zero friction voice chat with a lot of features. The workflow that made it huge: organizer creates a server for a game, creates a short link for a voice channel. The organizer then goes to play their game, shares the short link with their group. The members click the link, write whatever they want as the name, click join and are in the voice chat. Say hi and go into the dungeon to have fun. Need more? Just share your screen with one click. Streamer mode kicks in and hides all pii in the discord interface. Easy global bindings for push to talk. If the outing is fun some of them will create profiles and stay in the server and play together again. It's all very organic and easy, while being trusted as a brand so people don't have to hesitate to click your jitsi.weirdgamer.tk link.
zerebos 8mo ago
One that didn't make the list that I'm excited for is Root. It's come a long way in a short time and already has quite a bit of the features Discord has. The apps and bots are also being set up to be way more powerful than Discord as well. https://www.rootapp.com/ https://www.rootapp.com/
- Timshel 8mo ago
  Seemed as closed as Discord ?
coldblues 8mo ago
https://simplex.chat/ https://simplex.chat/ It already has quite big communities https://simplex.chat/directory/ https://simplex.chat/directory/ The founder of it is on here https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=epoberezkin https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=epoberezkin
coretx 8mo ago
IRC is the only alternative that runs on random potatos and survives lawfare.
- alt187 8mo ago
  One has still yet to convince me of anything IRC has over XMPP.
  - debo_ 8mo ago
    Users?
  - opan 8mo ago
    Waaaaaaay better clients (this is the big one), chat logs that are easier to search through with standard unix tools, avoids issues with OMEMO breaking (which stops people chatting at all, breaking the main usage of the program). Saying this as a regular user of both. I spend way more time on IRC and I enjoy irssi much more than Gajim, Dino, or Conversations. I do think XMPP has potential, though.
    - grep_name 8mo ago
      Yeah I'm planning to send both matrix and xmpp through bitlbee so I can use a terminal client as well (I know matrix has one technically but it is reeeeally crufty). I don't understand why every modern chat client has to be 99% empty whitespace separated by squircles.
      - opan 8mo ago
        matrix.org used to feature weechat-matrix among the recommended clients, but last I looked it wasn't there anymore. Dead project, probably. A shame.
        ptman 8mo ago
        There are other terminal clients.
morajabi 8mo ago
I'm building an open-source, high-quality chat app called Inline. It aims to solve issues with Slack and Discord for work communication. Happy to answer any questions. https://github.com/inline-chat/inline https://github.com/inline-chat/inline https://inline.chat https://inline.chat
- 4nonverbal-alit 8mo ago
  Website doesn't have any info about the product. I don't know which features are there going to be. Screenshots would be cool as well to evaluate UX. Frankly the github readme is more useful than the website in that regard.
  - morajabi 8mo ago
    You're correct. TBH I didn't want to spend time on the website more than a waitlist, instead focused on building the app. I intended the Github readme to show more about the project and I post updates with screenshots on Twitter/X. I'm putting up a docs page today to incrementally add more information about the roadmap, vision, Bot SDK, API docs, etc. Anything in particular you're curious about?
    - 4nonverbal-alit 8mo ago
      Are you planning on releasing the server as a standalone application? Or it will be source available client + proprietary server? I've checked Noor, which looks to have a nice UX and functionalities I'd like to see (chat and realtime voice channels) without gimmicks like threads inside chats, pretending to be forums. I am wondering why you've decided to start over again?
kuon 8mo ago
I know people frown upon it but I think XMPP is the way to go. It "just" require a good discord like client with voice and screen share.
mgaunard 8mo ago
why not just IRC?
- hiccuphippo 8mo ago
  A lot of people here don't understand Discord was born as an alternative to Teamspeak, Mumble and Ventrilo, which main purpose is voicechat rooms while playing video games. They were difficult to maintain since you had to install your own servers. Discord swept with them with the ease of setup and generous free tiers. If you don't use it with that purpose, there's tons of alternatives.
  - opan 8mo ago
    I think you're right, but Discord also replaced IRC for a lot of people/communities, and I don't think they all make use of the voice chat feature. It may be there's no perfect alternative for everyone, but we could still "save" a large group.
  - mgaunard 8mo ago
    In most discord groups I see voice is just this weird feature no one uses. Even when people insist on organizing a telecon they usually use zoom, teams, or google meet instead.
xg15 8mo ago
If the age verification/mandatory ID is the result of new laws, how exactly would switching to an alternative server help? Wouldn't they be forced to implement the same measures as well sooner or later?
- debo_ 8mo ago
  If you self-host and stay small enough, this is moot. Discord is also rolling out age verification to the whole world, while only a small number of governments have currently enacted laws that require this.
- Bender 8mo ago
  If the age verification/mandatory ID is the result of new laws, how exactly would switching to an alternative server help? Wouldn't they be forced to implement the same measures as well sooner or later? Possibly in the UK. Not likely in the USA and even if so most of us will just ignore the laws and if need be just move to a .onion hidden service. In this regard I like the totalitarian aspect of these laws as it will fragment society and push many more people under ground. I like the idea of fragmenting the big services so that governments and shady companies have a harder time hoovering up all the data in one place and taking my words out of context or associating me with some clown on their watch lists that was too lazy or cavalier to implement intermediate level opsec.
ajdude 8mo ago
The Telegram drop off for doing something really bad recently? I have not seen a single person mention it as an alternative. I don't really use discord that much except for the few friends I have that are not on telegram. Actually all of my family and friends are on telegram, even my grandmother is on telegram. When playing games with friends we just do a group call in telegram. I don't even see it on this list though.
- Iulioh 8mo ago
  probably because it is classified as a "messaging app" and while it has a ton of features it still misses the "structure" of a discord alternative i just wonder why TeamSpeak is not there
  - hiccuphippo 8mo ago
    Ctrl+F "voice" only gives 1 result. You can tell the author doesn't use Discord for voice chat in games. So no Teamspeak or Mumble.
- gilrain 8mo ago
  Isn’t Telegram at least plausibly a tool of Russian surveillance? My understanding was that its attempts to distance itself from the regime were laughable and only made the relationship more obvious. I think that’s why it’s rarely mentioned.
  - spencerflem 8mo ago
    I mean, discord is a tool of US surveillance and I’m a Lot more worried about that government doing something to me given Russia is ten thousand miles away
monooso 8mo ago
I'm a little surprised nobody has mentioned Campfire [1]. It's open source, trivial to self-host, and can support an arbitrary number of rooms and users. Sure, it doesn't have all of Discord's bells and whistles (for better or worse), but then neither do some of the alternatives mentioned in the article. [1]: https://once.com/campfire https://once.com/campfire
- obsidianbases1 8mo ago
  I've been running a campfire chat with a few hundred users for a couple of years now. It's one of my favorite pieces of software simply because I don't spend any time thinking about it.
- doublerabbit 8mo ago
  This is cool. Thanks for the shout.
  - doublerabbit 8mo ago
    Works great on a FreeBSD Linux VM. This is seriously cool.
- pseudalopex 8mo ago
  Could you compare Campfire to alternatives in the article?
- presbyterian 8mo ago
  I've been on the lookout for Discord alternatives for my friend group for a while, and this is the first one that really looks promising to me. All the others are too expensive (Mattermost, Rocket) or introduce too much friction (IRC, Matrix). This looks like it could work!
- Arrowmaster 8mo ago
  From DHHs company for those that matters to.
- rcakebread 8mo ago
popcar2 8mo ago
I was considering making a similar list since I was very interested in checking out alternative chat programs, but I have to say this list isn't that good. A lot of the alternatives here aren't ACTUALLY Discord alternatives. Most people use Discord for its community features and being able to join massive servers with 1+ million people, follow news, talk in forums, etc... It also has a lot of features people hand-waive like a really good roles system, moderation and server management tools, a bot ecosystem, etc. Signal is a Whatsapp alternative for 1-on-1 chats with friends and small groups. Rocket chat is a Slack alternative for people wanting to host a server for a community. It's not a platform, you need to register and login to each server manually. I haven't used Zulip but AFAIK it's like Rocket Chat. Ditto on Mattermost. Discourse is a forum. Stoat is basically the only thing here that actually competes on Discord and it's really barebones. There isn't a genuine Discord alternative because it turns out it's really hard (and expensive!) to do what it does, kind of like a Youtube alternatives scenario.
- saghm 8mo ago
  This a good point that I hadn't considered. At least in my experience, DMs are a useful but secondary feature that mostly are useful because it's not uncommon to make connections with people from interacting in the servers themselves. I had been mentally modeling Discord as a chat app, but in a lot of ways it feels more accurate to think of it almost like Facebook with just groups and DMs, only the groups are realtime chat. Over that years I've heard various people talk about using only groups and maybe events as the last things they still used Facebook for, and I deactivated my account years ago but still use Messenger because of the years of contacts I had already built up on it (and the fact that it still is possible to use with a deactivated Facebook account), which provides at least some anecdotal evidence that Discord is basically providing the stickiest features of Facebook.
- cheeseomlit 8mo ago
  >Most people use Discord for its community features and being able to join massive servers with 1+ million people Do they? Personally I've never willingly joined one of those massive servers, only when forced to by some projects that refuse to host their content anywhere else- and its always a terrible experience. 99% of my discord usage is just a group chat with my IRL friends, so when looking for alternative I dont really care about roles and moderation and bots at all. I just want a group text chat, a mobile client for it with notifications, and drop-in/drop-out voice calls
kaon_2 8mo ago
Not to take away from the seriousness of the moment, but I feel compelled to share my feeling shere: My inner teenager was hoping to see TeamSpeak and Ventrilo listed just to honor the good old days. Between 2005-2008 it felt as if Ventrilo had about 90% of the market, with TeamSpeak having the rest. I guess the hopeful message is that nothing lasts forever and alternatives come and go.
- opan 8mo ago
  Mumble is similarly old (3 or 4 years newer), and free software unlike the other two (the trick to longevity). Still around and updated. I used it just a couple days ago.
roxolotl 8mo ago
Don’t see it mentioned here but I’m looking at Delta Chat as an option. It seems like a solid option if you want text only. Built on mail protocols, encrypted, allows for decentralization. Need to play with it more before I say I really like it but the first day of use it’s been better than Matrix. Would love to hear thoughts from anyone who’s used it.
rybosworld 8mo ago
What's the best alternative for folks who just want to voice and text chat with a small circle of people? Say, less than 50.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- opan 8mo ago
  IRC + Mumble.
a3w 8mo ago
No score for usability?
singularity2001 8mo ago
The most important colon is missing: user-adoption
jagermo 8mo ago
The thing is: None can compete with the Discord in its core features. They either have good chat or good voice, but not a combination of both. Discord replaced Ventrilo, TeampSpeak and Mumble simply because it merged Slack/IRC-style chatting with an easy to use voice chat that took less resources than skype and less setup than any of the self-hosted version or cheaper than a hosted version. Low-latency voice chats combined with Slack, I don't know why no one has an alternative for that.
Moomoomoo309 8mo ago
I'm quite surprised to not see teamspeak 6 on here. From what I've seen, it has all the features discord has now, including screen sharing, video calls, channels like discord, and it's also designed for gamers. It's been mentioned in some replies, but not any top-level comments yet. Is TS6 missing some discord features? (maybe calendar events, and their bot ecosystem is a lot smaller)
- saintfire 8mo ago
  Its in beta and you can't get more than a 32 slot server. Anecdotally it felt a little uncooked. https://github.com/teamspeak/teamspeak6-server?tab=readme-ov-file#%E2%84%B9%EF%B8%8F-beta-status--known-issues https://github.com/teamspeak/teamspeak6-server?tab=readme-ov...
- MarsIronPI 8mo ago
  For me, any alternative isn't really appealing unless it's FOSS.
- asattarmd 8mo ago
  This entire list is Slack alternatives, not Discord alternatives. Discord is first-and-foremost a gaming voice chat platform. Teamspeak is the OG in that space and should've been the top of this list.
chwtutha 8mo ago
Basically there’s no viable alternative.
- alfnor 8mo ago
  MS Teams? Basically a bloated version of Skype.
  - chwtutha 8mo ago
    Not sure I’m quite desperate enough to go running to Microsoft yet
BowBun 8mo ago
My take: Discord will slowly enter the arena with the likes of Google, MS, Meta, Apple, Valve for their massive user network. The amount of resources needed to sustain free offerings for so long make it a nearly insurmountable moat for others to compete. Even if one could reproduce their tech (which I doubt, they are top-tier), individuals would drown under hosting costs. They've positioned themselves incredibly well.
- ahhhhnoooo 8mo ago
  Discord's technical moat is not that large. They've done well, but it's not the same as something like Google or Microsoft or valve.
  - BowBun 8mo ago
    Having read their tech blogs about both the local video capture tech and their infrastructure optimizations, I disagree.
    - ahhhhnoooo 8mo ago
      You think discord is the same order of magnitude as a Microsoft or Google? Both of whom own major operating systems, browsers, ad platforms, office and workspace suites, app stores, cloud providers, search engines, maps products, developer tools suites, robotics, research laboratories, AI products, meeting and chat infrastructure, email products and any a million other things? The moat there is staggeringly large comparatively.
      - BowBun 8mo ago
        I feel like you're nitpicking my comparison and misunderstanding what I said. I did not say these companies were technically equal. If you have more questions after rereading my statements, feel free to drop them in this thread.
riskable 8mo ago
Everyone talking about this seems to completely forget WHY everyone's using Discord: It's fun. Discord has animated (custom) emoji, loops videos properly, silly bots, and fantastic voice chat with screen/game streaming to a HUGE amount of simultaneous users. The end user can pick and choose who they want to watch on-the-fly while remaining in the same voice channel. The entire concept of a business using Discord for anything other than customer engagement is completely orthogonal to the very basis of the platform. It was built for gamers! It caters to GAMERS. Repeat after me: DISCORD IS FOR GAMERS! People who want to have fun playing games with their friends. Any other use of Discord is secondary. If you want to replace Discord with an alternative you must target gamers. What do gamers want? They want to have fun! They want a frictionless voice chat and super easy screen streaming. They want silly emoji and looping gifs in chat. They don't care that much that the search doesn't work well. They don't care that it's centralized. They don't even really care much about this age verification check! I swear, more teenagers (and younger) will scam the age verification system to see adult content than actual adults using Discord. Because the adults aren't there to see "adult content".
- TechSquidTV 8mo ago
  They dont just not care that it's centralized, that's the only option they would ever entertain. A very sad truth is people HATE decentralization.
  - hiccup_socks 8mo ago
    >A very sad truth is people HATE decentralization. no, people hate friction. it just so happens that most/all decentralized things have more friction than centralized ones. 99% of people do not give 1 shit in either direction of centralized vs. decentralized. they just want an app that is easy and "just works".
    - jjice 8mo ago
      True, but I haven't found any good decentralized options for almost anything that don't have enough friction to scare the average user away. I'm talking about decentralized options that are actually decentralized, not "potentially decentralized in theory but no one uses them in a decentralized way". I do see a future where we crack the code to a smooth flow that does allow for decentralized networks, but it does suck for most people currently.
openclawagent13 8mo ago
[dead]
alfnor 8mo ago
Has anyone tried https://pumble.com/ https://pumble.com/
evolve2k 8mo ago
I think matrix / element are already working and very usable BUT what is needed is that big push to add the polish. I agree with others here, the matrix project would do well to realise that it’s a great contender for being a discord replacement and set about bulking up with some of the most loved features on discord. A polished ui and a couple of fav discord features onto the product milestone plan and I think matrix adoption would start to really pick up.
- Nemo_bis 8mo ago
  Some interesting things are cooking on the Matrix front. The "Matrix state of the union" talk at FOSDEM is a compact recap: https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/URX89L-matrix-state-of-the-union/ https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/URX89L-matrix-state-o...
pteraspidomorph 8mo ago
As someone who has been on Discord since the beginning, runs Discord communities and writes Discord bots, here's my list of three things that I believe would make a viable Discord competitor: - Free without requiring self-hosting; - Absolutely frictionless community access - here's an invite link, you can start chatting immediately; - High quality voice calls with screen sharing. I don't think there is a competitor that hits all three points right now. Screen sharing in particular is often disregarded by developers who have limited interaction with Discord and don't truly understand the platform. It was not an original feature, but it is Discord's killer feature. Because screen sharing is also impromptu videogame streaming.
- allyu 8mo ago
  Take a look at output.app, basically everything you're saying especially with the shared channel stuff
everdev 8mo ago
[dead]
CollinEMac 8mo ago
Best for: anything but real-time chat, really. Maybe the best way to think of Discourse is as an anti-Discord. It's everything Discord isn't: asynchronous, open source, and self-hostable. Then why is it the highest rated "Discord alternative"?
ac360 8mo ago
Thanks for this
hoten 8mo ago
Do any of these support migrating the content of a Discord server (from some 3p archive tool)? Can anyone suggest a good archive tool? The open source project I help run has ~10 years of conversations, bug reports, feature requests, etc. sunk into Discord, and obviously I want to preserve all that (not sure we'll end up leaving the platform, but it's good to have backups anyhow). Our bug reports / FRs are in forum channels, and I've written a script to extract those and potentially import them into some bug-tracker. But I'd like something good that can archive the entire thing in a reasonable format.
- gwillen 8mo ago
  Such a tool would violate the Discord Terms of Service, so the selection is limited and they don't tend to be very good unfortunately.
AbraKdabra 8mo ago
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46950051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46950051 Called it
789bc7wassad 8mo ago
[dead]
jajuuka 8mo ago
I think this might be putting the cart before the horse. It doesn't really hit the multiple ways Discord is used. From friend groups, to organized gaming, to software support services. Moving you and a couple friends is easy. However as the group grows larger it becomes harder to move. I think a better question right now is "what does Discord consider adult content?" Is it just NSFW stuff or does it include other topics as well? If everyone's account becomes a flagged as a teen account and the content isn't NSFW then what is the reason to leave at that point? You aren't forced to show an ID and face scan to keep using the platform. So most servers may be able to just keep business as usual. It's FAR more burdensome to assemble some amalgamation of features and content to be a replacement and move the community over. At least at the moment. Seems very reminiscent of the first exodus to Mastodon. Where there was excitement in the beginning but ultimately people went back to Twitter and stopped using Mastodon because only the most hardcore privacy nerds moved.
giancarlostoro 8mo ago
The best Discord alternative was probably Guilded. Which Roblox bought out, then shut down. Talk about really poor decision making. Our next best option after years of looking for alternatives will likely be XMPP.
miladyincontrol 8mo ago
For all people talk negatively about friction, honestly I see it in many cases as a feature, not a flaw. Far too many flaws of discord, reddit, and other "socialmedia commons" come from an absolute lack of friction. People seeing it as almost a right to participate wherever, whenever, without ever lurking more and learning a community's culture, norms, or etiquette.
fuzzythinker 8mo ago
Can't take the list seriously when functionality is just 1 of the 5 weights. Like I don't care how good or bad the other weights are but if search and UI is broken, I won't be using it unless I'm forced to.
nipperkinfeet 8mo ago
IRC is the best. :)
danypell 8mo ago
I built FaceFlow.com 16 years and it's a lot like Discord. Used by many people. Web-based for now but hey with Claude / Codex 5.3 I may as well launch desktop/iOS/Android by next week if Web isn't enough.
oranginax 8mo ago
No mention of Root, which I’m finding to be one of the closest alternatives in form and function for communities.
RandomGerm4n 8mo ago
I think it would be a mistake to reject Matrix outright. Even if it's not perfect, it would still be a good starting point from which to build something better. Besides, you don't have to replace Discord with the perfect solution, just with something that's better than Discord and where there's no company behind it that can steer it in a negative direction again, as happened with Discord.
- erxam 8mo ago
  >just with something that's better than Discord I mean, that's the entire issue. There's very little tangibly better than Discord. I like the idea of Matrix, but it's complete garbage in practice. At least for now, the solution lies more in mass outrage and action rather than any technological migration. The post raises this and I think it's a good point.
  - erxam 8mo ago
    Also, the fetishism for federation has got to stop. It's only barely workable in asynchronous environments like the Fediverse, but on a live chat service it's ruinous. It's feels like it's half of what's suffocating Matrix.
    - MarsIronPI 8mo ago
      IDK, XMPP group chats have always "jest werked" for me (though admittedly I haven't used them much). The difference between XMPP group chats and Matrix group chats is that Matrix servers replicate all the message history, whereas XMPP group chats are hosted on a single server. IMO the "bring your own account to a central server" model of XMPP is a good thing, but the "replicate all the things" model of Matrix is not.
    - tcfhgj 8mo ago
      It works fine in chat, been using it for years
  - iwontberude 8mo ago
    Element is way better these days. Not many people know this but Matrix team upgraded synapse last year to support hundreds of simultaneous voice/video users without the need for that shitty jitsi. They aren’t advertising bullshit to you all the time. The ACLs for spaces and rooms more granular and expressive. Your data isn’t training AI models used by people that want to enslave you. You have control where your data resides for protections by jurisdiction. Element has web embeddings for links now, it has all the platforms supported, it’s easy to verify sessions and backup your key. They support SSO external auth. What more can you want?
skywalqer 8mo ago
What about SimpleX? Is it good? Did somebody try it?
- Saris 8mo ago
  It's basically a replacement for SMS, not anything near what Discord does.
pcthrowaway 8mo ago
Why are Zulip and Mattermost not considered here? To be clear I am a former Mattermost user who would no longer recommend them, but considering Zulip now as a replacement
- grougnax 8mo ago
  Maybe they are not for furries?
- some_furry 8mo ago
  https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/6096 https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/6096 Still not implemented.
  - pcthrowaway 8mo ago
    The post is "Discord alternatives" so it strikes me as strange for only E2EE capable chat apps to be supported.
    - some_furry 8mo ago
      No, it isn't. Dang moved all the comments from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46979742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46979742 to this thread so now it's confusing.
      - pcthrowaway 8mo ago
        Thanks, that was confusing. Anyway I loved your writeup, I hope alternatives will be built (alas, I've tried with Mattermost, but I'm not proficient enough in Golang to maintain a fork on my own)
iwontberude 8mo ago
My community (30 members or so) of hackers switched to Matrix last October because we were expecting draconian policy which would attempt to unmask and chronicle our members identities and sentiments. We now spend more than we did with Discord but the data sovereignty is worth it. Not a plug per se, but we host our international community members content out of Germany using federated.computer. In recent days people have been coming out of the woodwork trying to join again.
gussuarez092 8mo ago
Here are some of the most popular and viable Discord alternatives as of early 2026. People seek replacements for reasons like better privacy, no mandatory age/ID verification, open-source options, self-hosting, lower resource use, or specific features (gaming voice chat, team productivity, etc.).No single app has fully replaced Discord's massive user base and polish for casual/gaming communities yet, but several come close depending on your needs.Top Discord-Like Alternatives (Closest UI/Features)Stoat (formerly Revolt) Open-source, designed as a near-clone of Discord's interface with servers, channels, voice/text chat, and custom emojis. It's lightweight (built in Rust), privacy-focused, free (donation-supported), and avoids heavy monetization like Nitro spam. Great for gaming groups wanting something familiar without Discord's ecosystem lock-in. Self-hosting is possible too. Guilded Built specifically for gamers and communities, with calendars, scheduling, tournaments, voice chat, and rich server customization. It's very similar to Discord but adds gaming-focused tools. Completely free with no premium tiers required for core features. Matrix (via clients like Element) Decentralized, open-source protocol with end-to-end encryption by default. Supports rooms (like servers), voice/video calls, bridges to other platforms, and self-hosting. It's more privacy-secure and federated (you can join servers across instances), though the UI/learning curve can feel less "fun" than Discord for casual use. Strong Voice-Focused / Gaming AlternativesTeamSpeak Classic low-latency VoIP with excellent audio quality, strong encryption, and server customization. Still popular among gamers for performance. Self-hostable or use public servers; very lightweight compared to Discord. Mumble Open-source, extremely low-latency voice chat with positional audio (great for games). Minimalist but high-quality; excellent for privacy-conscious groups. Self-hostable and free. Other Notable OptionsSlack or Microsoft Teams — Better for professional/work teams with integrations, file sharing, and structured channels. Less ideal for casual gaming hangouts. Signal or Telegram — Great for secure, encrypted messaging (Signal especially), but voice/video is more basic and lacks full server/channel structures. Zulip — Threaded conversations (unique UI), good for organized discussions, open-source, and supports voice. Rocket.Chat — Open-source, self-hostable Slack/Discord hybrid with video calls and integrations. If privacy or avoiding centralized control/ID checks is your main concern, Stoat, Matrix/Element, or self-hosted Mumble/TeamSpeak stand out right now. For pure gaming similarity, Stoat or Guilded are the easiest transitions.What kind of community or features are you looking for (gaming, friends hangout, work, privacy-first, self-hosted)? That can help narrow it down further!
yeah879846 8mo ago
[dead]
throwawayk7h 8mo ago
Ultimately nothing can match the ux of discord, but if you can convince someone to accept a bit of jank in exchange for freedom, matrix is the best choice.
Sephr 8mo ago
Discord would have never gotten to where it is today if not for the Mumble community never shipping a decent fully-featured web UI. There were multiple efforts throughout the years but iirc they were not coordinated and didn't gather much momentum. It's not too late to make another tool that can fit this niche. There's currently nothing that checks every box for me, especially when it comes to UX and security/privacy. I started designing an open source comms framework with a friend to fit this niche a decade ago and feel somewhat motivated to try again in the future.

674 points by pseudalopex 9mo ago

Don't forget Flotilla Social! TeamSpeak also has a newer client, but its design decisions are a little odd. Still worth checking out though.

pseudalopex 8mo ago
Could you compare Flotilla Social to alternatives in the article?
- docmars 8mo ago
  I'm not sure I would do the marketing site justice — but check it out, they compare themselves to Discord in their introduction video, it's well done!

hippycruncher22 8mo ago

[flagged]

Brajeshwar 8mo ago

When you rank something with numbers, I’d love it to be more like 1 of 5 (1/5) even when you said it before. When you are reading at that line, I had to recalibrate, if that is 4 (out of 10), which is what most people try to rank against.

notepad0x90 8mo ago

Honorable mentions worthy of your support: https://wiki.bitmessage.org/index.php/Main_Page https://wiki.bitmessage.org/index.php/Main_Page https://vituperative.github.io/i2pchat/ https://vituperative.github.io/i2pchat/ Bring this back!, for sentimental reasons: https://dcplusplus.sourceforge.io/webhelp/chat_commands.html https://dcplusplus.sourceforge.io/webhelp/chat_commands.html

MarsIronPI 8mo ago

I'm sad to see XMPP missing from this list. I wonder if the author was simply unaware of it or simply ignored it. IMO XMPP is technically superior to Matrix. It "only" needs a cross-platform high-quality, branded app àla Element. There's underlying protocol support for all the features: video/audio calls, group calls, threads and reactions. Maybe missing are custom emoji (I think?) and channel grouping (which is still in the works). And of course all these protocol features work fine with federation.

fishgoesblub 8mo ago
Same here, I was hoping to see it listed in the article. XMPP is close to being right there in being able to compete with Discord. It just needs a good client with Spaces support (XEP-0503), along side user roles with permissions, and server side voice channels.
- Semaphor 8mo ago
  > It just needs a good client Generally an XMPP issue :/ The protocol is amazing and selfhostable servers (I use prosody) are great. But The only client I enjoy is conversations, and that’s mobile while my main usage is always desktop. There are decent clients, but none I’d say are great.
cookiengineer 8mo ago
The problem with XMPP is that it's a suite of RFCs. It's like describing DNS, which is a conglomerate of RFCs so complex that it's unlikely to be implemented correctly and completely. XMPP is a design fail in that regard, because if you have to tell your chat contacts to download a different client that fulfills OMEMO or XEP-whatever specs, then yeah, ain't gonna happen for most people. (I am still a proponent of XMPP, but the working groups need to get their shit together to unify protocol support across clients)
- aaravchen 8mo ago
  This has been brought up on HN before, and people smarter than me identified that this view is about 10 years out of date. Yes it's a bunch of XEPs, but there are standardized "sets" apparently that include all of the things any other similar tools do. It sounds like only very niche old/minimal XMPP clients don't support encryption by default for example, and virtually all servers have supported it for many years.

jszymborski 8mo ago

This does miss a major feature of Discord and why, imo, it got such an huge following among gamers at first: voice and video chat. I've really had a hard time finding a Discord alternative that has the same kind of first-class voice and video chat support that Discord does. Back to Ventrilo and Mumble I guess /s

warmedcookie 8mo ago
It would be nice if Valve filled in the gaps here. They already got a lot of community features built into Steam.
- stryan 8mo ago
  Steam Group Chats are sort of there; no video chat but text chats and drop-in voice chats like Discord. On the other hand they're basically ephemeral, with messages disappearing from history at some given point. I also can't figure out a way to access them outside of the Steam client and in DOTA where I believe they're tied to the in-game guild system.
  - warmedcookie 8mo ago
    Outside of Dota, it's called "Group Chats" (below your friends list) and it looks very similar to a basic Discord interface. You may have to join a dota guild in order to see it, although everyone in my guild just uses discord.
- opan 8mo ago
  Steam itself is proprietary, and I imagine they'd expand the existing Steam chat and not do something separate like Proton. I don't think jumping into the arms of another company managing a centralized proprietary social platform is a good idea, even if Valve tend to be "good guys".
mgrandl 8mo ago
Yeah it’s so odd that none of the open-source alternatives have this feature. No video calls are not an option. We need video/voice rooms!

phailhaus 8mo ago

Great writeup! Looks like this is going to be relevant very soon. > Tools do not make a culture; the people engaging on it do Absolutely, but it's also important to keep in mind that the tool has a big impact on culture by virtue of what behaviors it encourages and what limitations it has. "The medium is the message" is very true here, so think carefully about which tool you hop onto.

cbdumas 8mo ago

I know I'm in the small minority of Discord users who mostly uses it as a voice chat room while gaming with my friends, but for that use case the best alternative I've found seems to be Mumble. I recently set up a Mumble server on my home server and it seems great so far, was able to get my friends connected pretty easily. We'll see how the voice quality and latency compare to Discord.

SkiFire13 8mo ago
> I recently set up a Mumble server on my home server That makes you an even smaller minority unfortunately. Most people are not going to set up a home server.
- beart 8mo ago
  Mumble servers used to be just a few dollars a year (haven't looked in a long time). But even that is enough friction to prevent adoption. Plus it doesn't support any of the non-voice features.
- opan 8mo ago
  It's semantics, really. Run the server executable on any computer in your house. Done. If you don't leave your computer on 24/7, the Mumble server isn't up 24/7. Oh well. If you use it to talk to friends, you'll presumably have your computer on when you want to use it yourself anyway.
  - Sohcahtoa82 8mo ago
    I ran it on a Raspberry Pi (I think first or second gen) for a few years. It requires next to no CPU time, since the server is effectively just a packet relay.
  - SkiFire13 8mo ago
    > If you use it to talk to friends, you'll presumably have your computer on when you want to use it yourself anyway. I tried this in the past but it didn't work. Now if your friends want to play you need to start the server for them. What if you're not at home? You basically end up making your pc a 24/7 server. Or you need to coordinate so that someone else runs the server in those cases, but that ends up creating more confusion. And let's not start talking about port forwarding issues... All these issues are solvable, but they add so much friction when all you want to do is play with some friends.

aaravchen 8mo ago

Ironically, Signal actually ranks a -1 for privacy in this use. Presumably you're already using Signal and getting mainstream contacts to start using it too. You probably have a basic profile that at least includes your real name, and might also have your picture. Maybe you're even one of the 7 people in the world that use the Stories feature in it. Well good news, now all of that is also unconditionally available to anyone in any group you ever join, including any future changes you ever make to that info, unrevocably forever into the future. Signal has a fun dark pattern where it unrevocably grants permissions for anyone you allow to contact you to see everything in your profile for the rest of time. It has only a single trust level with contacts effectively: full trust. This is unacceptable in any tool you use for online community, unless you exclusively use it for online community and can decline to provide any info in this full-trust level. Unfortunately Signal also makes very sure you can't have a second account, by tying your account to a phone number, and only allowing one Signal instance per mobile device. Is Signal good? Yes, but only exclusively for communication with people you already trust. EDIT: typos

mastermage 8mo ago
[flagged]
ozlikethewizard 8mo ago
You can have multiple instances of signal on a mobile device, and you can use VoiP or eSIMs to register. Signal with an online persona revealing no identifying information, registered to a cash purchased eSIM on an ungoogled android is as good as your getting. Why do you think so many jurisdictions are trying to ban both GrapheneOS and Signal.
- dns_snek 8mo ago
  You can do all of that but you shouldn't have to when using a privacy-focused messenger, and most people won't so they'll be exposed and suffer the consequences if they use Signal expecting a certain level of privacy (and pseudo-anonymity). It's a terrible anti-feature and the only reason they're not being punished for it is because there aren't many alternatives to pick from.

apitman 8mo ago

Matrix is the only one that offers the killer feature of Discord, which is being able to join many communities from a single login. Sadly Matrix has never had a good UX for me. IMO they spent too many complexity tokens on e2ee and there are simply not enough left.

vaylian 8mo ago
What is your greatest UX concern that you would like to see fixed?
- dahrkael 8mo ago
  when coming back to a community after a long period of time i have to follow a trail of links to rooms that say they have been upgraded and the current one abandoned until i reach the current one. thats stupid, confusing and time wasting
  - opan 8mo ago
    It is up to the room admin to upgrade or not, I still have some v1 rooms. Some features like knocking require a newer version, though.
- throwawayk7h 8mo ago
  for me, I'd say: occasional cryptic error messages that prevent conversation, even using encrypted DM across multiple devices
- rebolek 8mo ago
  randomly telling me that my connection is not secure and as a result randomly hiding messages. and then, if I try to fix it somehow, it will tell me it's nearly impossible or that they'll delete my whole history. the security model is hostile towards user.
igotdiscord2015 8mo ago
Actually, the true killer feature for discord back in the day was something much dumber, but still heavily related to on-boarding and community transference. You could join a discord server with a single link. Account creation could come later. Considering the competition at its heyday was Teamspeak or Skype, the mere fact you could just actually see the hell you were getting into without some stupid ass "Hol' Up!" instantly made it popular with basically everyone who didn't even know what it was. My account is dated June 2015 which is apparently a month after it launched, and both me and every single one of the early adopters in that channel that is still up to this day have this same story to tell. We used it because we didn't even have to login at all in the first place when we first got it.

shreyaspapi 8mo ago

Most Discord alternatives fail not on tech, but on polish. Signal → private but bad for communities Matrix → flexible but rough UX XMPP → powerful but fragmented Discord → centralized but frictionless Users pick frictionless every time. We probably don’t need new apps or protocols we need a client that works well.

joshuat 8mo ago
IRC → perfection, impossible to improve
- mastermage 8mo ago
  isn't IRC only Text? What about the Voice Chat?
  - OsrsNeedsf2P 8mo ago
    Yes, GP already said it was perfection
    - hnlmorg 8mo ago
      Except the reason for Discords initial success, and the literal only reason I have it installed, is for voice chat when playing certain online games. I love IRC, I even wrote my own IRC client in the 90s, but it’s clearly not going to be suitable for gaming in this context.
      - opan 8mo ago
        IRC for main chat, Mumble for voice chat when gaming. Been solid for decades. I have at least 3 functional Mumble servers saved (including my own) in my client, most of them are associated with an IRC community. I occasionally hear "Anyone down for some Quake? Hop on Mumble." or something to that effect. Mumble is pretty easy to host, so if you're using it with a small to medium group of friends, I'd say just throw up a server on your LAN somewhere. It's got decent mobile clients on F-Droid as well if you need one.

thefz 8mo ago

There is zero chance that the target users for Discord is going to try anything more complicated than Discord, so basically all the entries in this list. I recoil in horror thinking about me explaining Matrix even to the most tech savvy friends I use Discord with and I really really hope people would stop recommending it.

throwawayk7h 8mo ago
I use matrix with several non-technical friends. Its UI/UX has improved greatly over the last two years or so.
Elosha 8mo ago
The target user group for Discord actually is children and teens. Look at that UI and how it‘s trying to sell you „swag“. Then, Discord is not uncomplicated. From „Servers“ not being servers, multiple account onboarding levels, to what happens when Discord believes you are a bot or are using a blacklisted IP.
- Mashimo 8mo ago
  I don't think I'm active on any "server" that is predominately used by Teens. I believe you underestimate the average age.
  - jvvw 8mo ago
    Minecraft servers are full of teens!
opan 8mo ago
Something I noticed recently is that explaining Matrix to someone is offputting, but I got my dad to just use it and it seems fine for him. Maybe they don't need to know how it works. You start talking federation and stuff and people's eyes glaze over. Simple instructions to sign up and get a desktop and mobile client are probably a better idea. Bury the technical info for those who really care.

koolala 8mo ago

Zulip actually looks pretty good if they made it a little sexier.

yoavm 8mo ago
Sounds like it doesn't look good, then?
trueno 8mo ago
my team tried it for a couple weeks. couldn't stand the threaded "only see what's important" style of chat. it's undoubtedly our least fav part of microsoft teams---the channels and the threads, we all operate in the chat tab and the channels tab has been relegated to announcement posts no one reads. huge shame zulip can't just like... have a toggle for normal chat chronology/presentation. some people have gone way too for trying to efficiency max or "cut out the noise" but chronological chat and a competent search feature will always be the goat.
- crabmusket 8mo ago
  > have a toggle for normal chat chronology/presentation It does. https://zulip.com/help/general-chat-channels https://zulip.com/help/general-chat-channels But even without that, in a normal threaded channel, you can see all messages in all topics chronologically. IIRC that's the default view when you click a channel in the sidebar. Here's an example: https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/channel/138-user-questions https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/channel/138-user-questions the messages are grouped into runs of the same topic, but it's the whole channel.
  - trueno 8mo ago
    mother of god. its perhaps time to revisit zulip. now if I could perhaps disable the topic group heading this would make perfect sense and effectively be a chatroom.
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]

ekropotin 8mo ago

How about good’ol IRC?

Mashimo 8mo ago
Fun, until you want to share an image and have to upload it to a 3rd party, have to explain what a bouncer is to someone who just wants offline messages and AFAIK voice and video chat is not possible. Client dependent, but channel overview per server is also not that good.
jagermo 8mo ago
No voice chat.
- opan 8mo ago
  IRC + Mumble is a good combo in my experience. I only fire up Mumble as-needed since I tend to prefer text chat.
  - jagermo 8mo ago
    i agree, but you need your people to have 2 logins. Great for friend groups, not working in scale.
    - opan 8mo ago
      Neither one strictly requires a login AFAIK, actually. You can chat with an unregistered nick on IRC, and Mumble has certs, but I think they're optional and don't have associated passwords.

DeathArrow 8mo ago

What about good old IRC?

sdrinf 8mo ago

can someone please try running the experiment of "but what if just forking&spinning up an OSS clone, scaling up to take in the migrants, acquire network effects, collect roughly same subscription revenue, but run on just, like, 10 people?" Discord has a financially and politically vulnerable posture that is downstream of having to operate a very large team, raise funding, be exposed to investor market pressure. However, it is also one of the rare instances of successful consumer freemium subscription monetization. A clone does not have to pay the tuition of "what makes this specific space compelling, and want-to-pay-for"; it just have to _exists_, passively soaking up migrants from each platform shift. ITT WTB 3rd place for my frens.

dahrkael 8mo ago
how is discords freemium successful when they are trying to put Nitro in your face at every step? trying so hard to me that sounds like not enough people pay
troupo 8mo ago
> scaling up to take in the migrants, acquire network effects, collect roughly same subscription revenue, but run on just, like, 10 people?" That's how discord started, too. And then they scaled up. You probably need 10 people to handle infrastructure alone.
Nemo_bis 8mo ago
Sounds like you're proposing Element (EMS)

emmelaich 8mo ago

Maybe there's a niche for Valve/Steam to step into here. They already have your data, and many people use Discord for gaming related chat.

small_scombrus 8mo ago
You can already make steam friend group chats, it was just a bit janky when I last used it like 5 years ago
- Brybry 8mo ago
  I primarily use Discord but also have a long-running Steam group chat. Steam group chats are still janky and by no means a Discord replacement. It feels like an MVP that they lost interest in shortly after adding the feature. It's fine for a couple people with no real need for moderation but beyond that I don't think it's currently viable.
- emmelaich 8mo ago
  Yeah, I was suggesting they make serious attempts to unjank it.
keyringlight 8mo ago
I've seen a lot of gamers mention this, but I'd wonder why it hasn't happened yet especially as there's a set of gamers that seem to love centralizing on steam already. One massive downside I can see is that the various public social areas of steam like the game forums are already a cesspool (and have been since they were vBulletin based) and I don't see that improving with more users in near real-time chat. Discord getting used as a knowledge base or download source for some areas is already seen as a convenience for those involved or a single point of failure by many 'outside', I wouldn't want to see more of PC gaming moving to one place.
alfnor 8mo ago
CurseForge (Overwolf?) tried with Curse Voice before Discord even existed, but it never made it big. Probably because Discord started taking over when Skype fell off (i.e. Discord had good timing, Curse Voice did not).

bob1029 8mo ago

I'm looking at modern browser APIs and wondering why no one else is trying certain things. getDeviceMedia and getUserMedia are very powerful these days. I haven't actually tested it but I believe a chromium browser would have no issue capturing the hw accelerated output from a game. You can pipe these media streams directly to WebRTC peers for playback on the other side. A server with a simple selective forwarding unit could enable larger scale meetings (100s of participants). All of this can happen in <1000 lines of JS and server code. Most of the heavy lifting happens in the browser engine. Concerns like automating browser permissions, global hot keys, etc. can be handled via electron or platform specific options like WebView2. Mobile clients are a bit cursed right now. The best solution is to maintain a standard client in the app stores. Forcing everyone to sign their own mobile apps is way too much friction. And you do need native for this on mobile. Browser only / PWA has no chance in hell of providing a smooth UX on iOS or Android.

yellowapple 8mo ago

> Anyway this thing [Revolt/Stoat] is so far from being ready for prime time, I only include it here to call out the project. I wish them the best and hope for good things, especially since you can self-host the server. But a lack of stability and features prevent this from being useful for anything beyond experimentation. Maybe someday. Curious what prompted this verdict. My only experience with Revolt/Stoat has been with the Handmade Cities instance, but said experience hasn't been anywhere near as bad as this writeup seems to suggest.

jaculabilis 8mo ago
I read in another post that HMC forked from before the Stoat rebrand and are maintaining their own fork until the rebrand settles down, so that probably reduces the instability.

bryanhogan 8mo ago

The title is about "Discord alternatives", the major core metric is: > Functionality: can it do everything required of a platform for building, organizing, and sustaining a community? Feels like these are two different things. What I expect from a Discord alternative is text messaging, voice and video call with screensharing, both possible on community spaces and with personal contacts in a way that is extremely easy to setup.

Mashimo 8mo ago
Discord can do quite a lot, which results in people using it in different ways. I'm quite active on multiple discord server and yet never use voice / video. But I get why people use it. If OP is looking for a platform not to replace Discord 1 to 1, but overall to have a community why not do a broader comparison. Then everyone can for themself see what fits their personal needs. > I expect from a Discord alternative is text messaging, voice and video call with screensharing, both possible on community spaces and with personal contacts in a way that is extremely easy to setup. Same. I'm somewhat sad that a lot of the FOSS community got stuck with IRC level of technology and ease of use :( I whish for more projects would subscribe to a low barrier of entry mantra. Learning reg-ex to ban a member is .. ughh

monocultured 8mo ago

I would love an updated KDX/Hotline server running an a RasPi or similar at home. This was a solved problem 20 years ago. The migration to online based platforms will always lead to network effects and enshittification, for very little gain.

ranger_danger 8mo ago
There are updated clients and servers for Hotline. https://hlwiki.com/index.php/Clients https://hlwiki.com/index.php/Clients https://hlwiki.com/index.php/Servers https://hlwiki.com/index.php/Servers But the number of users on any particular server these days is extremely small.

Elosha 8mo ago

One of the main problems in suggesting Discord alternatives is that Discord itself is an amalgamation of several apps. For some a Discord alternative needs to be a voicecall, for others it‘s game streaming, and for others it‘s just a chat, a bulletinboard or newsgroup, while they never used the Voice features.

Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
> We are also currently working on a privacy-focused alternative called Kloak, which is in its very early alpha stage. We would greatly appreciate your feedback on areas for improvement and any expectations you may have for the platform. Doesn't Matrix essentially satisfy all of them? Although the bulletinboard/newsgroup feature is something that I don't know but I feel as if that can be on matrix as well. Yes, I know Matrix is hard to host but I don't imagine discord if they release their source code to be easy either. So for a discord-like experience, I really prefer matrix.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 8mo ago
  Discord is real time chat, I thought matrix was not? And discord comes for gaming, voice chat is a key feature
  - jeltz 8mo ago
    Matrix is real time chat and it also supports voice chat, but I have not used it so I do not know if voice is good enough yet.
    - BikiniPrince 8mo ago
      I spent 10 minutes on it this morning. I would rather go with ts6.
- duskdozer 8mo ago
  My only real experience with matrix was joining a community server for some program because I had a problem and couldn't get more info elsewhere. Started off that I couldn't read any past messages, I guess because encryption? Alright, so I asked my question. Come back the next day, and because my browser deletes cookies on close, I couldn't log in because I had no logged in device to confirm the login with, or something like this. Gave up. Maybe there was some recovery codes on sign up that I missed, but I always save those.

TheChaplain 8mo ago

What most people here seem to forget, is once a social platform gains traction and especially attention from the main masses, it undoubtedly require checks and balances. Predators, racism, gore, pedophilia, harassment, stalking and so on.. No matter how high you value security, these are matters that hurt real people today. If you attract the mainstream, you must deal with it.

user205738 8mo ago
I am in favor of kicking children, teenagers, and people with vulnerable minds and mental illnesses off the Internet. Then you won't have to make the decisions that most people suffer from.
- voidUpdate 8mo ago
  Please don't kick people with mental illnesses off the internet. I barely have anyone to talk to as it is
  - DivingForGold 8mo ago
    Good one !
    - Take8435 8mo ago
      I don't think that post was made in jest.
    - ahhhhnoooo 8mo ago
      The number of people with mental illness is estimated at over 20% of adults in the U.S. I strongly doubt that was a joke.
- gilrain 8mo ago
  And who gets to decide the membership of those groups? You?

ekianjo 8mo ago

> signal for secrecy What kind of secret system uses a phone number tied to your ID as a user name?

coolThingsFirst 8mo ago
I still can't wrap my head at all as to why a chatting app needs my phone number. It's totally ridiculous.

lakshikag 8mo ago

We are also currently working on a privacy-focused alternative called Kloak, which is in its very early alpha stage. We would greatly appreciate your feedback on areas for improvement and any expectations you may have for the platform. Here is a quick promo video as well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekOxAg7leXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekOxAg7leXM

poolnoodle 8mo ago
It is closed source, right?
- lakshikag 8mo ago
  For now, yes
pseudalopex 8mo ago
It is not privacy focused seemingly.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46958000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46958000

dmonitor 8mo ago

What's the point of the licensing on these chat servers charging per-user when self hosting?

small_scombrus 8mo ago
A LOT of open source software offers features tiers with per user pricing even when self-hosting. They do need to fund development, but SSO is almost always in the top two level pricings :(

jrflowers 8mo ago

I like this page about how a paid forum is the best alternative to a free chat app. Trying to imagine saying “if you don’t like the whole ICQ numbers thing just buy a vBulletin license” in 2002

pseudalopex 8mo ago
Discourse was free to self host in 2024.[1] This changed? [1] https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-discourse-still-free-to-self-host/305454 https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-discourse-still-free-to-self...
- jrflowers 8mo ago
  My mistake. I am now imagining hearing someone say that they do not like the MSN Messenger interface in 2003 and saying “have you heard of phpbb? The install script runs without a hitch if you chmod +777 every file and folder in public_html”

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

pmdr 8mo ago

Email + IRC (there are daemons that support chat history). Bouncers exist. Logging. This should be standard for OSS projects, not some private, unsearchable, data-mining platform. This is what happens when we reach for convenience over openness.

rixed 8mo ago
In my experience with the few communities I've dabbled in, it's more reaching for popularity than convenience. If I indulged myself with some grumpiness I'd say that's another source of enshitification that's rarely mentionned.
- pmdr 8mo ago
  If anything, this should be a wake-up call at least for those managing tech-oriented communities. I don't expect gamer or normies to do anything about it, but hackers definitely should.
outime 8mo ago
As someone who spent countless hours on IRC when I was younger and enjoyed 99% of it to the fullest... I'd kindly suggest refraining from pushing IRC any further. It has had its run, and while I know it still exists, it's nowhere near what it once was and it's not coming back. Times have changed and people have different expectations. Nobody (except very few) is going to use multiple services and set up a bouncer just to get the basics working. It's better to spend time building a good replacement that keeps up with current needs than trying to push these old systems onto people, especially younger ones.
- pmdr 8mo ago
  I'm all for alternatives as long they're based on open protocols and truly open apps -- not some where a corporate entity gets to dictate how many users one may have or how many lines you get to store. It should also be fairly easy to connect to and not every open-source project needs E2E encryption. Matrix is probably okay, but I found it (and the apps) fairly cumbersome. IRC obviously has its limitations, but it shines as an example of simplicity and maintainability with no corporate strings attached.

zer0zzz 8mo ago

I really do not like discourse. Mail lists are better because you stay in the loop, plus Gmail is better for searching emails than discourse searches itself.

cl3misch 8mo ago
How do you search messages from before you joined the mailing list?
- m4rtink 8mo ago
  You check the mailing list archives - those usually have a web based interface.
  - cl3misch 8mo ago
    Admittedly I was being facetious: OP said mailing lists are better than a forum, but for searching the archive you need a forum-like interface anyway.
    - m4rtink 8mo ago
      Its a bit easier as it can be read-only & static generated. Though there are some attempts to make it possible to reply using the Web interface, like HyperKitty /Mailman 3.
    - zer0zzz 8mo ago
      Google? Actually back in the day, gmane was the shiznit.
- zer0zzz 8mo ago
  Mail list archives. But at the point where the oss community I was part of switched, I had had a backlog of 8 years of mails.

haunter 8mo ago

Discord became popular because it was free group/team voice chat. Mumble, Ventrilo, Teamspeak all needed servers/clients, paid hosting etc. Discord is text chat (with history) + voice chat in one place. If you want an alternative it needs to do this both first and foremost. People saying IRC are trolling or never used Discord.

xnorswap 8mo ago
It's also images, videos and message boards.
- juliangmp 8mo ago
  And screen sharing, like actually good screen sharing unlike Microsoft teams That is a huge feature for many people
  - forgotusername6 8mo ago
    What's wrong with Microsoft teams screen sharing?
    - BLKNSLVR 8mo ago
      The 'Teams' part
    - juliangmp 8mo ago
      Only one participant can stream in a call. An arbitrary restriction that I just dont understand. You also can't properly full screen when you're viewing a screen share, for whatever reason....
- Buttons840 8mo ago
  It's also a UI that makes covert (bot) advertising basically useless. Any form of communication that is not one-on-one-real-time has a bad UI and is heavily deprioritized.
8mo ago

drcongo 8mo ago

Any other Zed users annoyed that they've removed the Help section from GitHub discussions to a sodding discord, please do chime in here: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/48737 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/48737

cl3misch 8mo ago

Tiny nitpick: you actually can pin messages in Signal group chats. It's a pretty recent addition though. Apart from that, I would have been interested in more details about the author's experience with ~Revolt~ Stoat. To my naive eyes it looks pretty nice. I really like the nuanced takes about the other platforms in this article, so I'd guess the author has some good reasons to dismiss Stoat like that.

getcrunk 8mo ago

Me and my buddies still use team speak. Anyone else?

opan 8mo ago
Have you tried Mumble? That's what me and my buddies use. We've been playing Barony lately.

bambax 8mo ago

I don't understand the appeal of any of those, least of all Discord itself. It's unsearcheable, focused on immediacy, confusing and full of blinking things. The old Reddit interface (or current HN one!) are unsurpassed IMHO.

KronisLV 8mo ago
Most people are on Discord, joining servers has very little friction (no separate accounts), there's decent bots and mod tools and such, ability to create as many channels per server as you want (e.g. for discussions, media, music, whatever) and participate in text based conversations more or less live. It's also easy to jump into a VC and chat while you play games with friends, share screen, stuff like that. Most alternatives suck for that purpose. There is search for server members and the "blinking things" keep you up to date with where the new stuff is and I presume give you dopamine hits. It's simply not old school forum software and considerations that'd make sites like that good don't enter the equation at all - which also makes attempts at turning Discord into a support forum for any "organized" group or project misguided at best, but also great for the more casual gaming/interest oriented communities.
- dizhn 8mo ago
  It does have a weird source of friction. The need to find an invite to the "server". Sometimes you'll find one but it will be dead. There's no way to search to find a server then join it as far as I know.
literalAardvark 8mo ago
That's because you're not in the target market. And I guess not interested in the space. Discord's key value proposition is that it's a trusted zero friction voice chat with a lot of features. The workflow that made it huge: organizer creates a server for a game, creates a short link for a voice channel. The organizer then goes to play their game, shares the short link with their group. The members click the link, write whatever they want as the name, click join and are in the voice chat. Say hi and go into the dungeon to have fun. Need more? Just share your screen with one click. Streamer mode kicks in and hides all pii in the discord interface. Easy global bindings for push to talk. If the outing is fun some of them will create profiles and stay in the server and play together again. It's all very organic and easy, while being trusted as a brand so people don't have to hesitate to click your jitsi.weirdgamer.tk link.

zerebos 8mo ago

One that didn't make the list that I'm excited for is Root. It's come a long way in a short time and already has quite a bit of the features Discord has. The apps and bots are also being set up to be way more powerful than Discord as well. https://www.rootapp.com/ https://www.rootapp.com/

Timshel 8mo ago
Seemed as closed as Discord ?

coldblues 8mo ago

https://simplex.chat/ https://simplex.chat/ It already has quite big communities https://simplex.chat/directory/ https://simplex.chat/directory/ The founder of it is on here https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=epoberezkin https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=epoberezkin

coretx 8mo ago

IRC is the only alternative that runs on random potatos and survives lawfare.

alt187 8mo ago
One has still yet to convince me of anything IRC has over XMPP.
- debo_ 8mo ago
  Users?
- opan 8mo ago
  Waaaaaaay better clients (this is the big one), chat logs that are easier to search through with standard unix tools, avoids issues with OMEMO breaking (which stops people chatting at all, breaking the main usage of the program). Saying this as a regular user of both. I spend way more time on IRC and I enjoy irssi much more than Gajim, Dino, or Conversations. I do think XMPP has potential, though.
  - grep_name 8mo ago
    Yeah I'm planning to send both matrix and xmpp through bitlbee so I can use a terminal client as well (I know matrix has one technically but it is reeeeally crufty). I don't understand why every modern chat client has to be 99% empty whitespace separated by squircles.
    - opan 8mo ago
      matrix.org used to feature weechat-matrix among the recommended clients, but last I looked it wasn't there anymore. Dead project, probably. A shame.
      - ptman 8mo ago
        There are other terminal clients.

morajabi 8mo ago

I'm building an open-source, high-quality chat app called Inline. It aims to solve issues with Slack and Discord for work communication. Happy to answer any questions. https://github.com/inline-chat/inline https://github.com/inline-chat/inline https://inline.chat https://inline.chat

4nonverbal-alit 8mo ago
Website doesn't have any info about the product. I don't know which features are there going to be. Screenshots would be cool as well to evaluate UX. Frankly the github readme is more useful than the website in that regard.
- morajabi 8mo ago
  You're correct. TBH I didn't want to spend time on the website more than a waitlist, instead focused on building the app. I intended the Github readme to show more about the project and I post updates with screenshots on Twitter/X. I'm putting up a docs page today to incrementally add more information about the roadmap, vision, Bot SDK, API docs, etc. Anything in particular you're curious about?
  - 4nonverbal-alit 8mo ago
    Are you planning on releasing the server as a standalone application? Or it will be source available client + proprietary server? I've checked Noor, which looks to have a nice UX and functionalities I'd like to see (chat and realtime voice channels) without gimmicks like threads inside chats, pretending to be forums. I am wondering why you've decided to start over again?

kuon 8mo ago

I know people frown upon it but I think XMPP is the way to go. It "just" require a good discord like client with voice and screen share.

mgaunard 8mo ago

why not just IRC?

hiccuphippo 8mo ago
A lot of people here don't understand Discord was born as an alternative to Teamspeak, Mumble and Ventrilo, which main purpose is voicechat rooms while playing video games. They were difficult to maintain since you had to install your own servers. Discord swept with them with the ease of setup and generous free tiers. If you don't use it with that purpose, there's tons of alternatives.
- opan 8mo ago
  I think you're right, but Discord also replaced IRC for a lot of people/communities, and I don't think they all make use of the voice chat feature. It may be there's no perfect alternative for everyone, but we could still "save" a large group.
- mgaunard 8mo ago
  In most discord groups I see voice is just this weird feature no one uses. Even when people insist on organizing a telecon they usually use zoom, teams, or google meet instead.

xg15 8mo ago

If the age verification/mandatory ID is the result of new laws, how exactly would switching to an alternative server help? Wouldn't they be forced to implement the same measures as well sooner or later?

debo_ 8mo ago
If you self-host and stay small enough, this is moot. Discord is also rolling out age verification to the whole world, while only a small number of governments have currently enacted laws that require this.
Bender 8mo ago
If the age verification/mandatory ID is the result of new laws, how exactly would switching to an alternative server help? Wouldn't they be forced to implement the same measures as well sooner or later? Possibly in the UK. Not likely in the USA and even if so most of us will just ignore the laws and if need be just move to a .onion hidden service. In this regard I like the totalitarian aspect of these laws as it will fragment society and push many more people under ground. I like the idea of fragmenting the big services so that governments and shady companies have a harder time hoovering up all the data in one place and taking my words out of context or associating me with some clown on their watch lists that was too lazy or cavalier to implement intermediate level opsec.

ajdude 8mo ago

The Telegram drop off for doing something really bad recently? I have not seen a single person mention it as an alternative. I don't really use discord that much except for the few friends I have that are not on telegram. Actually all of my family and friends are on telegram, even my grandmother is on telegram. When playing games with friends we just do a group call in telegram. I don't even see it on this list though.

Iulioh 8mo ago
probably because it is classified as a "messaging app" and while it has a ton of features it still misses the "structure" of a discord alternative i just wonder why TeamSpeak is not there
- hiccuphippo 8mo ago
  Ctrl+F "voice" only gives 1 result. You can tell the author doesn't use Discord for voice chat in games. So no Teamspeak or Mumble.
gilrain 8mo ago
Isn’t Telegram at least plausibly a tool of Russian surveillance? My understanding was that its attempts to distance itself from the regime were laughable and only made the relationship more obvious. I think that’s why it’s rarely mentioned.
- spencerflem 8mo ago
  I mean, discord is a tool of US surveillance and I’m a Lot more worried about that government doing something to me given Russia is ten thousand miles away

monooso 8mo ago

I'm a little surprised nobody has mentioned Campfire [1]. It's open source, trivial to self-host, and can support an arbitrary number of rooms and users. Sure, it doesn't have all of Discord's bells and whistles (for better or worse), but then neither do some of the alternatives mentioned in the article. [1]: https://once.com/campfire https://once.com/campfire

obsidianbases1 8mo ago
I've been running a campfire chat with a few hundred users for a couple of years now. It's one of my favorite pieces of software simply because I don't spend any time thinking about it.
doublerabbit 8mo ago
This is cool. Thanks for the shout.
- doublerabbit 8mo ago
  Works great on a FreeBSD Linux VM. This is seriously cool.
pseudalopex 8mo ago
Could you compare Campfire to alternatives in the article?
presbyterian 8mo ago
I've been on the lookout for Discord alternatives for my friend group for a while, and this is the first one that really looks promising to me. All the others are too expensive (Mattermost, Rocket) or introduce too much friction (IRC, Matrix). This looks like it could work!
Arrowmaster 8mo ago
From DHHs company for those that matters to.
rcakebread 8mo ago

popcar2 8mo ago

I was considering making a similar list since I was very interested in checking out alternative chat programs, but I have to say this list isn't that good. A lot of the alternatives here aren't ACTUALLY Discord alternatives. Most people use Discord for its community features and being able to join massive servers with 1+ million people, follow news, talk in forums, etc... It also has a lot of features people hand-waive like a really good roles system, moderation and server management tools, a bot ecosystem, etc. Signal is a Whatsapp alternative for 1-on-1 chats with friends and small groups. Rocket chat is a Slack alternative for people wanting to host a server for a community. It's not a platform, you need to register and login to each server manually. I haven't used Zulip but AFAIK it's like Rocket Chat. Ditto on Mattermost. Discourse is a forum. Stoat is basically the only thing here that actually competes on Discord and it's really barebones. There isn't a genuine Discord alternative because it turns out it's really hard (and expensive!) to do what it does, kind of like a Youtube alternatives scenario.

saghm 8mo ago
This a good point that I hadn't considered. At least in my experience, DMs are a useful but secondary feature that mostly are useful because it's not uncommon to make connections with people from interacting in the servers themselves. I had been mentally modeling Discord as a chat app, but in a lot of ways it feels more accurate to think of it almost like Facebook with just groups and DMs, only the groups are realtime chat. Over that years I've heard various people talk about using only groups and maybe events as the last things they still used Facebook for, and I deactivated my account years ago but still use Messenger because of the years of contacts I had already built up on it (and the fact that it still is possible to use with a deactivated Facebook account), which provides at least some anecdotal evidence that Discord is basically providing the stickiest features of Facebook.
cheeseomlit 8mo ago
>Most people use Discord for its community features and being able to join massive servers with 1+ million people Do they? Personally I've never willingly joined one of those massive servers, only when forced to by some projects that refuse to host their content anywhere else- and its always a terrible experience. 99% of my discord usage is just a group chat with my IRL friends, so when looking for alternative I dont really care about roles and moderation and bots at all. I just want a group text chat, a mobile client for it with notifications, and drop-in/drop-out voice calls

kaon_2 8mo ago

Not to take away from the seriousness of the moment, but I feel compelled to share my feeling shere: My inner teenager was hoping to see TeamSpeak and Ventrilo listed just to honor the good old days. Between 2005-2008 it felt as if Ventrilo had about 90% of the market, with TeamSpeak having the rest. I guess the hopeful message is that nothing lasts forever and alternatives come and go.

opan 8mo ago
Mumble is similarly old (3 or 4 years newer), and free software unlike the other two (the trick to longevity). Still around and updated. I used it just a couple days ago.

roxolotl 8mo ago

Don’t see it mentioned here but I’m looking at Delta Chat as an option. It seems like a solid option if you want text only. Built on mail protocols, encrypted, allows for decentralization. Need to play with it more before I say I really like it but the first day of use it’s been better than Matrix. Would love to hear thoughts from anyone who’s used it.

rybosworld 8mo ago

What's the best alternative for folks who just want to voice and text chat with a small circle of people? Say, less than 50.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
opan 8mo ago
IRC + Mumble.

a3w 8mo ago

No score for usability?

singularity2001 8mo ago

The most important colon is missing: user-adoption

jagermo 8mo ago

The thing is: None can compete with the Discord in its core features. They either have good chat or good voice, but not a combination of both. Discord replaced Ventrilo, TeampSpeak and Mumble simply because it merged Slack/IRC-style chatting with an easy to use voice chat that took less resources than skype and less setup than any of the self-hosted version or cheaper than a hosted version. Low-latency voice chats combined with Slack, I don't know why no one has an alternative for that.

Moomoomoo309 8mo ago

I'm quite surprised to not see teamspeak 6 on here. From what I've seen, it has all the features discord has now, including screen sharing, video calls, channels like discord, and it's also designed for gamers. It's been mentioned in some replies, but not any top-level comments yet. Is TS6 missing some discord features? (maybe calendar events, and their bot ecosystem is a lot smaller)

saintfire 8mo ago
Its in beta and you can't get more than a 32 slot server. Anecdotally it felt a little uncooked. https://github.com/teamspeak/teamspeak6-server?tab=readme-ov-file#%E2%84%B9%EF%B8%8F-beta-status--known-issues https://github.com/teamspeak/teamspeak6-server?tab=readme-ov...
MarsIronPI 8mo ago
For me, any alternative isn't really appealing unless it's FOSS.
asattarmd 8mo ago
This entire list is Slack alternatives, not Discord alternatives. Discord is first-and-foremost a gaming voice chat platform. Teamspeak is the OG in that space and should've been the top of this list.

chwtutha 8mo ago

Basically there’s no viable alternative.

alfnor 8mo ago
MS Teams? Basically a bloated version of Skype.
- chwtutha 8mo ago
  Not sure I’m quite desperate enough to go running to Microsoft yet

BowBun 8mo ago

My take: Discord will slowly enter the arena with the likes of Google, MS, Meta, Apple, Valve for their massive user network. The amount of resources needed to sustain free offerings for so long make it a nearly insurmountable moat for others to compete. Even if one could reproduce their tech (which I doubt, they are top-tier), individuals would drown under hosting costs. They've positioned themselves incredibly well.

ahhhhnoooo 8mo ago
Discord's technical moat is not that large. They've done well, but it's not the same as something like Google or Microsoft or valve.
- BowBun 8mo ago
  Having read their tech blogs about both the local video capture tech and their infrastructure optimizations, I disagree.
  - ahhhhnoooo 8mo ago
    You think discord is the same order of magnitude as a Microsoft or Google? Both of whom own major operating systems, browsers, ad platforms, office and workspace suites, app stores, cloud providers, search engines, maps products, developer tools suites, robotics, research laboratories, AI products, meeting and chat infrastructure, email products and any a million other things? The moat there is staggeringly large comparatively.
    - BowBun 8mo ago
      I feel like you're nitpicking my comparison and misunderstanding what I said. I did not say these companies were technically equal. If you have more questions after rereading my statements, feel free to drop them in this thread.

riskable 8mo ago

Everyone talking about this seems to completely forget WHY everyone's using Discord: It's fun. Discord has animated (custom) emoji, loops videos properly, silly bots, and fantastic voice chat with screen/game streaming to a HUGE amount of simultaneous users. The end user can pick and choose who they want to watch on-the-fly while remaining in the same voice channel. The entire concept of a business using Discord for anything other than customer engagement is completely orthogonal to the very basis of the platform. It was built for gamers! It caters to GAMERS. Repeat after me: DISCORD IS FOR GAMERS! People who want to have fun playing games with their friends. Any other use of Discord is secondary. If you want to replace Discord with an alternative you must target gamers. What do gamers want? They want to have fun! They want a frictionless voice chat and super easy screen streaming. They want silly emoji and looping gifs in chat. They don't care that much that the search doesn't work well. They don't care that it's centralized. They don't even really care much about this age verification check! I swear, more teenagers (and younger) will scam the age verification system to see adult content than actual adults using Discord. Because the adults aren't there to see "adult content".

TechSquidTV 8mo ago
They dont just not care that it's centralized, that's the only option they would ever entertain. A very sad truth is people HATE decentralization.
- hiccup_socks 8mo ago
  >A very sad truth is people HATE decentralization. no, people hate friction. it just so happens that most/all decentralized things have more friction than centralized ones. 99% of people do not give 1 shit in either direction of centralized vs. decentralized. they just want an app that is easy and "just works".
  - jjice 8mo ago
    True, but I haven't found any good decentralized options for almost anything that don't have enough friction to scare the average user away. I'm talking about decentralized options that are actually decentralized, not "potentially decentralized in theory but no one uses them in a decentralized way". I do see a future where we crack the code to a smooth flow that does allow for decentralized networks, but it does suck for most people currently.

openclawagent13 8mo ago

[dead]

alfnor 8mo ago

Has anyone tried https://pumble.com/ https://pumble.com/

evolve2k 8mo ago

I think matrix / element are already working and very usable BUT what is needed is that big push to add the polish. I agree with others here, the matrix project would do well to realise that it’s a great contender for being a discord replacement and set about bulking up with some of the most loved features on discord. A polished ui and a couple of fav discord features onto the product milestone plan and I think matrix adoption would start to really pick up.

Nemo_bis 8mo ago
Some interesting things are cooking on the Matrix front. The "Matrix state of the union" talk at FOSDEM is a compact recap: https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/URX89L-matrix-state-of-the-union/ https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/URX89L-matrix-state-o...

pteraspidomorph 8mo ago

As someone who has been on Discord since the beginning, runs Discord communities and writes Discord bots, here's my list of three things that I believe would make a viable Discord competitor: - Free without requiring self-hosting; - Absolutely frictionless community access - here's an invite link, you can start chatting immediately; - High quality voice calls with screen sharing. I don't think there is a competitor that hits all three points right now. Screen sharing in particular is often disregarded by developers who have limited interaction with Discord and don't truly understand the platform. It was not an original feature, but it is Discord's killer feature. Because screen sharing is also impromptu videogame streaming.

allyu 8mo ago
Take a look at output.app, basically everything you're saying especially with the shared channel stuff

everdev 8mo ago

[dead]

CollinEMac 8mo ago

Best for: anything but real-time chat, really. Maybe the best way to think of Discourse is as an anti-Discord. It's everything Discord isn't: asynchronous, open source, and self-hostable. Then why is it the highest rated "Discord alternative"?

ac360 8mo ago

Thanks for this

hoten 8mo ago

Do any of these support migrating the content of a Discord server (from some 3p archive tool)? Can anyone suggest a good archive tool? The open source project I help run has ~10 years of conversations, bug reports, feature requests, etc. sunk into Discord, and obviously I want to preserve all that (not sure we'll end up leaving the platform, but it's good to have backups anyhow). Our bug reports / FRs are in forum channels, and I've written a script to extract those and potentially import them into some bug-tracker. But I'd like something good that can archive the entire thing in a reasonable format.

gwillen 8mo ago
Such a tool would violate the Discord Terms of Service, so the selection is limited and they don't tend to be very good unfortunately.

AbraKdabra 8mo ago

> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46950051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46950051 Called it

789bc7wassad 8mo ago

[dead]

jajuuka 8mo ago

I think this might be putting the cart before the horse. It doesn't really hit the multiple ways Discord is used. From friend groups, to organized gaming, to software support services. Moving you and a couple friends is easy. However as the group grows larger it becomes harder to move. I think a better question right now is "what does Discord consider adult content?" Is it just NSFW stuff or does it include other topics as well? If everyone's account becomes a flagged as a teen account and the content isn't NSFW then what is the reason to leave at that point? You aren't forced to show an ID and face scan to keep using the platform. So most servers may be able to just keep business as usual. It's FAR more burdensome to assemble some amalgamation of features and content to be a replacement and move the community over. At least at the moment. Seems very reminiscent of the first exodus to Mastodon. Where there was excitement in the beginning but ultimately people went back to Twitter and stopped using Mastodon because only the most hardcore privacy nerds moved.

giancarlostoro 8mo ago

The best Discord alternative was probably Guilded. Which Roblox bought out, then shut down. Talk about really poor decision making. Our next best option after years of looking for alternatives will likely be XMPP.

miladyincontrol 8mo ago

For all people talk negatively about friction, honestly I see it in many cases as a feature, not a flaw. Far too many flaws of discord, reddit, and other "socialmedia commons" come from an absolute lack of friction. People seeing it as almost a right to participate wherever, whenever, without ever lurking more and learning a community's culture, norms, or etiquette.

fuzzythinker 8mo ago

Can't take the list seriously when functionality is just 1 of the 5 weights. Like I don't care how good or bad the other weights are but if search and UI is broken, I won't be using it unless I'm forced to.

nipperkinfeet 8mo ago

IRC is the best. :)

danypell 8mo ago

I built FaceFlow.com 16 years and it's a lot like Discord. Used by many people. Web-based for now but hey with Claude / Codex 5.3 I may as well launch desktop/iOS/Android by next week if Web isn't enough.

oranginax 8mo ago

No mention of Root, which I’m finding to be one of the closest alternatives in form and function for communities.

RandomGerm4n 8mo ago

I think it would be a mistake to reject Matrix outright. Even if it's not perfect, it would still be a good starting point from which to build something better. Besides, you don't have to replace Discord with the perfect solution, just with something that's better than Discord and where there's no company behind it that can steer it in a negative direction again, as happened with Discord.

erxam 8mo ago
>just with something that's better than Discord I mean, that's the entire issue. There's very little tangibly better than Discord. I like the idea of Matrix, but it's complete garbage in practice. At least for now, the solution lies more in mass outrage and action rather than any technological migration. The post raises this and I think it's a good point.
- erxam 8mo ago
  Also, the fetishism for federation has got to stop. It's only barely workable in asynchronous environments like the Fediverse, but on a live chat service it's ruinous. It's feels like it's half of what's suffocating Matrix.
  - MarsIronPI 8mo ago
    IDK, XMPP group chats have always "jest werked" for me (though admittedly I haven't used them much). The difference between XMPP group chats and Matrix group chats is that Matrix servers replicate all the message history, whereas XMPP group chats are hosted on a single server. IMO the "bring your own account to a central server" model of XMPP is a good thing, but the "replicate all the things" model of Matrix is not.
  - tcfhgj 8mo ago
    It works fine in chat, been using it for years
- iwontberude 8mo ago
  Element is way better these days. Not many people know this but Matrix team upgraded synapse last year to support hundreds of simultaneous voice/video users without the need for that shitty jitsi. They aren’t advertising bullshit to you all the time. The ACLs for spaces and rooms more granular and expressive. Your data isn’t training AI models used by people that want to enslave you. You have control where your data resides for protections by jurisdiction. Element has web embeddings for links now, it has all the platforms supported, it’s easy to verify sessions and backup your key. They support SSO external auth. What more can you want?

skywalqer 8mo ago

What about SimpleX? Is it good? Did somebody try it?

Saris 8mo ago
It's basically a replacement for SMS, not anything near what Discord does.

pcthrowaway 8mo ago

Why are Zulip and Mattermost not considered here? To be clear I am a former Mattermost user who would no longer recommend them, but considering Zulip now as a replacement

grougnax 8mo ago
Maybe they are not for furries?
some_furry 8mo ago
https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/6096 https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/6096 Still not implemented.
- pcthrowaway 8mo ago
  The post is "Discord alternatives" so it strikes me as strange for only E2EE capable chat apps to be supported.
  - some_furry 8mo ago
    No, it isn't. Dang moved all the comments from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46979742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46979742 to this thread so now it's confusing.
    - pcthrowaway 8mo ago
      Thanks, that was confusing. Anyway I loved your writeup, I hope alternatives will be built (alas, I've tried with Mattermost, but I'm not proficient enough in Golang to maintain a fork on my own)

iwontberude 8mo ago

My community (30 members or so) of hackers switched to Matrix last October because we were expecting draconian policy which would attempt to unmask and chronicle our members identities and sentiments. We now spend more than we did with Discord but the data sovereignty is worth it. Not a plug per se, but we host our international community members content out of Germany using federated.computer. In recent days people have been coming out of the woodwork trying to join again.

gussuarez092 8mo ago

Here are some of the most popular and viable Discord alternatives as of early 2026. People seek replacements for reasons like better privacy, no mandatory age/ID verification, open-source options, self-hosting, lower resource use, or specific features (gaming voice chat, team productivity, etc.).No single app has fully replaced Discord's massive user base and polish for casual/gaming communities yet, but several come close depending on your needs.Top Discord-Like Alternatives (Closest UI/Features)Stoat (formerly Revolt) Open-source, designed as a near-clone of Discord's interface with servers, channels, voice/text chat, and custom emojis. It's lightweight (built in Rust), privacy-focused, free (donation-supported), and avoids heavy monetization like Nitro spam. Great for gaming groups wanting something familiar without Discord's ecosystem lock-in. Self-hosting is possible too. Guilded Built specifically for gamers and communities, with calendars, scheduling, tournaments, voice chat, and rich server customization. It's very similar to Discord but adds gaming-focused tools. Completely free with no premium tiers required for core features. Matrix (via clients like Element) Decentralized, open-source protocol with end-to-end encryption by default. Supports rooms (like servers), voice/video calls, bridges to other platforms, and self-hosting. It's more privacy-secure and federated (you can join servers across instances), though the UI/learning curve can feel less "fun" than Discord for casual use. Strong Voice-Focused / Gaming AlternativesTeamSpeak Classic low-latency VoIP with excellent audio quality, strong encryption, and server customization. Still popular among gamers for performance. Self-hostable or use public servers; very lightweight compared to Discord. Mumble Open-source, extremely low-latency voice chat with positional audio (great for games). Minimalist but high-quality; excellent for privacy-conscious groups. Self-hostable and free. Other Notable OptionsSlack or Microsoft Teams — Better for professional/work teams with integrations, file sharing, and structured channels. Less ideal for casual gaming hangouts. Signal or Telegram — Great for secure, encrypted messaging (Signal especially), but voice/video is more basic and lacks full server/channel structures. Zulip — Threaded conversations (unique UI), good for organized discussions, open-source, and supports voice. Rocket.Chat — Open-source, self-hostable Slack/Discord hybrid with video calls and integrations. If privacy or avoiding centralized control/ID checks is your main concern, Stoat, Matrix/Element, or self-hosted Mumble/TeamSpeak stand out right now. For pure gaming similarity, Stoat or Guilded are the easiest transitions.What kind of community or features are you looking for (gaming, friends hangout, work, privacy-first, self-hosted)? That can help narrow it down further!

yeah879846 8mo ago

[dead]

throwawayk7h 8mo ago

Ultimately nothing can match the ux of discord, but if you can convince someone to accept a bit of jank in exchange for freedom, matrix is the best choice.

Sephr 8mo ago

Discord would have never gotten to where it is today if not for the Mumble community never shipping a decent fully-featured web UI. There were multiple efforts throughout the years but iirc they were not coordinated and didn't gather much momentum. It's not too late to make another tool that can fit this niche. There's currently nothing that checks every box for me, especially when it comes to UX and security/privacy. I started designing an open source comms framework with a friend to fit this niche a decade ago and feel somewhat motivated to try again in the future.