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Most Discord alternatives fail not on tech, but on polish. Signal → private but bad for communities Matrix → flexible but rough UX XMPP → powerful but fragme

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.
        hnlmorg 8mo ago
        Not all gamers are techies though. Some of my gaming buddies on Discord needed help getting that properly working. Asking them to set up and use both IRC and Mumble would be a step too far. This is a common trap HN falls into. Stuff that’s easy and practical for people of our capabilities can be a nightmarish hellscape for other people.
  - Mashimo 8mo ago
    IRC does not even have offline messages, unless you pay / host a bouncer. Which you first have to know about. I'm not sure if any client has solve this, but what about image / video / file hosting? You can't just drag 'n drop a image into a chat. You have to host it on a 3rd party site and link it. I do wonder how server management is now adays. In Discord you can host your own server with a few clicks and make it easy to adjust permissions and controls invites. I would assume IRC is also lacking behind. But would love to hear more about the current state. Discord has invite links, where people without the app or account can quickly join. In IRC you have the IRC:// link, but that does not work for people who don't have a client installed. Then you can do a web client link, but that is not optimal for people who already have their favorite client set up :)
    - hofrogs 8mo ago
      In Discord you can't "host" your own "server". You can create a room (internally called a guild, misleadingly referred to as "server" in ui and by a lot of people) on THE discord server, their server, and that room can be split into channels. But the room and the server belongs to discord.
      - Mashimo 8mo ago
        You are correct. I used Discord terminology where a "server" is a group of channels.
    - plastic-enjoyer 8mo ago
      First and foremost, IRC is a protocol. Everything you name here are mostly issues that are not a protocol problem, but client and service issues which can be solved.
      - Mashimo 8mo ago
        But are they solved? In a single combined client. Otherwise it's not really an alternative. It does not matter if it's technically a protocol. Users don't care about if it's a protocol, IRC clients had over 10 years to catch up.
  - cess11 8mo ago
    That's why you have Mumble. https://www.mumble.info/ https://www.mumble.info/ Share a meme? Use the channel's DC-hub.
- throwawayk7h 8mo ago
  No message history while not logged in.
  - simianparrot 8mo ago
    That's a feature
    - Mashimo 8mo ago
      I would love to know why it's considered a feature for you. I remember messing with bouncers and reading the backlog from a 3rd party page. Bots that would ping other members when they come online. It was cumbersome.
      - dokyun 8mo ago
        Saving logs is gross, chats should be ephemeral. In any case there's HistServ and IRCv3 /chathistory nowadays, so if you really want it you can have it. That all the minute garbage everyone posts is preserved forever in an unfiltered state I think is a root cause of the mental degradation that results from using Discord: kids don't have anywhere to 'post into the void' anymore. Preserving past events and relationships through oral history as opposed to a big monolithic search engine entails a far more human element to IRC.
        Gareth321 8mo ago
        I wanted to disagree but I really miss IRC internet. Saving everything we ever said online was a mistake. We need to focus on ephemeral chat making a comeback.
        aunderscored 8mo ago
        IRC still exists at a semi large scale. If you're looking to return
        Mashimo 8mo ago
gsich 8mo ago
All of those alternatives don't have voice chat in the way discord has (or Teamspeak/Mumble).
Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
> Matrix → flexible but rough UX Matrix's UI/UX is actually really flexible with multiple clients. You aren't struck with Element, you can even use TUI clients or any clients. For the web, the one which I really love is cinny. Cinny is really awesome, its UI/UX is better than discord imo. I recommend people to check out the matrix ecosystem of clients to see what they like, because I also liked the fractal gnu app & it has tons of clients. https://cinny.in/ https://cinny.in/ https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/ https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/
- direwolf20 8mo ago
  More friction!
  - trinix912 8mo ago
    Is it really though? The average user doesn't need to know about all other clients, how it all works, etc. They just "open this website, register, and you're in!" It's not like the registration process necessarily involves typing in the server IP and port number, picking and setting up an advanced TUI client or something else.
    - dzaima 8mo ago
      It's beneficial for the average user to know that other clients exist at the very least; it's rather common in the matrix space I'm in that someone asks "how do I do X" without clarifying which client they use, and as such the question is unanswerable (or, worse, someone may answer with info about a different client; or they use some client that noone else does and as such noone can help them). As some specific example, it's happened a couple times that someone's using a client that doesn't support rendering spoilers as spoilered, and as such they made unspoilered replies of something that should've been spoilered (and of course many clients (incl. the Elements) don't even have a sane way to type spoilers).
    - direwolf20 8mo ago
      If you're saying the user either has to put up with a shit client (friction) or go looking for other clients (friction) (and know they have to do that (friction!)) then yes it's friction. The Lounge is open website, type name, you're in. Matrix definitely is not.
zer0zzz 8mo ago
Is it just element or matrix.org, but it feels so slow to me?
- rsynnott 8mo ago
  Element’s pretty not-great. FluffyChat is worth a go, despite the extremely silly name; much less clunky experience.
  - zer0zzz 8mo ago
    Yea fluffychat is way faster and it supports multiple logins.
- opan 8mo ago
  I would recommend using Nheko instead, and not registering on the overloaded flagship server. I have an old matrix.org account as a backup but I try to use smaller servers mostly.
  - zer0zzz 8mo ago
    Ahh yeah. Prob a combo of the main server and the element app slowness.
direwolf20 8mo ago
You should be able to create an account once and then join several servers (real servers) with the same account.
- baq 8mo ago
  That's called email
  - nemomarx 8mo ago
    If you have to create a new password / answer an authentication check for every server you join that's a ton more friction than discord already.
    - baq 8mo ago
      Yeah but that's exactly what email doesn't do, right? Create account, send email to anyone on any server is the use case it was invented to solve. There are tons of issues with frictionless here if you don't want spam, obviously.
  - direwolf20 8mo ago
    Email is a good model to emulate, but it's not the system people want for group chats.

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.
      - hnlmorg 8mo ago
        Not all gamers are techies though. Some of my gaming buddies on Discord needed help getting that properly working. Asking them to set up and use both IRC and Mumble would be a step too far. This is a common trap HN falls into. Stuff that’s easy and practical for people of our capabilities can be a nightmarish hellscape for other people.
- Mashimo 8mo ago
  IRC does not even have offline messages, unless you pay / host a bouncer. Which you first have to know about. I'm not sure if any client has solve this, but what about image / video / file hosting? You can't just drag 'n drop a image into a chat. You have to host it on a 3rd party site and link it. I do wonder how server management is now adays. In Discord you can host your own server with a few clicks and make it easy to adjust permissions and controls invites. I would assume IRC is also lacking behind. But would love to hear more about the current state. Discord has invite links, where people without the app or account can quickly join. In IRC you have the IRC:// link, but that does not work for people who don't have a client installed. Then you can do a web client link, but that is not optimal for people who already have their favorite client set up :)
  - hofrogs 8mo ago
    In Discord you can't "host" your own "server". You can create a room (internally called a guild, misleadingly referred to as "server" in ui and by a lot of people) on THE discord server, their server, and that room can be split into channels. But the room and the server belongs to discord.
    - Mashimo 8mo ago
      You are correct. I used Discord terminology where a "server" is a group of channels.
  - plastic-enjoyer 8mo ago
    First and foremost, IRC is a protocol. Everything you name here are mostly issues that are not a protocol problem, but client and service issues which can be solved.
    - Mashimo 8mo ago
      But are they solved? In a single combined client. Otherwise it's not really an alternative. It does not matter if it's technically a protocol. Users don't care about if it's a protocol, IRC clients had over 10 years to catch up.
- cess11 8mo ago
  That's why you have Mumble. https://www.mumble.info/ https://www.mumble.info/ Share a meme? Use the channel's DC-hub.
throwawayk7h 8mo ago
No message history while not logged in.
- simianparrot 8mo ago
  That's a feature
  - Mashimo 8mo ago
    I would love to know why it's considered a feature for you. I remember messing with bouncers and reading the backlog from a 3rd party page. Bots that would ping other members when they come online. It was cumbersome.
    - dokyun 8mo ago
      Saving logs is gross, chats should be ephemeral. In any case there's HistServ and IRCv3 /chathistory nowadays, so if you really want it you can have it. That all the minute garbage everyone posts is preserved forever in an unfiltered state I think is a root cause of the mental degradation that results from using Discord: kids don't have anywhere to 'post into the void' anymore. Preserving past events and relationships through oral history as opposed to a big monolithic search engine entails a far more human element to IRC.
      - Gareth321 8mo ago
        I wanted to disagree but I really miss IRC internet. Saving everything we ever said online was a mistake. We need to focus on ephemeral chat making a comeback.
        aunderscored 8mo ago
        IRC still exists at a semi large scale. If you're looking to return
      - Mashimo 8mo ago

gsich 8mo ago

All of those alternatives don't have voice chat in the way discord has (or Teamspeak/Mumble).

Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago

> Matrix → flexible but rough UX Matrix's UI/UX is actually really flexible with multiple clients. You aren't struck with Element, you can even use TUI clients or any clients. For the web, the one which I really love is cinny. Cinny is really awesome, its UI/UX is better than discord imo. I recommend people to check out the matrix ecosystem of clients to see what they like, because I also liked the fractal gnu app & it has tons of clients. https://cinny.in/ https://cinny.in/ https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/ https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/

direwolf20 8mo ago
More friction!
- trinix912 8mo ago
  Is it really though? The average user doesn't need to know about all other clients, how it all works, etc. They just "open this website, register, and you're in!" It's not like the registration process necessarily involves typing in the server IP and port number, picking and setting up an advanced TUI client or something else.
  - dzaima 8mo ago
    It's beneficial for the average user to know that other clients exist at the very least; it's rather common in the matrix space I'm in that someone asks "how do I do X" without clarifying which client they use, and as such the question is unanswerable (or, worse, someone may answer with info about a different client; or they use some client that noone else does and as such noone can help them). As some specific example, it's happened a couple times that someone's using a client that doesn't support rendering spoilers as spoilered, and as such they made unspoilered replies of something that should've been spoilered (and of course many clients (incl. the Elements) don't even have a sane way to type spoilers).
  - direwolf20 8mo ago
    If you're saying the user either has to put up with a shit client (friction) or go looking for other clients (friction) (and know they have to do that (friction!)) then yes it's friction. The Lounge is open website, type name, you're in. Matrix definitely is not.

zer0zzz 8mo ago

Is it just element or matrix.org, but it feels so slow to me?

rsynnott 8mo ago
Element’s pretty not-great. FluffyChat is worth a go, despite the extremely silly name; much less clunky experience.
- zer0zzz 8mo ago
  Yea fluffychat is way faster and it supports multiple logins.
opan 8mo ago
I would recommend using Nheko instead, and not registering on the overloaded flagship server. I have an old matrix.org account as a backup but I try to use smaller servers mostly.
- zer0zzz 8mo ago
  Ahh yeah. Prob a combo of the main server and the element app slowness.

direwolf20 8mo ago

You should be able to create an account once and then join several servers (real servers) with the same account.

baq 8mo ago
That's called email
- nemomarx 8mo ago
  If you have to create a new password / answer an authentication check for every server you join that's a ton more friction than discord already.
  - baq 8mo ago
    Yeah but that's exactly what email doesn't do, right? Create account, send email to anyone on any server is the use case it was invented to solve. There are tons of issues with frictionless here if you don't want spam, obviously.
- direwolf20 8mo ago
  Email is a good model to emulate, but it's not the system people want for group chats.