With the recent news about discord asking for face or ID scan, what other alternatives are there that we can recommend to our less tech-savvy friends?
Does anyone have recommendations for something that has the possibility for custom emojis? So far I’ve only found Stoat enabling them, but I’m still searching if there’s anything better out there… I know slack allows them, but it’s way too expensive for casual hobby things and I’d rather have something open source.
Regarding matrix, what we have found is that the client you choose massively affects how usable it feels.
Something like Tammy is nice if you want to use matrix for 1-on-1 communication, but it’s a pain if you want to have a Discord server-like structure.
If you want to mimic Discord server-like structure the best I found so far is Cinny. It’s UI is very similar to Discord.
From everyone I heard is that you should keep away from Element. Their UI is bad.
I’ve seen a lot of these questions recently and no one ever seems to mention Teamspeak, the predecessor to Discord. High quality audio among a bunch of other features, TS6 is where I’m going, since all I need is basic VC rooms and text channels. Discords other “features” should never have picked up like they did in the first place, fuck the companies that use it as a support forum.
Discord Alternatives, Ranked
Looked around for a while now, these are the alternatives I found.
- Zulip: More like a Slack alternative for an organization/team/group, can be self hosted, seems to be pretty mature and well made. Has good client apps. No screen sharing/voice chat.
- Stoat: Seems to be mostly similar to Discord, doesn’t seem mature though, self hosting documentation doesn’t seem refined, could be okay if you use their server, not sure about mobile apps
- Spacebar: 1:1 Discord clone, voice chat features seem to be incomplete but seems pretty good otherwise, I tried to install their server but it doesn’t run for me…
- Matrix: Feature complete, but kinda buggy, may work well enough for some but my friends complained for poor UX
- Mattermost: Gotta self host or pay, there seems to be some weird limitation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46861331 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46594673
- IRC: maybe not for non-techies, but IRCv3 has some “modern” features and Goguma(Android)/TheLounge(Web) looks quite decent
- XMPP: Seems like it should be good, but I’m having trouble setting it up so can’t tell
- Tailchat: UI looks just like Discord, but I just heard of it now so haven’t tried
Probably worth adding a disclaimer with matrix, that if you self host, DON’T federate. Apparently their abuse management is awful and you get all kinds of shit sent to you which is hard to remove.
Hmmm, I’m hosting my matrix server for years with federation and never had this problem. The only spam I get is via the telegram bridge. Maybe it’s a problem for bigger instances?! On mine are only ppl I have immediate contact with.
I’ve seen stoat and matrix elsewhere recommended as alts too, but I’m always on board for an irc comeback
same, i see IRCv3 is pretty good on paper. it’s pretty hard to find and configure it to work like discord with persistent history and file uploads though… would be nice if i can convince my friends to switch over.
I’m downvoting everyone who suggests stoat because it means you haven’t tried your recommendations or looked at git.
Jitsi, Matrix, Simplex and Mumble all work well.
For matrix use one of the newer clients like element X or schildi next.
Simplex is the most secure but also newest and least optimized / mature.
i agree it’s very in beta state but i’ve known them since revolt days and tried it numerous times. it could work for some people that only needs basic chat and discord-ish UI. haven’t tried simplex or mumble, i agree jitsi works well but the UI is not like discord (idc but my friends do), matrix is too buggy but could be fine if it actually works.
edit: i’m looking at zulip rn as the discord replacement for my friend group, since it has native ios/android apps and such. the only problem is the lack of voice chat/screen sharing. there’s kinda jitsi integration (button to create meeting link) but it’s not as well integrated as discord though. (on discord, one can see on the channel list if there’s someone in voice chat and if their mic is on, screen’s being shared, etc)
Beta means bug testing a finished product. They’re still solidly pre-alpha
Ive spent hours configuring stoat and spacebar and I have to say they are absolutely not ready for self hosting. They also lack vital features my friends and I use, like high quality screensharing or video.
I’m trying my hand at matrix, but it’s rife with problems too. If you want high throughput video, you need to set up Jitsi alongside. I haven’t been having a good time.
So Stoat has screensharing but only with low quality? Looking into self hosting it
It seems to be a bit “bleeding edge” at the moment, and the instructions for self-hosting are not really sufficient (at least for me).
Signal?
No channels
I did the same search today and found out that teamspeak just got updated to a more “modern” UI and feature set. While it is still proprietary software, it’s more feature complete than a lot of the other FOSS alternatives.
it seems like they’re using matrix under the hood
What’s been your main issues with Matrix? I’m testing it now and the setup is awful, but the actual messaging etc seems to work fine. I’d like to catch any issues I’ll have early so I don’t commit to it if I shouldn’t.
There are a ton of detailed write ups which will do a better job than I can here. Just search matrix sucks, or why matrix sucks and you’ll find articles about the problems with is implementation, protocol and more.
You can probably find plenty of similar results for every alternative by making a search like that.
Stoat is a worse disaster. None of your upvotes tried stoat.
Jitsi, matrix, simplex and mumble.
Matrix has client and metadata issues but holy shit is stoat unfinished trash. It’s as fraught as Tox.
I’m fond of mumble and it’s still being updated. Stoat is still early days. Matrix is going no where slow. I wish it turned out good, but it’s just bad.
I’ve watched stoat since riot came out publicly. It’s hopeless.
If matrix bothers you at a protocol level then you’re looking for simplex but usually it’s the old mobile clients people hate.
From what im seeing matrix and stoat. And both have their issues. But this feels kinda like the reddit api moment.
Stoat / revolt development has been as fraught as Tox. It’s dead Jim.
Matrix, Simplex, Jitsi and Mumble all work.
For matrix on mobile use element X or Schildi next
I’ve been using Matrix for over a decade. It has its problems with stability, but it’s getting better over time, especially with the newer Matrix 2.0 and Element X clients.
- Open source (clients and server)
- Federated
- Self hostable
- Optional E2EE for rooms, and I believe by default for PMs/DMs, along with forward secrecy
- Integration and bridging with other services, although it’s not as seamless as I would like
- Has group calling/VC, but I don’t use that enough to judge how good it is. Should also be able to integrate with Jitsi Meet as an alternative.
- Supports Spaces similar to Discord “servers”, but not as seamless as Discord. Each room (equivalent to a Discord channel) is its own separate thing.
If an alternative isn’t open source and doesn’t support federation and E2EE, I wouldn’t even consider it.
Enjoy fellow cipherpunk
Is there still the issue with metadata not being E2EE?
Yes. if that matters to you https://simplex.chat/ or cwtch
Wow, both of these seem really cool. I think I will swap out Signal for one of them. From what I can see, these aren’t really meant to be Discord replacements though? ( missing text channels and voice/video channels)
There isn’t any discord replacement, pick your favorite few. Simplex does eat battery on mobile if you let it which has kept me on signal
I tried it yesterday with a docker homeserver, it seems like if I log in from a new device all the previous chats are possibly lost if I can’t verify the user?
Also user management seems to be a bit of a mess to me (although I didn’t spend much time with that, so I could be wrong)
Correct. That is what forward secrecy is. That way, if a malicious/state actor gains access to your account, they won’t be able to see your previous messages. If you cross-sign by verifying the new device with an old device, you will be able to decrypt those old messages.
This only applies to encrypted chats. Unencrypted chats’ and rooms’ history will be able to be accessed regardless.
Can that be disabled?
many people from guilded went there after that shut down.
Not open source
A friend suggested using it, so we’re going to try it out this weekend for a game. While it’s a VC funded application, we figure it’ll be a few years before heavy enshittification sets in.
Matrix is the canonical fediverse replacement. I’ve also seen recommendations for zulip recently.
Yes matrix is decentralized like the fediverse. As far as I can tell none of these other suggestions people are making use decentralized technology (though I might be wrong about that)
There is Shoot which is actually part of the fediverse (uses ActivityPub).
Spacebar is sort of, but you just host it yourself
I get what you’re saying, but I’d personally call any FOSS alternative that can be self hosted by community members decentralized.
(So Teamspeak wouldn’t count because of centralized updates and proprietary code, but all the others would despite having “official” servers)
We’ve been using Element (Matrix) for our household group chats and it has worked perfectly. That said, I do have a whole ass IT professional in-house to set up a dedicated server so I cannot speak to ease and such.
I think most people don’t want to self host though. I can’t speak to the ease of signing up and using the available public servers.
In terms of functionality as a chat program it’s great.
I can’t speak to the ease of signing up and using the available public servers.
I can speak to this. It has been fine. Your mileage may vary by server/host of course.
I want to say Stoat… However I’m struggling to even create an account… And I have much more patience than my less-savvy friends.
If like me, you care less about servers and the “social media” aspect, and are just searching for group messaging, voice/video chat with screen-sharing capabilities, then Signal Desktop will suffice. That is what I’m preparing to suggest. You can now also sign up without a phone number which is a bonus.
That should work fine, at least until Stoat matures. As a bonus, doubles down as a replacement to Whatsapp: two birds, one stone.
Dont say stoat. Revolt failed and renamed to stoat instead of writing any code. The project is as mismanaged as Tox.
Your current options are:
Jitsi, Matrix, Simplex and Mumble
the rename is because of some other company throwing a fit, its not their choice
Seems to be under active development?
In the past year all they’ve really done is rename. It’s still pre-alpha and seems like they’re all front end devs
I thought they did a complete rewrite of the voice/video stuff?
https://stoat.chat/updates/web-0013
That’s the last entry in their website changelog. It’s from October, the previous posts don’t really detail changes to code. I can’t find even a roadmap to getting cryptography implemented.
Thanks for the info on Stoat. Unfortunately, all those options either objectively aren’t alternatives, or they have major limitations.
Yup. Combine more than one for now. There is no real alternative here.
Jitsi sucked. Mumble is voice only?
Jitsi is for video conference specificallly. Mumble is voice only, very mature and still maintained
Stoat are experiencing problems due to the large increase in numbers, marking them as spam. Until this is fixed, just contact their official support e-mail and they’ll get you set up manually.
I know. I contacted them, but I still cannot sign in. I am getting “try again later” error messages when signing in for the first time. When checking the browser console, it says InvalidCredentials, despite me being certain I am using the correct ones.
I got an error massage first as well. Replied with a screenshot and the 2nd link they sent me worked.
I would say Stoat, but right now they’re getting hit with the mega hug of death and it usually takes a few hours for the email confirmation to show up, and every time I saw it I was too busy to see it before it expired.
No their email verification has never worked right. They have insanely strict filters on it to “prevent spammers”.
The only similar enough one that’s also free is matrix. At least what I’ve found so far.
https://sharedown.kaffekod.nu/05c3716c-05fd-46f0-a90d-efdc6ee8c8a4 link will work for about a week.
I’m considering IRC and teamspeak3 instead
Edit: updated the link
Does Matrix do voice yet? If not, it’s not a discord alternative - it’s an IRC alternative
Yes, our team uses it as a Skype/teams replacement, we pay $20 per month for a server on etke.cc in Germany. Their implementation, however, doesn’t seem to do group videocalls with screensharing, just group voice.
We are not federated because it is just an internal service that we need.
As far as I understand it, they kind of do but you need to install a third party app and use it through the Element interface. But I don’t know for sure.
I have updated the list: https://sharedown.kaffekod.nu/05c3716c-05fd-46f0-a90d-efdc6ee8c8a4
I’d recommend Matrix. It’s not perfect, but I dislike the alternatives more. Btw if you decide to give it a try, don’t use matrix.org, it’s too large of an instance which makes it slow and kind of ruins the decentralization aspect of it. tchncs.de seems like a good choice. I’d also love to give anyone in need of a matrix server a registration token, though registrations are not open on gregtech.eu, so contact me for a key if you’d like.
