There is no truer adage to me than nothings is perfect. And when it comes to anything related to Discord it’s no different.
Discord itself to me has been an issue for years. Its use of data collection, the obsession of companies trying to buy it all were concerning. For me the latest age verification just further reinforces my beliefs. That being said the majority of users who ignored all this and kept going, really nothing would change. Most people I know use Discord lightly and aren’t in large chats that use hentai gifs. I still would tell anyone who would listen to get out of dodge. But if you never cared about data usage then you’re probably not going to start now.
For all the alternatives out there truth is, none are really anywhere near perfect. Matrix and most of its clients while encrypted don’t offer true jump in /jump out game chat. More a kin to Skype really. Foss Discord implementations like Spacebar are to all over the place and for me are not really functional. Stoat while probably my favorite is still really small and not holding up to the stress of the user influx. And of course it’s missing “discord features” and the new kid Fluxer while appealing is still to new and it’s monetization model a little to concerning. 300 bucks as a backer for unproven project ? And of course with the exception of Matrix none of the other projects currently offer encryption.
Truth is no option really is ideal. Truth is all the options have some pretty serious flaws. And truth is getting your large swaths of friends to move might be close to impossible.
So if you are looking to move please do some digging. Ask people who use the apps their opinions. Try to as a group of friends chose to make a move.
And the final truth is it’s a really good thing we finally have some options. No matter the flaws having competition brings innovation.
I hope this posts helps clear up some things for people who might be confused or concerned.
Genuinely curious: Stoat’s Community Guidelines list the legal jurisdiction for their Service Operator as the United Kingdom (sorry for the awkward sentence structure) I know that any online platform that provides “risky” content to the UK has to perform age checks, but I’m curious if the privacy impact increases when the service is hosted in the UK? Eg, would they be required to conduct age checks for all users, rather than just UK users?
Very good catch. Honestly the platform is so small I doubt it will come under fire. Worse case if the platform takes off more can self host and completely avoid these requirements
i got a team speak 6 server running for my friend group. there are things i wish were better, but ultimately it’s really not that big of a deal. mainly it’s the separating the text chat from the voip servers, and the text chat not being hosted on my machine. but then again others would rather it was on a companies servers any way
but now it’s just the work of pushing my friends to not stick around due to momentum and the whole “but discord retracted their decision! i don’t want to!”
what is everyone’s opinion of Root? is it a viable option?
my biggest hurdle is getting everyone on board. even in my group I have people dragging their feet and not wanting to start something new…even though they know they should
In my eyes they are no different than Discord. They are a venture capital driven corporation who will use your data in the same manner. I like the added features for mmo clans. But that’s not enough to give up the privacy issue.
If you don’t have many concerns about privacy to start with then why not stick with Discord?
I do, my group does not. I’d rather use signal. but have not been able to convince them otherwise
my solution is Zulip/XMPP/IRC/Jitsi, none of them can replace every functions of discord but they partially can and it seems like they’ll work for my use case.
The Movim client for XMPP can do all of those functions as a one-stop shop. It can even do screensharing with audio passthrough (though you need to use a chromium based browser to pass the application audio in the stream). I think it’s easily out best option right now.
thanks. i guess it’s as good as the other electron/web based clients on desktop, but on mobile is PWA okay to use? my phone is too old and suffers with everything but well optimized native apps, so my experience doesn’t match others’.
It’d be pretty easy to quickly test. If it runs okay in your phone’s browser, it’ll run okay as a PWA.
Alternatively, you could use a native XMPP mobile app, which would allow you to access the same servers and chats as you could from Movim. The only downside is that the mobile apps available are lagging behind Movim’s feature set. They can do 1 on 1 audio/video calls, but cannot yet join a group call or screenshare. Depending on your needs, that may or may not be adequate.
it runs like crap on my phone since it’s 12 years old. conversations.im works but it’s features can’t completely replace discord, at least for my friends.
Oh wow, I wasn’t expecting it to be that old. That’s actually quite impressive you’re able to keep it functioning that long, are you still able to get battery replacements?
Sucks that the PWA isn’t able to cut it. Perhaps you might have better luck with Fluxer when that releases a mobile app? (I think its only offering a PWA for now as well).
That’s the other thing, everyone’s use case is slightly different, which honestly I’m kinda glad there are so many options for even if all of them have their flaws.
Just curiousity: why not Matrix?
For me it’s purely the voice chat issue. I rarely use chat rooms anymore. Arguably something like TeamSpeak would work just fine for me.
the clients still feel extremely buggy to use and has poor ux, there are too many frictions overall. surely it works for some people, but it feels not optimal for me. i even tried it with a quite techie friend once and they had extremely bad experience with it that they’re now skeptical of any alternative chat systems i ask them to try out with…
there are too many frictions overall.
That was my experience too. I can’t remember now what my objections were, but I tried it and did not like it or want to use it.
I am now self hosting XMPP + encryption server which I have got some of my friends to install clients for. Oh, they bitch nonstop about how it isn’t as nice as whatever big tech app they are used to. But they use it, because I am not going to talk to them on $TrendingSurveillanceApp.
I’m not looking for perfect. I just want a similar layout with voice call, custom emoji and decent permission control.
The closest I’ve seen is space bar, stout or matrix. But matrix is a beast to get people on, and stout + space bar are both really premature atm client wise.
some of my group moved to steam groups but it’s so clunky and missing many features
Im about to try to self host stoat. I’m really feeling like spinning up 3 or 4 of the new services and trying each to see which one or mixture works best. If anyone else is doing this we should start a megathread
Agreed, I’d really like to know how that goes! I didn’t even think of selfhosting stoat, but I’m intrigued now
I don’t believe Stoat is federated so your server would be in its own silo. But it’s great if you just want a space for you and your friends
Oh, apologies if this was about federated options. I’m just excited for the death of discord.
Oh no it’s not purely about federated. And I love Stoat. I just wanted to make sure that wasn’t lost in translation. Especially if you had any interest in that part
I actually do but I kind of dont know what that would entail with an app like discord. I’d imagine it would just be the same but with @domain.com instead of Username#1234
Basically how discord works right now with other “servers” but it can actually ne a different server.
Movim would be a good one to try. It’s actually more full featured than Stoat as well, as it offers Encryption, Federation (XMPP), group video/audio calls, and screensharing with application audio! (must use a chromium based browser to pass the audio for now). It is currently missing Discord-like channels with rooms, but the dev is actively working on that.
Stoat currently cannot do video calls or screensharing, and has no plans to implement encryption or federation, AFAIK.
Also @[email protected]
thanks for the ping, I will defo look into that one as part of my testing as well!
Stoat did a Q&A the other day. Looks like voice is live and screen sharing is implemented but not live yet.
That being said it looks like these updates apply to the hosted service. Improving the self hosted experience is something they want to do but right now they are just trying to keep the hosted service humming due to increased activity.
Besides the lack of features, what is the temperature of Stoat platform? I have had it reccomended a lot to me.
We switching to Fluxer
offer true jump in /jump out game chat.
What does this mean?
Services like Discord allow you to keep an always on chat channel. People can join and leave as they like and no one is disrupted. Matrix is more like Skype/Zoom you create a call or session. But there is a person host. Once host leaves the call ends. In some cases you need to invite people to join the call.
Matrix is more like Skype/Zoom you create a call or session.
That’s true for Matrix with Jitsi. I’m selfhosting with Element Call enabled and we’re using video rooms that you can use as one does on Discord. It’s nice but needs a few more features before I’ll be completely happy with it. For a group to voice chat it’s great. If you’re sharing shows, movies, games, etc then I think it needs the following…
- Per share stream volume controls
- Audio quality settings
- Push to talk
I’ve seen pull requests that address these things so I’m hoping that we see these features soon than later.
an always on chat channel.
I guess you must mean an always on voice channel. Thanks for clarifying.
I have deployed LiveLit for my homeserver yesterday. I’m not gonna lie, it does involve a bit of work, but once it’s running it is very seamless.
This is what I’ve ended up doing, too. Now the only issue is that we’re missing noise suppression. The boys are not passing this year’s emissions testing.
I have deployed LiveLit for my homeserver
Do you mean LiveKit?
Yup, typo. It is lit, though.
For all the alternatives out there truth is, none are really anywhere near perfect. Matrix and most of its clients while encrypted don’t offer true jump in /jump out game chat.
After complaining about it heavily for a few days, I did find one client that has that same feel, commet.chat. I haven’t done a whole lot of testing yet, but from what I’ve seen/experienced, it’s close, if not there
Personally I still prefer XMPP+Cheogram. It’s more Signal than Discord, but it’s a lightweight chat server with voice call abilities, and that’s what I needed it for
Check out the Movim client for XMPP, it allows it perform group video/audio calls, and even has screen sharing! (though you need to use a chromium browser to share the audio of an application for now). And the dev is currently working on implementing Discord-style channels with collections of rooms.
Oh, hot shit! I know about Movim, it’s just not my main client (notifications are finnicky, and offline messages don’t seem to work right for me?), but them adding discord-style rooms is great!
*too
ICQ was perfect in 1996.
Damn, I think I’ve finally forgotten my ICQ number.
95589327
Damn I have forgotten every telephone number I ever had, but my ICQ# still pops out instantly.
I haven’t. Still mourning.
From my quick testing I did the other day, the conclusion I came to was:
- Fluxer looks like the easiest drop-in replacement for my group. I agree I am also a little hesitant about its longevity & funding.
- Matrix UX leaves some to be desired, but it’s functional and I like the E2EE.
- We don’t have any good enough at selfhosting to even attempt Spacebar.
- Stoat just doesn’t seem viable. Lack of screenshare is a big issue for my group.
Surprisingly, the new TeamSpeak 6 looks pretty okay to me, but the UX is pretty different so might have a little bit of a learning curve for some people in my group. It costs money for a server but honestly my group is fine with that. We used to pay for a Mumble server back in the day but it doesn’t have robust text channels so we don’t want to move back to that.
I’m interested in movim. They are a mature project that has been around for ~15 years and are working adding some discordy features. With those coming it seems more promising to me than the alternatives that haven’t even hit a stable state yet https://piaille.fr/@movim
I was just informed today of a huge red flag for Fluxer; it has a contributor CLA that could allow it to change to a non-FLOSS license in the future. I was hopeful for it previously, but that kills it for me.
Also @[email protected]
I’ll be sticking with Movim, which is already federated, encrypted, can do group video calls, can even screenshare, and most critically does not have a CLA.
Movim looks insanely promising. I’ll have to check it out after I get off work. I’ll have to update my write up if it’s that impressive. Curious how it will handle from what I understand XMPP is protocol like matrix yes ?
Yes, it’s an open-standard that anyone can create a client for. Here’s a good presentation with more details on XMPP itself, if you’re interested :)
While I appreciate what Movim is going for it feels like something different then Discord. It fees like it’s trying to be a whole social network. Which is kind of cool but it also feels very very busy.
Honestly that’s fair enough, it definitely could use a professional UX pass. Cheers for giving it a shot though :)
I might end up trying that as my Facebook replacement but not Discord. Their policies and data handling should win them an award
Hey, quick update, the Fluxer dev has agreed to remove the CLA, so I’d say that puts it back in the running.
For me Fluxer is technically more feature complete with steaming options. But banners and custom emojis are behind paywalls. (Non local hosted)
Stoat offers free banners, emojis a nice UI even a community browser! Its voice chat works well enough but no streaming features. Stoat is purely donation based at the moment.
Sounds like Fluxer is gaining momentum mainstream wise. I’m happy with either option …
if you tried TS6 may i ask how it was? it still seems to be in beta and i couldn’t find any easy setup guide or demo…
It seemed like it would work for me. The user experience is pretty different than Discord, but I caught onto it pretty quick. There are public servers you can join to see what it could be like. When you launch the desktop client, there is a “popular servers” section on the home page that lets you pick from a couple different community servers. I joined the “Official TeamSpeak Community Server” and then just jumped into the Counter-Strike channel and played around, tested streaming, chat, etc.
To be clear this is the TS6 client, not TS3.
As far as I can tell you can’t actually test creating your own server before you pay for a community, although the cost is cheap ($5 USD a month) and it looks like there is a trial.
From a longevity perspective, TeamSpeak might be a good choice for my group, since it’s been around in some shape or form for like 30 years at this point. My group has moved like 3 or 4 times. Not sure if we’ll find a forever home but the longer we can stay somewhere, the better.
Self hosting TS6 is as simple as running the file and port forwarding setup on your router. I have not tried using it with anyone else yet, as I was not satisfied with the lack of persistent text chat, but setting it up is pretty easy.
If you’re familiar with Docker they have a Docker compose file example as well.
with the lack of persistent text chat
i was under the impression their UX is just like discord and they use the matrix protocol underneath, seems like it’s not :( that’s a dealbreaker… thanks for sharing
I’ve gone through like 5 different services trying to set one up. Am I dumb or does no one know how to make a straightforward docker compose? I thought the whole point of Compose was to copy-paste a config, change a few variables and hit go. Several of these assume you know so much about how to setup these services and then just leave you to your devices.
I want like 5 or 6 variables in an .env file. No reason I should have to spin up my own database and link it when you should be containerizing the entire thing in the first place. The only services so far that I’ve had any success setting up are Mattermost (which doesn’t offer group calls) and VoceChat (which I can’t get the voice to work in).
All the others either don’t offer voice at all or I can’t get past the setup.
You can PM me your error messages for help. When it comes to simple group voice chat, I recommend mumble
I know I didn’t mention it in my post, but I do have a couple requirements:
- Self-hosted
- Web client
- Voice/video conference/group
- Private messaging
Nice-to-haves:
- Native mobile/desktop app
- Modern UI
- Lightweight
I have my sights on Snikket at the moment, but that was one I couldn’t get up and running. I can reach out with errors and maybe get it running, but my point stands that Docker Compose is supposed to be as hands-off as it gets, but some devs seem to not get that.
Back to irc, you silly fucks.
