438
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works 15 points 4 days ago

So seriously, what's going to replace Discord? Everyone wants to leave, but to where?

And no, Matrix is not and will never be a viable alternative

[-] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 2 points 2 days ago

And no, Matrix is not and will never be a viable alternative

Why not? I've been using Matrix for a few years now. I like it, but it definitely lacks refinement and isn’t particularly user-friendly.

I think of it a bit as being the Linux of messaging platforms.

[-] kurcatovium@piefed.social 28 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I've seen mentioned these:

  • Stoat - pretty much same UI, based in UK, not sure where they get $$
  • Fluxer - looks virtually like 1:1 Discord clone, based in Sweden, has paid tier pretty much like Nitro on Discord on official server
  • Nerimity - a little different UI, but still very Discord-y, based in UK, sourced from donations
  • Movim - this one is interesting, but it's not really Discord style app; it looks more like cross breed between IM and social network (FB/X), origin in France
  • Strafe - looks like Discord, supposedly have e2ee
  • Spacebar - reverse engineered Discord, IDK about maturity of this one
  • Adapt - another wanna be
[-] AlfalFaFail@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 days ago
[-] paequ2@lemmy.today 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

It's literally on Fluxer.

Pros:

  • AGPLv3, WITHOUT a CLA
  • Familiar Discord UI
  • Text and voice channels
  • Images, attachments, gifs
  • Emojis, reactions
  • Screensharing and video calls
  • Main server runs decently fast
  • Federation is coming
  • Not based in UK or US

Cons:

  • Only 1 dude working on it
  • You can optionally buy Plutonium, which isn't necessarily bad, they need money, and the code stays Open Source™
  • No mobile app yet (they're working on it)
  • The main server has had some downtime... which I think are just growing pains
  • I don't have friends to invite to Fluxer
[-] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 days ago

Considering how many people are literally demanding and harassing the dev of fluxer to let him let them help him. I don't think the 1 dude working on it is going to be a problem for long lol

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] moopet@sh.itjust.works 14 points 4 days ago

Why is "one-to-one clone of Discord" the goal for everyone? Why not set your sights on a making a good UX instead?

[-] CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org 18 points 4 days ago

ngl, discord kinda had the best UX before the enshittification began

[-] zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago

Hard disagree, but there are millions of people using it so what do I know.

[-] kurcatovium@piefed.social 6 points 3 days ago

Well, Discord's UI is certainly not the holy grail, but it's quite functional and people are used to it. So it's pretty much logical you copy the concept to some extent when you want to appeal to these people?

[-] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 6 points 4 days ago

I don't think it's necessarily the goal — Discord is just a helpful yardstick to compare things to as a baseline (and some people are looking for something that replaces Discord as closely as possible). Having to switch services is a pain, and whilst it's not optimal in the long term to just try to replace a thing with a clone, I can see why people don't have the executive function energy to think too hard about this.

[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

but it’s not really Discord style app; it looks more like cross breed between IM and social network (FB/X)

It has a built-in blog feature that communities or individuals can use to post announcements or articles to the whole instance, but it's pretty easily ignored by just clicking the messages tab, which doesn't show them at all.

[-] stom@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 days ago

Stoat still doesn't have screenshare. It's also a bloody stupid name - I have no idea who thought that re-brand was a good idea.

Fluxer seems to support it though.

BNoth can be self-hosted, which is a nice bonus.

[-] kurcatovium@piefed.social 3 points 3 days ago

Do people really use screen share that much? (Sadly) I use discord to reach a lot of my friends for multiple years and we actually used screen share maybe twice? Three times?

[-] stom@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

I use it daily for both work and play.

In 3d work and game dev it's often far easier to just show people things quickly through it.

When playing coop games our group will all stream so we can see everyone's PoV. We'll also occasionally use it to watch a movie together.

[-] fubbernuckin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 days ago

I have used it multiple times every day this week.

[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I personally use it quite a lot, as do my friends. Typically use it to stream a movie to watch together, or to share the game they're playing while we talk.

[-] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago

It's one of the single most used features there are outside of voip and text.

It's Mandatory for a discord alterative.

This is a big reason why every alterative keeps failing. Linux and open source users are so fucking out of touch with normal users it's absurd. They want and focus on all the wrong things and then complain when their apps don't get popular.

Like federation is cool and all but literally fuck and all people give a single flying fuck about it outside of the nerdy in crowd.

Screen sharing on the other hand is a hard line the majority of normal users either refuse to live with out or have friends that do. Thus making it a make it or break it for most groups.

[-] kurcatovium@piefed.social 2 points 3 days ago

I'm honestly surprised it's used that much. My guild (mostly working fathers) used to use TS3 and once discord appeared we switched there for the ease of it. Still used it mostly as voice chat with text channels being nice to have. But screen sharing? Pretty much non existent, quite a few people streamed on twitch, so we never really needed it.

Same with all the other groups I'm part of there. It's always text + voice, also GIF and meme spam and stuff. But screen share? Virtually zero.

That's why I'm so surprised.

load more comments (6 replies)
[-] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 13 points 3 days ago

The problem isn't that there are no alternatives. It's that there's like 50 alternatives. Centralization makes us vulnerable, but it's also super convenient.

There's a reason we preferred reddit and now Lemmy instead of different forums with different logins for everything.

The biggest problem with getting off Discord is fragmentation of communities.

[-] QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 days ago

Reddit can't die fast enough. I miss niche subreddits

[-] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 2 points 2 days ago

Don't worry, it's trying to speedrun its downfall.

[-] kurcatovium@piefed.social 3 points 3 days ago

First one of those contenders that solves federation in a nice way would be a winner. Quite a lot of them has it on their roadmap so my hopes are not completely lost.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[-] VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Matrix is not

With LiveKit for calls / screen share, it is for my group. Though I'm not saying it doesn't have issues.

will never be

Community-developed homeservers like continuwuity have gotten a lot of new support on the last few weeks. Clients like cinny are getting pretty close to a replacement ux wise (if you look at PR2599 on Cinny's GitHub, they are working on and will soon merge support for LiveKit in a way that is very close to voice channels).

I also generally think that the only way to replace Discord as an ecosystem where you talk to many people from different communities is a federated protocol, not a bunch of new silos, one for each community.

[-] kurcatovium@piefed.social 3 points 3 days ago

I have no first person experience but I've read Matrix' lack of "Discord-like server" grouping is terrible for moderation where you have to manually set permissions for each "room". If that's actually true it's literally impossible for it to become proper discord alternative.

[-] jeff@programming.dev 4 points 3 days ago

I've moved to Matrix from Discord for two small friend groups (<6 people each). Matrix is a fine replacement for the small friend Discord. But it has awhile to go before it can replace 1000+ people servers

[-] VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The bigger issue is that reports currently don't federate. A report will always go to the admin of your homeserver (which might be you) not the admin of the homeserver the room you're in is on, nor the admin of the homeserver of the other users.

Most larger (1-2k people) communities get around that by just having you ping the mods in reply to the offending content, which is a band-aid.

A spec for federated reports is apparently being worked on, but not yet available.

[-] VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

A discord server-like would be a space, containing channel-like rooms. The main difference is that rooms can also exist independent of spaces, if you just need a single chat for some people instrad of a group of chats.

You can set permissions for a whole space, it's just that they currently work differently than Discord. Members have a power level, and you set the power level from which each function is available. So, e.g. Sending messages from Pl 0 (representing normal users), banning users from PL 50 (representing moderators), changing server settings from level 100 (representing administrators).

It sounds complicated, but once you get used to it it's pretty easy.

[-] SpiceDealer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 3 days ago

There's Stoat (formerly Revolt) and Fluxer. Additionally, Steam has many Discord-like features in app.

[-] rickywithanm@aussie.zone 2 points 3 days ago

I don’t like how fluxer is already paywalling features that other platforms don’t. It feels like discord all over again

[-] paequ2@lemmy.today 4 points 3 days ago

Fluxer is AGPv3, recently promised to remove their CLA so the software stays free forever, has an ambitious roadmap with federation, and is currently being worked on by one 22 yr old dude.

It's very different than Discord.

This chad needs help. I'm more than happy to support him. This is an investment in Open Source™ and the future. If he can't work on this full-time or near full-time, he's gonna need to work for Google or some shit. Then it's never going to be able to compete with Discord.

They're also not going to be able to run Fluxer on powerful enough hardware. Take a look at Stoat. Similar idea. No funding. Their main server is HELLA slow, which I don't think it's their fault. The app is written in Rust, but it feels like it's running on a potato.

paywalling features that other platforms don’t

I might be wrong here, but I thought you could self-host Fluxer to get around the paywalls. So you could do that. What a gift! And federation is on the way, so maybe one day you can self-host AND talk to other instances! Amazing!

[-] rickywithanm@aussie.zone 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Thank you for adding more information I’d only had a surface look at Fluxer

E: It seems like the documentation page for self hosting currently is incomplete

[-] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago

The cla removal is already done I thought on the Canary branch.

[-] rickywithanm@aussie.zone 4 points 3 days ago

I’m interested to know why matrix isn’t viable for you? I’ve been trialing it recently with friends and it seems to tick all our boxes. I do admit I don’t do large communities personally

[-] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 days ago
[-] SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 days ago

Does irc even have voice? Or game streaming? Or emojis? Or persistent chat where if you're out of service or offline but then you come back into service/online you can see what you missed?

[-] sadie_sorceress@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago

My group left about 5 years ago (give or take a couple) when there was a hostile takeover of freenode. I haven't really looked into it at all since then, is freenode back or where did everyone move to?

[-] zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 days ago

Everyone moved to libera. It literally happened right as the freenode fiasco happened, so I am surprised you and your group didn't hear about it.

[-] fatalicus@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Someone has made a large spreadsheet of discord alternatives, with comparisons of features, that might help people decide: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14vicw-V9Z5m7ckuburP5wxyDIIb_fFJFEjnxxHk8qRw/edit?gid=0#gid=0

load more comments (8 replies)
this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
438 points (98.7% liked)

People Twitter

9609 readers
312 users here now

People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.

RULES:

  1. Mark NSFW content.
  2. No doxxing people.
  3. Must be a pic of the tweet or similar. No direct links to the tweet.
  4. No bullying or international politcs
  5. Be excellent to each other.
  6. Provide an archived link to the tweet (or similar) being shown if it's a major figure or a politician. Archive.is the best way.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS