Alternatives to Discord and Twitch (programming.dev)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by emotional_soup_88@programming.dev to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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Given the recent controversies surrounding Discord and the fact that the end user is a product of Twitch, I wonder if there is any "bare bone" solution to stream my gaming session to a friend who's on Windows. I'd rather that they didn't have to do anything except clicking on a link or perhaps installing a piece of software but with no need to do any configuration. From their perspective, it should "just work.

On my side
Should I set up a webserver into which I feed an OBS stream? Or can perhaps ffmpeg work as a server on it's own? I'm on Arch Linux, playing games on Steam, within dwm within X11.

On my friend's side
No idea how a windows user is supposed to receive such a video feed.

Edit: text and voice chat, we're considering Signal for.

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[-] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

You might want to try a service based on XMPP instead of Matrix due to how Matrix caches all the chats its users are in. If you want to go the XMPP route, Movim is the most similar to Discord.

For streaming, I've heard of Owncast as a FOSS alternative. I don't stream nor do I watch them, so please don't consider this more than pointing out what's available

this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026

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