The main issue is you'll never get the cretins that use it off it. Communities.. they're just sitting there burning the library of alexandria.. all the esoteric knowledge they're "putting on discord" is just gonna vanish.
over a billion in vc funding and discord is as shit as it is.
I‘ve been looking into this a bit and whilst i haven’t really tried any of the alternatives, i did collect some notes:
please let me know what y’all think
matrix is unreasonably hard to set-up, why doesnt the docker container or the compose include voice chat? i cant even sign up for stoat to try it out.. is this the best we have against discord in the big 26 😭
Check out https://stoat.chat/, it's the closest self hostable group communications platform to Discord.
There another thread about discord requiring a face scan next month,so I think alternatives might start getting pushed.
Such as https://stoat.chat/
Edit: Not sure you can self-host it, but it does have a back end server listed in it's source code with a docker, however it might just be for code testing.
Right RTFM... https://github.com/stoatchat/self-hosted yes you can self-hosted it.
Back in my day, (shakes cane), Teamspeak and Ventrillo were the big voice chat platforms/tools. Both have text chat and channels/rooms; but their focus is voice chat for gaming.
TeamSpeek or Mumble.
Both have excellent voice chat.
Matrix hoster here.
I would recommend Matrix as it has pretty much everything, including cross platform clients, threads, voice/video calls, screensharing, spaces (aka servers), federation and E2EE. Matrix also has bridges for Discord and pretty much every other service so this could ease transition...
But self hosting requires reading the docs and having some in depth knowledge and understanding as it can be quite complex.
I would recommend just creating a Matrix account on one of the common global servers and testing it.
If you want to self-host there are some pre-defined setups available (example) but I would still recommend to bring at least 5-10 hours.
Regarding operations: It's really resilient and barely ever breaks and also doesn't need a lot of resources. A 1-2vCPU server with under 1GB RAM server is enough for less than 10 people.
Matrix?
Surprised no one has said it yet, but matrix.
https://github.com/spacebarchat/spacebarchat
Literally reverse engineered discord, made open source.
IRC, RocketChat, Slack. Technically Matrix, but for your usecase I wouldn't recommend it, as it's a bit heavy, and if you're just planning on using it with other people on the same server there's not a point.
EDIT: Just noticed the voice chat thing. I've used Jitsi for that, and it works well. Also self-hostable
The Mastodon founder, Eugen Rochko, has just announced that "We’ve moved our internal communications from Discord to Zulip at Mastodon".
https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/116041405748460511
Zulip is probably more focused toward work than TTRPGs, but it can't hurt to try it. (I haven't tried it personally, yet.) It is self-hostable.
XMPP aka Jabber.
My guess is that it would be difficult to find a piece of software that does all the stuff discord does. But I also think it's a non-issue. You could split these needs onto multiple solutions. My group uses mumble for gaming voicechat, Signal for group conversations, and a simple rtmp server for streaming. We don't need nor use discord and never did.
I like the idea of a single piece of software that does one job well instead of a giant powerhouse that does everything.
I still use IRC. There are now modern web clients like The Lounge or Convos that can display/share images in the channels, keep history and push notifications. Apparently Convos can do video chat but I never tried it. Unfortunately I'm not aware of screen sharing features for any of these.
So on a very simple setup, you need an IRC server, then install and connect one of those clients to your server, and use them through a web browser, either on a computer or on a phone.
It's obviously not entirely Discord-like, but it is a simple way to chat and share images.
Matrix is an option but it’s slow and breaks all the time. I’m a big fan of XMPP myself but good luck convincing anyone else to make an account 😔
We switched to element (matrix-protocol) a while ago. Until now it worked fine for us - without any real problems. It already got a native voice/video-call implementation. But i heard that selfhosting isnt that smooth
I would take a look at TeamSpeak or Matrix.
Of the two Matrix is probably the closest to Discord.
Something that wasn't posted here yet but I just got told about: https://fluxer.app/
A chat platform that answers to you, not investors. It's ad-free, open source, community-funded, and never sells your data or nags you with upgrade pop-ups.
Over time, we'd love to explore optional monetisation tools that help creators and communities earn, with a small, transparent fee that keeps the app sustainable.
I replaced Discord(and Whatsapp) with Matrix/Element as voice chat (and general chat) with my wife. I remember running it with Docker was bit annoying to set up (I was selfhosting beginner when first doing it now it could be easier), but with Yunohost it is one click install (if you are willing with swap operating server).
Nextcloud Talk could work for your needs, but I have not personally used it so hard to recommend it.
teamspeak6 is in beta right now but it is my replacement for discord. Check it out, supports most anything people have used disc for
top 50 comments