Ask HN: Is there any interest in a native Qt/C++ Discord client? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is there any interest in a native Qt/C++ Discord client?

#21

Post by cube00 » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 11:42 AM UTC

txtsd wrote: post #5

KomoD wrote: post #4

Well FYI that's against Discord's TOS, you risk getting banned if you use a third-party client. There's already clients like dissent, dorion, abaddon and previously ripcord (RIP my fav)

While I can't argue against the risk, all these third party clients continue to be allowed to exist. Ripcord and discordo were my favorites amongst the alternatives. kind is the missing Qt FOSS alternative.

>While I can't argue against the risk, all these third party clients continue to be allowed to exist.

Reddit allowed it for a while too until they smelt sweet IPO money.

All it takes is some revenue generating idea that the third party client doesn't support and it's curtains.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any interest in a native Qt/C++ Discord client?

#22

Post by Uptrenda » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 12:15 PM UTC

That all sounds good and all but I feel like this would be a major engineering effort for a centralised system that seems particularly vulnerable to regulation right now. A good example of that is Discord "servers" with NSWF channels now require you to submit your ID to Discord for verification to join the channel. As almost all servers have main channels marked NSFW (they need to because servers can be closed if NSFW content gets posted in regular channels) it effectively makes Discord require an ID.

Now, I don't know about you but I already gave more than enough info when I signed up for an Internet account. Discord and similar chat apps like this are going to end up having to do this stuff because they're essentially businesses. On the other hand, I feel if you were to build a Discord-like layer on top of IRC it would be genuinely quite interesting. But maybe not original (people I think have done this already.) You could see if their solution were as usable as Discords. Make it so no /commands were needed and host a system to spin up rooms and discover them with the same mechanics as Discord.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any interest in a native Qt/C++ Discord client?

#23

Post by sourcegrift » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 12:33 PM UTC

Make your own server, discord is not open

Re: Ask HN: Is there any interest in a native Qt/C++ Discord client?

#24

Post by feznyng » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

You could maybe rearchitect the backend to be provider-agnostic and sell this as a native client for users of Discord, Matrix, Zulip, Stoat, etc. That way you can capture a larger market and you're fine even if Discord kicks you out for ToS violations. Although, I suspect there's a bunch of complexity in papering over each platform especially when you factor in voice/streaming.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any interest in a native Qt/C++ Discord client?

#25

Post by pitzips » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:17 PM UTC

Similar to what you're describing, Ripcord was being developed ~5 years back. https://cancel.fm/ripcord

Re: Ask HN: Is there any interest in a native Qt/C++ Discord client?

#26

Post by hazard » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 4:56 PM UTC

I'm always a bit confused by "written in X" as a feature. Rust devs are the worst about this, but not the only offenders.

The language is not a feature!

I'm a C++ programmer, and even I don't care what language the applications I use are written in.

"Fast" is a feature, not that it's in C++

Re: Ask HN: Is there any interest in a native Qt/C++ Discord client?

#27

Post by bombcar » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

hazard wrote: post #26

I'm always a bit confused by "written in X" as a feature. Rust devs are the worst about this, but not the only offenders. The language is not a feature! I'm a C++ programmer, and even I don't care what language the applications I use are written in. "Fast" is a feature, not that it's in C++

It's a way of signaling a feature via implication - if it's built in X which is known for Y, it must be Y.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any interest in a native Qt/C++ Discord client?

#28

Post by kelvinjps10 » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 5:14 PM UTC

hazard wrote: post #26

I'm always a bit confused by "written in X" as a feature. Rust devs are the worst about this, but not the only offenders. The language is not a feature! I'm a C++ programmer, and even I don't care what language the applications I use are written in. "Fast" is a feature, not that it's in C++

What the imply it's that it won't be a slow app built with electron.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any interest in a native Qt/C++ Discord client?

#29

Post by eqvinox » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 6:22 PM UTC

txtsd wrote: post #5

KomoD wrote: post #4

Well FYI that's against Discord's TOS, you risk getting banned if you use a third-party client. There's already clients like dissent, dorion, abaddon and previously ripcord (RIP my fav)

While I can't argue against the risk, all these third party clients continue to be allowed to exist. Ripcord and discordo were my favorites amongst the alternatives. kind is the missing Qt FOSS alternative.

Aside from the risk, I don't understand why you would put your time into it. They can change their stance any minute and your work is just down the drain. I guess you could do it for learning and experience? idk...

> kind is the missing Qt FOSS alternative.

Nah. What's missing is an alternative to discord itself, with enough pull behind it.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any interest in a native Qt/C++ Discord client?

#30

Post by PacificSpecific » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 6:51 PM UTC

I would as a Windows user if it works as advertised. The official client has been going downhill. I have to restart it about once a day because it gets into some weird stuck state where it struggles to load chat rooms.