Revolt: Open-Source Alternative to Discord • Hacker News Board

Re: Revolt: Open-Source Alternative to Discord

#161

Post by delfinom » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 12:29 PM UTC

bryanhogan wrote: post #53

wooger wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, the design of discord is identical to about 9000 chat apps no?

There really is no other app in this space on the same quality as Discord. Discord was born out of Skype, Teamspeak and similar being so awful to use. Discord took the complaints from these and made a product which was the best version of them all.

I feel like Discord was born out of Slack. Slack was actually once popular for gaming groups but they decided they didn't want to capture that space and focused on business only. Teamspeak and Ventrilo were the alternatives and while they are still solid and arguably still popular with certain groups, they were a bit behind the times.

Re: Revolt: Open-Source Alternative to Discord

#162

Post by nottorp » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 12:30 PM UTC

hoistbypetard wrote: post #130

nottorp wrote: post #128

This is as centralized as Discord right? No running your own server, should you choose to.

They publish instructions for self-hosting a server: https://github.com/revoltchat/self-hosted

Oh nice. It wasn't clear at all from the front page that there is a server available for self hosting.

Re: Revolt: Open-Source Alternative to Discord

#163

Post by smittywerben » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 12:32 PM UTC

lordofgibbons wrote: post #47

The biggest selling point of Discord is its insane network effects. There are servers for libraries/frameworks, languages, ai/ml, math, whatever you can think of. And a lot of the adjacent ones will cross-link scheduled events and messages from other servers. I'm really hoping for an alternative. I'm always weary of en-shitification whenever a single platform wins all the users.. like what has happened to Reddit.

The selling point to me was it's sophistication in handling moderation issues. But they enshittified it to be like Facebook moderation. Maybe that's why they're going public.

Re: Revolt: Open-Source Alternative to Discord

#164

Post by HeckFeck » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 12:34 PM UTC

theandrewbailey wrote: post #103

croisillon wrote: post #13

haha i had to laugh at the language selectors: {flag:uk} English (traditional) {flag:us} English (simplified)

Since US English retains more historical features of English and has fewer of the newer ones (especially in light of Received Pronunciation, rhoticity, and random u insertion), one could argue that US English is the more traditional one. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-p...

I live in a region of the UK where rhoticity is alive and well. It actually means I've an easier time understanding some words when Americans speak them, compared to the English.

On the broader point I'd agree up until I notice that you'd write 'defense' yet also 'fence', and ponder why the verb 'got' is so overused.

Re: Revolt: Open-Source Alternative to Discord

#165

Post by nativeit » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 12:35 PM UTC

dan_can_code wrote: post #97

agumonkey wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the main value of discord was quick and solid voice / game stream integration. I rarely feel any connection between servers, but that might just be me.

For the average user, absolutely it's voice and game streaming. But I've found the more I've used discord, is that a lot of online communities, that typically would exist on Reddit or a forum, also have discord servers for communicating and community management.

I have noticed it’s frequently the only outlet for communication with developers and communities, which I find worryingly closed off and hostile to users.

Re: Revolt: Open-Source Alternative to Discord

#166

Post by dijit » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 12:35 PM UTC

theandrewbailey wrote: post #103

croisillon wrote: post #13

haha i had to laugh at the language selectors: {flag:uk} English (traditional) {flag:us} English (simplified)

Since US English retains more historical features of English and has fewer of the newer ones (especially in light of Received Pronunciation, rhoticity, and random u insertion), one could argue that US English is the more traditional one. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-p...

Isn't that a myth?

Wonder where that idea even came from, the BBC article even says as such "“It is a delightful and attractive myth that Shakespeare’s language got fossilised” in parts of the US, [the dialect anthropologist] says."

I mean; we have old runic languages that match northern English pronunciation really well- along with "olde english" spelling which is clearly a rote writing of a southern English accent (likely from somewhere like Gloucestershire).

An attractive myth, perhaps, but I'm not sure how much truth there really is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/bofu3g/how_did_ame...

Re: Revolt: Open-Source Alternative to Discord

#167

Post by pjerem » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 12:36 PM UTC

jorvi wrote: post #159

roenxi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also spot "That’s the website, you can’t scroll further." in large, helpful letters. These people seem to have a pretty solid sense of humour. Mild enough it is difficult to take offence to, playful enough to add character. Hope they do well; I dislike closed source chat programs.

Rather than open or closed source programs, let's have interoperability. Then everyone can choose. I believe Facebook was aiming for something like that with Threads, and was playing to have WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger be open to a specific standard as well? I fondly remember the days of Pidgin and Adium..

> I fondly remember the days of Pidgin and Adium..

Re: Revolt: Open-Source Alternative to Discord

#168

Post by Qdulf » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 12:36 PM UTC

jorvi wrote: post #159

roenxi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also spot "That’s the website, you can’t scroll further." in large, helpful letters. These people seem to have a pretty solid sense of humour. Mild enough it is difficult to take offence to, playful enough to add character. Hope they do well; I dislike closed source chat programs.

Rather than open or closed source programs, let's have interoperability. Then everyone can choose. I believe Facebook was aiming for something like that with Threads, and was playing to have WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger be open to a specific standard as well? I fondly remember the days of Pidgin and Adium..

The push for messenger interoperability is a reaction to the EUs Digital Markets Act (DMA), which requires certain gatekeeper services to allow interoperability with smaller platforms.

Threads is working on implementing ActivityPub for interoperability with other platforms that already use it. ActivityPub is an open standard for implementing the Fediverse, a group of federated social platforms heavily based in the open source community.

Re: Revolt: Open-Source Alternative to Discord

#169

Post by didntcheck » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 12:41 PM UTC

drpossum wrote: post #143

concerndc1tizen wrote: post #112

What do people find upsetting about Discord? It's free, there's no ads, it's reliable, it has many established communities, it's cross-platform and even works in the browser, supports voice chat and screen sharing. What more could you ask for? Or, are you asking for too much? What I mean is: What innovative functionality is missing to such a degree, that if it was introduces, would make people abandon Discord?

> there's no ads This is a patently ignorant and ridiculous statement. They absolutely shove their own store garbage every release and upsell Nitro at every opportunity. Here's an article from last year about them explicitly introducing third party ads. https://techbriefly.com/2024/04/01/discord-introduces-ads-to...

A freemium service advertizing it's premium offering hardly seems surprizing or objectional. They're not a charity

Re: Revolt: Open-Source Alternative to Discord

#170

Post by seanvelasco » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 12:41 PM UTC

i wish they picked a more unique name. to me, it just seems like they're a copycat by picking a name that's a synonym - or at least of the same nature - of the word "Discord"

same with the streaming platforms Twitch and Kick

looking at their UI, it's the exact same UI as Discord. no improvements while also inheriting the same flaws that make using Discord neurotic