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Discord Alternatives, Ranked

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Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#321

Post by pseudalopex »

popcar2 wrote: post #222

I was considering making a similar list since I was very interested in checking out alternative chat programs, but I have to say this list isn't that good. A lot of the alternatives here aren't ACTUALLY Discord alternatives. Most people use Discord for its community features and being able to join massive servers with 1+ million people, follow news, talk in forums, etc... It also has a lot of features people hand-wai…

They discussed community and moderation features. The functionality and safety scores considered them.

Many groups use Discord as a Slack alternative or forum.

Discord's single sign on is convenient. But the list's point was any central platform is a risk.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#322

Post by grep_name »

opan wrote: post #267
alt187 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One has still yet to convince me of anything IRC has over XMPP.

Waaaaaaay better clients (this is the big one), chat logs that are easier to search through with standard unix tools, avoids issues with OMEMO breaking (which stops people chatting at all, breaking the main usage of the program). Saying this as a regular user of both. I spend way more time on IRC and I enjoy irssi much more than Gajim, Dino, or Conversations. I do think XMPP has potential, though.

Yeah I'm planning to send both matrix and xmpp through bitlbee so I can use a terminal client as well (I know matrix has one technically but it is reeeeally crufty). I don't understand why every modern chat client has to be 99% empty whitespace separated by squircles.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#323

Post by TulliusCicero »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #76
shreyaspapi wrote: post #21

Most Discord alternatives fail not on tech, but on polish. Signal → private but bad for communities Matrix → flexible but rough UX XMPP → powerful but fragmented Discord → centralized but frictionless Users pick frictionless every time. We probably don’t need new apps or protocols we need a client that works well.

> Matrix → flexible but rough UX Matrix's UI/UX is actually really flexible with multiple clients. You aren't struck with Element, you can even use TUI clients or any clients. For the web, the one which I really love is cinny. Cinny is really awesome, its UI/UX is better than discord imo. I recommend people to check out the matrix ecosystem of clients to see what they like, because I also liked the fractal gnu app &…

For the average user, multiple clients is more a weakness than a strength.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#324

Post by TulliusCicero »

plastic-enjoyer wrote: post #105
Mashimo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRC does not even have offline messages, unless you pay / host a bouncer. Which you first have to know about. I'm not sure if any client has solve this, but what about image / video / file hosting? You can't just drag 'n drop a image into a chat. You have to host it on a 3rd party site and link it. I do wonder how server management is now adays. In Discord you can host your own server with a few clicks and make it ea…

First and foremost, IRC is a protocol. Everything you name here are mostly issues that are not a protocol problem, but client and service issues which can be solved.

What a uselessly pedantic response.

Are they solved, in practice, in the real world? For users in general? No? Then what's the point of discussing it right now?

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#325

Post by soulofmischief »

riskable wrote: post #281

Everyone talking about this seems to completely forget WHY everyone's using Discord: It's fun . Discord has animated (custom) emoji, loops videos properly, silly bots, and fantastic voice chat with screen/game streaming to a HUGE amount of simultaneous users. The end user can pick and choose who they want to watch on-the-fly while remaining in the same voice channel. The entire concept of a business using Discord for…

/slap was perfectly enough fun for me without sacrificing the freedom of my peers and myself.

I use Discord all day and it's not for gaming. It's to involve myself in specific communities. And I'm not looking to migrate to a platform that caters specifically to gamers, because it will eventually make the same anti-user tradeoffs that Discord has made over the years, as ad money and payment processors and stakeholders continue to boil the frog.

This sudden news is very unwelcome. Unless something changes, I will begin the process of leaving each server, making whatever off-channel connections I need, then deleting my account, and either choosing or developing an alternative which suits my needs.

> They don't care that much that the search doesn't work well. They don't care that it's centralized. They don't even really care much about this age verification check!

Yes, and that's the problem. Manufactured consent cannot be used as a justification for further manufactured consent.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#326

Post by [deleted] »

trueno wrote: post #178
crabmusket wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have a toggle for normal chat chronology/presentation It does. https://zulip.com/help/general-chat-channels But even without that, in a normal threaded channel, you can see all messages in all topics chronologically. IIRC that's the default view when you click a channel in the sidebar. Here's an example: https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/channel/138-user-questions the messages are grouped into runs of the same topic,…

mother of god. its perhaps time to revisit zulip. now if I could perhaps disable the topic group heading this would make perfect sense and effectively be a chatroom.

[deleted]

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#327

Post by opan »

jagermo wrote: post #293
opan wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRC + Mumble is a good combo in my experience. I only fire up Mumble as-needed since I tend to prefer text chat.

i agree, but you need your people to have 2 logins. Great for friend groups, not working in scale.

Neither one strictly requires a login AFAIK, actually. You can chat with an unregistered nick on IRC, and Mumble has certs, but I think they're optional and don't have associated passwords.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#328

Post by opan »

grep_name wrote: post #322
opan wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waaaaaaay better clients (this is the big one), chat logs that are easier to search through with standard unix tools, avoids issues with OMEMO breaking (which stops people chatting at all, breaking the main usage of the program). Saying this as a regular user of both. I spend way more time on IRC and I enjoy irssi much more than Gajim, Dino, or Conversations. I do think XMPP has potential, though.

Yeah I'm planning to send both matrix and xmpp through bitlbee so I can use a terminal client as well (I know matrix has one technically but it is reeeeally crufty). I don't understand why every modern chat client has to be 99% empty whitespace separated by squircles.

matrix.org used to feature weechat-matrix among the recommended clients, but last I looked it wasn't there anymore. Dead project, probably. A shame.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#329

Post by pseudalopex »

neobrain wrote: post #116
pyb wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could Signal be considered privacy-conscious ? The first thing they do is ask for your phone number.

Signal has profiles nowadays that can be used to connect with people without sharing phone numbers. The latter are only used for signup and discarded immediately after.

Another comment contradicted this.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46959019

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#330

Post by pteraspidomorph »

As someone who has been on Discord since the beginning, runs Discord communities and writes Discord bots, here's my list of three things that I believe would make a viable Discord competitor:

- Free without requiring self-hosting;

- Absolutely frictionless community access - here's an invite link, you can start chatting immediately;

- High quality voice calls with screen sharing.

I don't think there is a competitor that hits all three points right now. Screen sharing in particular is often disregarded by developers who have limited interaction with Discord and don't truly understand the platform. It was not an original feature, but it is Discord's killer feature. Because screen sharing is also impromptu videogame streaming.

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