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Discord Alternatives, Ranked

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Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#361

Post by monooso »

rcakebread wrote: post #355
monooso wrote: post #207

I'm a little surprised nobody has mentioned Campfire [1]. It's open source, trivial to self-host, and can support an arbitrary number of rooms and users. Sure, it doesn't have all of Discord's bells and whistles (for better or worse), but then neither do some of the alternatives mentioned in the article. [1]: https://once.com/campfire

The owner's terrible reputation, no mystery here.

You may of course choose not to use this software because you disagree with the personal politics of one of the creators, DHH.

However, the owner (37signals, not DHH) has an excellent reputation for producing high quality web applications since the early 2000s.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#362

Post by monooso »

doakes wrote: post #359
monooso wrote: post #207

I'm a little surprised nobody has mentioned Campfire [1]. It's open source, trivial to self-host, and can support an arbitrary number of rooms and users. Sure, it doesn't have all of Discord's bells and whistles (for better or worse), but then neither do some of the alternatives mentioned in the article. [1]: https://once.com/campfire

"After you checkout, we’ll email you a private download link that includes everything you need."

It used to be a paid product, now it's free. There's a clear link to the source code on GitHub [1], so you don't need to go through the "checkout".

[1]: https://github.com/basecamp/once-campfire

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#363

Post by secabeen »

BowBun wrote: post #276
cheeseomlit wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most people use Discord for its community features and being able to join massive servers with 1+ million people Do they? Personally I've never willingly joined one of those massive servers, only when forced to by some projects that refuse to host their content anywhere else- and its always a terrible experience. 99% of my discord usage is just a group chat with my IRL friends, so when looking for alternative I dont…

They have >200 million DAUs and guesses say they have >10K servers with >10K users. Assumptions from a tech crowd who were used to IRC should be taken with a grain of salt. Now if we're just looking for alternatives for ourselves, cool. But I think the reality is that most normal users do fully lean into the social aspects of Discord. A server like Marvel Rivals has literally millions of users. Players join that disc…

> A server like Marvel Rivals has literally millions of users. Players join that discord to socialize with all of those players and build a community around the game.

That is totally true, but is that server really going to be one with NSFW content or channels? Those huge servers are great spaces, but every one I've been on is fully functional if you are on a "teen account" without doing ID/Age verification.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#364

Post by zaneyard »

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…

I think the reason discord got so popular is because of the ease of use. Being able to join a server with a link (and not even having to download a client if you don't want), being able to see who's in voice without "connecting" to the server like mumble or teamspeak, persistent chat. This is what is unique about discord; all those other things came later. This is the user experience the alternatives need to replicate. Custom emojis are not a deal breaker, the hangout experience is.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#365

Post by tabbott »

a3w wrote: post #211
koolala wrote: post #26

Zulip actually looks pretty good if they made it a little sexier.

I opened issues which were technically not feasile, it turns out. The server seems to do way too much logic to make this a better app, with offline first or even just "having a search that works" clients. See also my and other users feedback about their UI in: Zulips values (24 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46953815

Zulip web is one of the best modern chat apps for intermittently offline use, and we put a lot of effort into making it that way.

For example, if you had it open on your laptop with a window open, suspend it, and open it up on a plane, you can read the last few weeks of message history, compose replies that will send when you regain network, etc. I do this regularly on flights.

We always have ideas for how to improve this further, and the mobile app doesn't do as extensive caching as the web app does, but it's not an issue of technical feasibility. The protocol was designed for mixed online/offline use from the beginning.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#367

Post by dvngnt_ »

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…

Stoat isn't working well for me. It's taken over 24 hours to try to register a new account. First I couldn't register after doing several captchas. Then I had to wait for a verification email which took over 12 hours. I signed in to one client, but attempting to reset a password results in the same waiting game and error when selecting a new password.

I wish for the best, but they're probably putting out fires from the increased load

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#368

Post by w4rh4wk5 »

cheeseomlit wrote: post #237
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…

>Most people use Discord for its community features and being able to join massive servers with 1+ million people Do they? Personally I've never willingly joined one of those massive servers, only when forced to by some projects that refuse to host their content anywhere else- and its always a terrible experience. 99% of my discord usage is just a group chat with my IRL friends, so when looking for alternative I dont…

From personal experience, yes. Most of my friends are part of multiple large servers, often interacting with a small subsets of these communities. At this point, I don't think there is a comparable alternative.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#369

Post by giancarlostoro »

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…

The closest realistic option is probably XMPP and Mumble. I just think both need a modern UI that supports everything that Discord offers OOTB. I am working on a client for XMPP on the side, nothing special yet, but I can login and chat with myself on a prosody instance, so there is that. Would love to work on open source full time, but it never seems to pay the bills. I do intend on eventually open sourcing my client.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#370

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

opan wrote: post #264
SkiFire13 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I recently set up a Mumble server on my home server That makes you an even smaller minority unfortunately. Most people are not going to set up a home server.

It's semantics, really. Run the server executable on any computer in your house. Done. If you don't leave your computer on 24/7, the Mumble server isn't up 24/7. Oh well. If you use it to talk to friends, you'll presumably have your computer on when you want to use it yourself anyway.

I ran it on a Raspberry Pi (I think first or second gen) for a few years.

It requires next to no CPU time, since the server is effectively just a packet relay.

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