Stoat - pretty much same UI, based in UK, not sure where they get $$
Fluxer - looks virtually like 1:1 Discord clone, based in Sweden, has paid tier pretty much like Nitro on Discord on official server
Nerimity - a little different UI, but still very Discord-y, based in UK, sourced from donations
Movim - this one is interesting, but it’s not really Discord style app; it looks more like cross breed between IM and social network (FB/X), origin in France
Strafe - looks like Discord, supposedly have e2ee
Spacebar - reverse engineered Discord, IDK about maturity of this one
but it’s not really Discord style app; it looks more like cross breed between IM and social network (FB/X)
It has a built-in blog feature that communities or individuals can use to post announcements or articles to the whole instance, but it’s pretty easily ignored by just clicking the messages tab, which doesn’t show them at all, and makes the interface look more like Discord.
Considering how many people are literally demanding and harassing the dev of fluxer to let him let them help him. I don’t think the 1 dude working on it is going to be a problem for long lol
This looked perfect! Right up until the no API support. By no means am I asking of that either, just happens to look really nice but also lack that feature.
The MIT license of Voltage is a big red flag for me, as it could allow for either a corporate takeover, or for the company to abandon the open-source version in favor of a closed-source version that they can sell or enshittify.
Roomy has pretty much the same problem being licensed under the MPL license, which allows for the project to be packaged into a closed-source proprietary product. I’d avoid it too, despite it being federated. The license is just too risky, and the only reason not to choose GPL is because the devs likely want that capital purchase exit strategy.
There’s a lot devs who know there’s potentially a lot of money to me made in a successful Discord alternative. They smell the blood in the water, know the venture capital vultures it attracts, and they’ll try to exploit the free labor that open-source projects bring, only to sell us out down the road after all the work has been done.
I’d say any option we move to must be licensed under GPL as a hard requirement, as that ensures it can never be exploited by corpos, and will remain owned by the community forever so that we don’t have to migrate again any time soon.
The two best options on the table that fill that niche are:
Movim (Pros: GPL, federated, encrypted, can do chat, voice calls and screenshare, based on the battle tested XMPP open standard. Cons: is currently missing discord-like rooms, but the dev is working in it)
Fluxer (New kid on the block, still very buggy, but is AGPL licensed and plans federation and encryption in the future. Backend is still unproven, don’t know how well it scales, but one to keep an eye on)
Do people really use screen share that much? (Sadly) I use discord to reach a lot of my friends for multiple years and we actually used screen share maybe twice? Three times?
I personally use it quite a lot, as do my friends. Typically use it to stream a movie to watch together, or to share the game they’re playing while we talk.
It’s one of the single most used features there are outside of voip and text.
It’s Mandatory for a discord alterative.
This is a big reason why every alterative keeps failing. Linux and open source users are so fucking out of touch with normal users it’s absurd. They want and focus on all the wrong things and then complain when their apps don’t get popular.
Like federation is cool and all but literally fuck and all people give a single flying fuck about it outside of the nerdy in crowd.
Screen sharing on the other hand is a hard line the majority of normal users either refuse to live with out or have friends that do. Thus making it a make it or break it for most groups.
I’m honestly surprised it’s used that much. My guild (mostly working fathers) used to use TS3 and once discord appeared we switched there for the ease of it. Still used it mostly as voice chat with text channels being nice to have. But screen sharing? Pretty much non existent, quite a few people streamed on twitch, so we never really needed it.
Same with all the other groups I’m part of there. It’s always text + voice, also GIF and meme spam and stuff. But screen share? Virtually zero.
Well, Discord’s UI is certainly not the holy grail, but it’s quite functional and people are used to it. So it’s pretty much logical you copy the concept to some extent when you want to appeal to these people?
I don’t think it’s necessarily the goal — Discord is just a helpful yardstick to compare things to as a baseline (and some people are looking for something that replaces Discord as closely as possible). Having to switch services is a pain, and whilst it’s not optimal in the long term to just try to replace a thing with a clone, I can see why people don’t have the executive function energy to think too hard about this.
There are actually many, many options. It’s hard to guess which one will get the momentum and lift off though. You probably don’t want to convince all your friends to switch to another platform just to see it die in half a year…
I’ve seen mentioned these:
It has a built-in blog feature that communities or individuals can use to post announcements or articles to the whole instance, but it’s pretty easily ignored by just clicking the messages tab, which doesn’t show them at all, and makes the interface look more like Discord.
Saw this a few days ago.
It’s literally on Fluxer.
Pros:
Cons:
Considering how many people are literally demanding and harassing the dev of fluxer to let him let them help him. I don’t think the 1 dude working on it is going to be a problem for long lol
This looked perfect! Right up until the no API support. By no means am I asking of that either, just happens to look really nice but also lack that feature.
Seems like they have something: https://docs.fluxer.app/
Oh cool my bad! Didnt dig deep enough into it. I’ll have to give it a look
I’ve also seen Roomy and Voltage mentioned around too but haven’t personally looked into them.
The MIT license of Voltage is a big red flag for me, as it could allow for either a corporate takeover, or for the company to abandon the open-source version in favor of a closed-source version that they can sell or enshittify.
Roomy has pretty much the same problem being licensed under the MPL license, which allows for the project to be packaged into a closed-source proprietary product. I’d avoid it too, despite it being federated. The license is just too risky, and the only reason not to choose GPL is because the devs likely want that capital purchase exit strategy.
There’s a lot devs who know there’s potentially a lot of money to me made in a successful Discord alternative. They smell the blood in the water, know the venture capital vultures it attracts, and they’ll try to exploit the free labor that open-source projects bring, only to sell us out down the road after all the work has been done.
I’d say any option we move to must be licensed under GPL as a hard requirement, as that ensures it can never be exploited by corpos, and will remain owned by the community forever so that we don’t have to migrate again any time soon.
The two best options on the table that fill that niche are:
Stoat still doesn’t have screenshare. It’s also a bloody stupid name - I have no idea who thought that re-brand was a good idea.
Fluxer seems to support it though.
BNoth can be self-hosted, which is a nice bonus.
Do people really use screen share that much? (Sadly) I use discord to reach a lot of my friends for multiple years and we actually used screen share maybe twice? Three times?
I use it daily for both work and play.
In 3d work and game dev it’s often far easier to just show people things quickly through it.
When playing coop games our group will all stream so we can see everyone’s PoV. We’ll also occasionally use it to watch a movie together.
I personally use it quite a lot, as do my friends. Typically use it to stream a movie to watch together, or to share the game they’re playing while we talk.
It’s one of the single most used features there are outside of voip and text.
It’s Mandatory for a discord alterative.
This is a big reason why every alterative keeps failing. Linux and open source users are so fucking out of touch with normal users it’s absurd. They want and focus on all the wrong things and then complain when their apps don’t get popular.
Like federation is cool and all but literally fuck and all people give a single flying fuck about it outside of the nerdy in crowd.
Screen sharing on the other hand is a hard line the majority of normal users either refuse to live with out or have friends that do. Thus making it a make it or break it for most groups.
I’m honestly surprised it’s used that much. My guild (mostly working fathers) used to use TS3 and once discord appeared we switched there for the ease of it. Still used it mostly as voice chat with text channels being nice to have. But screen sharing? Pretty much non existent, quite a few people streamed on twitch, so we never really needed it.
Same with all the other groups I’m part of there. It’s always text + voice, also GIF and meme spam and stuff. But screen share? Virtually zero.
That’s why I’m so surprised.
I have used it multiple times every day this week.
Why is “one-to-one clone of Discord” the goal for everyone? Why not set your sights on a making a good UX instead?
Well, Discord’s UI is certainly not the holy grail, but it’s quite functional and people are used to it. So it’s pretty much logical you copy the concept to some extent when you want to appeal to these people?
ngl, discord kinda had the best UX before the enshittification began
Hard disagree, but there are millions of people using it so what do I know.
I don’t think it’s necessarily the goal — Discord is just a helpful yardstick to compare things to as a baseline (and some people are looking for something that replaces Discord as closely as possible). Having to switch services is a pain, and whilst it’s not optimal in the long term to just try to replace a thing with a clone, I can see why people don’t have the executive function energy to think too hard about this.
So you’re saying there are options.
Doesn’t Stoat charge far out the ass?
There are actually many, many options. It’s hard to guess which one will get the momentum and lift off though. You probably don’t want to convince all your friends to switch to another platform just to see it die in half a year…