Time for a #discord alternatives thread, for no particular reason.

First, Rocket Chat.

* Released
* Paid after 50 users (nb: a "community" edition exists too)
* OSS
* Self-hostable
* No E2E (nb: has it manually for DMs)
* Supports calls
* No web client (nb: does have a web client)

(nb: feedback in the replies points to rocket.chat perhaps being more viable than I thought)

This one had so much promise, but from what I can tell is enshittifying in a similar vein to Discord. Not being free beyond 50 users even self-hosted is weird to me for an OSS project.

Next, Slack.

* Fully released
* Limited free use
* Closed Source
* Not self-hostable
* No E2E
* Supports calls
* Supported everywhere

Slack. Slaaaack. Everyone knows slack. It's also enshitified over the years for free users. I don't think it's worth jumping from one corpo closed ecosystem to another, but YMMV.

Mattermost sometimes comes up

* Fully released
* Limited free use*
* "Open core"?
* Self-hostable
* Some E2E?
* Supports calls
* No web app (*correction: appears to have one)

Mattermost is interesting, but seems to be far more of an enterprise solution. It's even hard to figure out *what* you get from self hosting, what actually is open source, etc.

I think it's probably worth investigating further if you're looking for something for your company/teams?

Pumble.

* Fully released
* Free tier is quite limited
* Not OSS
* Not Self-hostable
* Not E2E
* Has calls (but paid)
* Very limited moderation at free tier
* Supported everywhere

Pumble sems to basically just be bringing the fight to slack, and honestly it seems to be doing a good job of it. Because of that though it's clearly not going to take a bite out of any sort of grass-roots community work.

Check it out if you're the rare person who doesn't like Slack but still wants to use Slack?

Zulip

* Fully released
* Free
* Open Source
* Self-hostable
* No E2E
* Uses external plugins for calls
* Great moderation tools
* Supported everywhere

Zulip on paper sounds so close to being good! But dozens of weird UI choices forced me away. Zulip's UX is far more like a set of forums than a chat app. It's trying something new and I commend it for that, but I think it'll be a hard sell for many people.

Spacebar

* Early days
* Free
* Open Source
* Self-hostable
* No E2E
* No calls (yet)
* Mod tools just like discord (soon)
* Only a web app

I'll admit this isn't a serious consideration, but deserves a call-out. Spacebar is an attempt to re-implement the discord server itself with identical API. This could be a great transitionary tool, it could plausibly mean we get all the good of Discord with none of the crap, but it's simply nowhere near ready from what I can tell.

Stoat (née Revolt)

* Still somewhat beta
* Free
* Open Source
* Self-hostable*
* No E2E (planned)
* Calls (video planned)
* Mod tools just like discord
* Available everywhere

Stoat is the closest thing we have to a Discord killer, and is very much a discord clone, for better or worse. There's also something wonderful about seeing stuff like "femboy kingdom" among it's most popular servers, it's just so wonderfully queer coded and old-internet?

(stoat cont.)

Unfortunately the data sovereignty isn't there - it doesn't have E2E yet, and none of the apps support connecting to self-hosted servers.

I also have to advise caution - the folks making it seem to have their hearts in the right place, but have no true funding model plans outside of donations and a future thought of offering a nitro-a-like.

It's GPL license will likely prevent enshitification, but without E2E or improved self-hostingcompat I won't be jumping in just yet.

And finally, Matrix. This is by far the most common suggestion I get. Especially here given the shared ethos of federation.

* Fully released
* Free
* Open Source
* Self-hostable*
* E2E
* Calls*
* Moderation*
* Supported everywhere

Matrix fills in *so* many of the requirements here, but still has issues.

You can self-host, but your homeserver has to host the full history and data in any channel that a signed up user joins. You could however not allow sign-ups, and just have channels.

(matrix cont.) You can choose to self-host but not federate, but the major apps don't support multiple accounts, so it feels like an unfederated homeserver has quite limited use.

It's call support is currently in flux, with two methods that different apps support in different ways, plus some calls break out to external services in non-obvious ways.

It also has fundamentally weak moderation tools, at least from a community standpoint, with basically no viable equivalent to roles or scopes.

(matrix cont.) Overall Matrix feels like a brilliant evolution on IRC, in a wonderfully old-school kind of way. Unfortunately that brings with it some goofyness and hard to understand intricacies.

Matrix is one of the few options that lets you self-host *and* still connect with all the other communities, and that's wonderful.

I want it to succeed, and it'll probably be my choice, but it's gonna take work to operate communities in it effectively.

Here's hoping all that was useful to someone. I spent some time looking for a thread/post/blog like this when I first went searching, but couldn't find it, so here's me paying it forward for the next person.

@mdiluz It was helpful to me.

I’m looking to replace a few different Discord communities that operate differently, and I think Zulip might be a good fit for one, and Matrix (& Element) might be a good fit for another.

Time for a #discord alternatives thread, for no particular reason.

I've actually been looking into all available options for the past few weeks for other reasons, so here's a thread to share what I've found.

In particular I'm looking for stuff with:
* Data sovereignty
* Strong moderation tools
* Wide platform support

Hopefully this gives everyone else some ideas too, and feel free to chime in with corrections, suggestions or anything else!

@mdiluz
Anything else? >:3c

Mac'n'Cheese but you use a bag of store bought elbow macaroni and a can of nacho cheese sauce.

Also I think Matrix might be worth investing some time into. I do miss IRC.

First, Rocket Chat.

* Released
* Paid after 50 users (nb: a "community" edition exists too)
* OSS
* Self-hostable
* No E2E (nb: has it manually for DMs)
* Supports calls
* No web client (nb: does have a web client)

(nb: feedback in the replies points to rocket.chat perhaps being more viable than I thought)

This one had so much promise, but from what I can tell is enshittifying in a similar vein to Discord. Not being free beyond 50 users even self-hosted is weird to me for an OSS project.

(matrix cont.) Overall Matrix feels like a brilliant evolution on IRC, in a wonderfully old-school kind of way. Unfortunately that brings with it some goofyness and hard to understand intricacies.

Matrix is one of the few options that lets you self-host *and* still connect with all the other communities, and that's wonderful.

I want it to succeed, and it'll probably be my choice, but it's gonna take work to operate communities in it effectively.

Time for a #discord alternatives thread, for no particular reason.

I've actually been looking into all available options for the past few weeks for other reasons, so here's a thread to share what I've found.

In particular I'm looking for stuff with:
* Data sovereignty
* Strong moderation tools
* Wide platform support

Hopefully this gives everyone else some ideas too, and feel free to chime in with corrections, suggestions or anything else!

@mdiluz how does Threema fare?

@philipdrobar to me Threema is more of a Signal competitor, I hadn't really considered it in the context of community building. I should really give it a try though so that opinion is more informed! Do you use it?