With discord doing awful things I’ve started looking into alternatives. If you don’t know what’s up with discord, read this.
Possible full replacements
Fluxer - Is a baby, working on getting features working. Has a great TOS. No mobile apps. Self hosting planned in the future.
Update 2/21: Fluxer is having significant load issues, however they have posted that they are moving to a new host.
Stoat (Formerly Revolt) - Going through a ton of struggles internally. Has less completed features then Fluxer does. Just really not worth the trouble. Has a mobile app for Android though, so they’re progressing. This one really is the top contender with Fluxer.
Valour - Created by someone wrongfully removed from Discord it is not a direct discord clone and is aiming to have some features Discord doesn’t have like split chats. No screenshare, no desktop app, no mobile app.
Update: 2/20: Valour now has screenshare. It’s currently free for all users to use HD screen share until they can no longer afford to offer that. They also posted on their Twitter that self hosting is in the pipeline.
Root - This one was written off instantly after reading their TOS and Privacy policy. Looks like a pretty solid platform with desktop apps for all 3 OSs ready as well as mobile apps. The interface feels very much like discord. Has screenshare.
Update 2/21: Root has rewritten their privacy policy, this is a very strong contender now.
Spacebar - Small potatoes it’s not worth comparing to the Fluxer and Sloat. It’s not ready for anything big. It is self hosted though, that’s great, but because it’s ONLY self hosted, people would most likely not vibe with this option.
Matrix - If you’re a nerd you wish this would win, but it won’t because for most people it’s just not familiar enough. It’s almost like the exact spot between Discord and Telegram. Great security, self host-able, federated, encrypted. A nerds wet dream really.
If you’re looking into matrix you’ll also need to pick a chat client.
Element is a bit more fleshed out. It’s the go to for most users.
Element X is Element for mobile, but it’s missing a good bit of the features Element has.
Cinny feels like slack, that means it also feels like Discord.
There are others but I’m talking about matrix way too much here.
Text chat only replacements
You would probably need to pair anything here with something from the group below
Telegram - Can’t replace discord, doesn’t have persistent voice chats. UI is pretty different from Discords, but not in a bad way, adoption would be low. Great for DMs though. E2E encryption with very little effort. I moved my IRLs here and I’ll never look back. The monetization doesn’t touch severs, it makes money off of people that run announcements channels and splits the revenue for ads with them. The side effect of that is Telegram has become the home for many scams.
Voice Chat only replacements
You would probably need to pair anything here with something from the group above
TeamSpeak 6 - It just can’t replace Discord. Voice quality is amazing, but without persistent text channels people will never get on board. UI still feels pretty bad. I wonder how good this app would be if they spent as much money on their dev team as they do their social media guy who dunks on Discord constantly.
Mumble - It’s a lighter Teamspeak, honestly better, but the UI is very very dated. No persistent text channels so again, it’s ruled out as a direct replacement. Also holy shit this website looks like it was built in the 90s. Anyway if you play EvE, you’ll use this.
After Thought
Why in gods name did Roblox feel the need to buy and kill Guilded? The choice would have been so easy if not for that.