Alternatives to Discord

[Sentry64]

I did hear about polyphony but it isn't quite done yet since it's so early in development that it isn't in a usable state yet, but i thought i might slide it in here cause i thought it might've been interesting to keep an eye out for. (and possibly use in the future whenever it's done and ready)

I did try stoat (formerly called "Revolt", just a fun fact) but it seems a bit janky to me to be honest doesn't feel quite smooth, but that could just be me but it is somewhat usable in my opinion.

[alexela64]

the only reason why I use it is because that's already where a lot of my friends are and if I were to try convincing them to move to an alternative platform, it would be met with deaf ears.

This is my main issue with alternatives. Nearly everyone i know is not involved in the web revival circle so they have little to no technical or secure knowledge (they log in to a lot of stuff with google). I would have a lot of trouble migrating people from an ecosystem that they not only know well, but have customized with things like pins, favorited gifs, bots etc. I'm afraid that if I try to convince them to move off the platform, I'll be met with flat out refusal -- or worse, begrudging acceptance that leads to no one using the new setup.

Saying all this to ask, what would be the best discord alternative that maybe has a function to transfer a server? Does any such service exist?

[kringle]

Saying all this to ask, what would be the best discord alternative that maybe has a function to transfer a server? Does any such service exist?

idk about transfering servers but i was browsing through the different alternatives mentioned in this thread and it seems like matrix has several discord bridges? where you could have the server exist both on matrix and discord. maybe that could be a interim solution as you try to hook them into it?

[oversky]

Discord announcing age verification worldwide has been the push I needed to give migrating away a shot.

My discord server has a pretty high concentration of nerds so I'm going to have a go setting up a Matrix server, I'll let you know how it goes.

Does anyone have recommendations for client applications? Element seems like the default choice.

[lakes]

Does anyone have recommendations for client applications? Element seems like the default choice.

Element's more polished. But I use Nheko for the custom emojis and message search. I also have a friend who uses Fluffychat as their preferred Matrix app for similar reasons.

[Bone-A Lisa]

Unfortunately it seems that no service has been able to replicate everything that Discord does, in a single package. Things like Matrix do chat very well, but their voice / screensharing are not great. Teamspeak 6 honestly does way better than Discord for voice and video, but their text is awful to say the least 

I've kind of come to the conclusion that my group of friends is likely going to have to break up Discord into parts. When we get on and want to play games and share our screens, we will be in Teamspeak 6. And when we want to send texts to each other and have different text channels, Matrix is probably what we are going to use.

I just setup both a Teamspeak server and a Matrix server yesterday, so heres to hoping I can get my friends moved over easy 

[Gnee]

idk about transfering servers but i was browsing through the different alternatives mentioned in this thread and it seems like matrix has several discord bridges? where you could have the server exist both on matrix and discord. maybe that could be a interim solution as you try to hook them into it?

If anyone here has experience using Matrix, I'd really love to know more about how good bridging is. I run a small community and the most ideal thing, of course, would be to have a frictionless alternative that doesn't fragment said community. My friend running the community with me says he's seen someone use a channel that Matrix bridges to, but it's not very reliable or consistent, with some messages not coming through at all. That could be dependent on the hosting, of course- if they're self hosting with a mediocre connection or something. But if not, then bridging isn't all that useful to begin with if it doesn't work.

The other option I'm looking at is Stout. It seems very similar, and it being open source gives me some hope for it in the long run. I don't expect it to be as polished as Discord is at this stage, but it's hard to tell what others will put up with.

It sucks because I'm trying to keep a community around my game, so it's not just about what me and my friends are willing to make the switch to, but how to keep as many out of about 200 people as possible. :/

[lakes]

The other option I'm looking at is Stout. It seems very similar, and it being open source gives me some hope for it in the long run. I don't expect it to be as polished as Discord is at this stage, but it's hard to tell what others will put up with.

I used to be on Stoat back when it was called Revolt. However as a warning, the moderation has gotten worse over time, it doesn't have end to end encryption, and I think they introduced a paid tier.