To save you a click (because its a waste of an article):
TeamSpeak, GameVox, Signal
Except for maybe GameVox, these are not really discord alternatives at all. But thats closed source and this is their pricing page 🤮
32kbps audio? 2h a month screenshare? 20 “AI banners” a month??? lmao. Get the fuck outta here.
Open source options not mentioned in article:
Movim: uses XMPP, supports E2EE, can do group chats, group video calls and screen sharing. Dev is currently developing discord-like channels with rooms.
Fluxer: Newly released GPLv3 discord clone coded from scratch. Still rough with some features like screen sharing not working reliably. Doesn’t currently support E2EE or federation (is planned), but can be self-hosted.
Also worth a mention is Spacebar.chat, formerly fosscord. This is my favorite overall, but sounds almost like it’s in the same spot as Fluxxer as far as where it is in the dev process.
But having used Discord heavily since 2016, I’ve got to say even at the time of pandemic I wouldn’t really have considered Discord itself “feature complete”, and really was it ever?
Thankfully for Fluxer, E2EE and federation are not deal-breakers for the average Discord user, who has never had either of those things. The top priorities for a developer looking for Discord refugees should probably be speedy chat, media sharing, and smooth voice + video calls.
Apparently Matrix no longer exists…
People love to hate on Matrix, yet somehow it’s being used by governments in Europe.
This article definitely skipped out on a lot of potential alternatives, but I have tried Matrix myself and found it to be lacking.
