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Discord is also proprietary software and is backed by Tencent. Read the privacy policy, it might surprise you. Please try investing in Free, Open Source altern

by m712 7y ago

Discord is also proprietary software and is backed by Tencent. Read the privacy policy, it might surprise you. Please try investing in Free, Open Source alternatives first.

Pfhreak 7y ago
Have any suggestions? I am not aware of any that function as well or as broadly. I would be thrilled to be wrong.
- fladd 7y ago
  https://matrix.org https://matrix.org with https://riot.im https://riot.im as a client.
  - Pfhreak 7y ago
    Color me thrilled. These look fantastic.
sxp 7y ago
What's the best Free alternative? Since WebRTC is pretty powerful & cross platform, is there a really good WebRTC text + audio chat system that matches the core functionality of Discord?
- fladd 7y ago
  https://matrix.org https://matrix.org with https://riot.im https://riot.im as a client.
  - przmk 7y ago
    I do not use Discord but I'm under the impression that it has voice channels like Mumble and Teamspeak whereas Matrix does not (yet) have them. This is a big deal-breaker for many teams and I'm definitely waiting until it has that feature before I deploy my own server. For a chat-only replacement, it's definitely perfect.
    - petersjt014 7y ago
      Voice chat is apparently harder to implement, but it's still possible to do right now with Jitsi [1]. And even without it, Matrix supports an 'opt-in' style of voice channel that should work fine with smaller groups. [1]: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/6471 https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/6471
  - cwyers 7y ago
    For anyone without the wherewithal to deploy their own Matrix server and without a friend who has one, it looks like there's nothing like the (generous) Discord free tier. Looking at the recommended hosting provider on Riot.im's website: https://modular.im/services/matrix-hosting#fair-billing-policy https://modular.im/services/matrix-hosting#fair-billing-poli... It looks like if I wanted to invite 10 friends to my room on Modular.im, I'd have to pay $17.50, compared to $0 for Discord.
    - petersjt014 7y ago
      A closer equivalent would be riot.im's servers, which are free in the same way as Discord/IRC's public rooms are. If you wanted custom integrations or the like you'd have to pay out for it, but the free option's still there. You can find a decent number of communities there--#GnuLinuxLovers comes to mind.
    - petersjt014 7y ago
      I should also say that Matrix has a lot of other really nice aspects to it that give Discord and friends a run for their money: - Open source. Self-explanatory. - Federated. Sure, you can probably redundant-ify your IRC server with Apache Something and Amazon AWS/ Cloudflare whatever if you really wanted to, but I regularly see Matrix rooms with 10+ addresses because the protocol's designed around that redundancy, not the other way around. And of course with Discord none of this even applies...good luck if Intern Greg elbows the Big Red Button, or they pull a yahoo groups/google+/etc. - The protocol leaves a lot of room for experimentation that Discord isn't nearly open enough for. [1][2][3] - There's bridges to other discord, irc, and dozens of other platforms, sidestepping the adoption problem (note that there's been even more added since this graphic was made). [4] They aren't exactly languishing in obscurity either: the government of France is one of their userbases [5]. Yeah, I'd say Discord-style VC would be nice, but the lack if it isn't exactly holding them back. [1]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/matrix-live/ https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/matrix-live/ [2]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/freebird/ https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/freebird/ [3]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/lightrix/ https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/lightrix/ [4]: https://matrix.org/blog/2017/03/11/how-do-i-bridge-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/ https://matrix.org/blog/2017/03/11/how-do-i-bridge-thee-let-... [5]: https://vector.im/#case-studies https://vector.im/#case-studies
  - clarry 7y ago
    How about a portable & lightweight client?
    - jeltz 7y ago
      For the chat there is weechat, but I do not think any of lightweight the clients with audio support are mature.
    - petersjt014 7y ago
      If you want a _really_ lightweight matrix client, I'd say <300 lines of Go would be pretty light. Go is quite portable too: https://gitlab.com/meutraa/mm/tree/master https://gitlab.com/meutraa/mm/tree/master
- arminiusreturns 7y ago
  I would say mattermost and/or mumble. Each has it's strengths and weaknesses, and neither completely fills the discord role, but I think as soon as mattermost has a murmur integration it will be the place to be. Also irc is totally underrated.
  - croon 7y ago
    I've been on IRC more or less 24/7 since 1996 and love it, and started using Mumble in 2005 or 6. While I think they're both great, neither of them are an alternative to Discord. Getting in? One click on email/URL and then sign up. Join a channel? One click. Voice chat? One click. Stream your game? One click. Seamlessly switch to mobile app? Done. I have yet to meet a user that can't get into it with just an invite link. It's amazingly user friendly. And if I want to, I can granularly create roles for users and administrators of arbitrary levels and access rights. I share the privacy concerns, and that I can't grep any logs easily (though with voice chat that's harder regardless), but simply from a user perspective if it wasn't for the network effect of my IRC communities, and Messenger groups, I could happily just use Discord tomorrow. I strongly dislike that it's closed source and partly Chinese owned, but I've been using Messenger to reach people I couldn't on IRC for years already, and that experience is much worse, with no privacy gain. Credit where credit is due, they knocked it out of the park in most aspects.
  - przmk 7y ago
    There are no web clients for Murmur that supports voice to my knowledge. What makes you think it will be possible to integrate both?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - arminiusreturns 7y ago
      There is one: https://github.com/Johni0702/mumble-web https://github.com/Johni0702/mumble-web Also the protocol is open so it should be doable: https://mumble-protocol.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://mumble-protocol.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ For those curious about the switch from murmur to mumble in our conversation, murmur is the server side, while mumble is the client side.
kbar13 7y ago
what's surprising about discord's privacy policy? it seems pretty straightforward. we can push open source alternatives all you want but the truth is that these alternatives don't do a good enough job with the most valuable part of social networks: building the network. yes, word of mouth is a big part of growth, but the developers also need to put in work. discord didn't simply blow up because early adopters told their friends and so on, as much as we want to think that to be the case.
- modo_mario 7y ago
  Honestly I don't think that's the reason at all i've never seen anything push by discord or it's developers that actually worked and affected me or people I know. No advertising until it reached critical mass. No invite incentive programs that made people get it going (despite apparently there being that one month free nitro thing most people don't know off) Most people came because a)others were there and had chosen it as a platform. b) It's just really nice in every way (other than the bottomline control an privacy part) c) There's no competitors that completely match it's functionality and profit model or if they tried to get close they came too late. You have your voice chats, video chat and of course text chats. No trouble hosting servers. Easily and extensively customisable modding, structure, permissions, etc. Pins, pings, etc Almost all functionality one might need is there and if it isn't there's bots for it. Sharing and inviting is easy. No time limit on how long stuff is saved or needing to be online to see messages. Linked images, articles, videos what have you show up nicely. Theming is consistent. It works on every OS (except maybe bsd idk) and the browsers consistently so you won't have one group being left out and crusading against it. Everything is in a single place unlike the various irc networks. Want to show a pic you took? a webm? No need to host it somewhere else first. If there was an open source alternative that got close hell yes of course I'd use it. I'd consider it a big bonus that i'd drop a bit of functionality for. But as it stands there's no comparable private alternatives either.
  - kbar13 7y ago
    yes as i said, word of mouth is an important part of growth. but word of mouth doesn't just happen out of nowhere. discord knows their market, did their research, and did tons of work behind the scenes in marketing, partnerships, developing features that would add growth, etc. you see discord literally everywhere at events, other social media platforms, involved in communities. where do you see this kind of effort from open source alternatives? i believe this is the biggest issue with the "alternatives". my perception is that they think they built an amazing product and that people should just start using it. but that's not how that works.
cyborgx7 7y ago
>Please try investing in Free, Open Source alternatives first. I did. I put a lot of effort into staying as FOSS as possible. Discord is the thing that got me to compromise this, by being so incredibly good.
- emptysongglass 7y ago
  I find Discord to be the worst UX for a chat app I can imagine. And nothing is open source so what few client alternatives there are live in mortal danger of having their API hacks closed. No replies? Why after all this time are there still no replies? Default notification settings are still to flood you every time you add a "server". Attachment limits are tiny. And can I just say as a sysadmin calling your chat rooms "servers" is a huge slap in the face to my profession? The welcome messages are infantile and spammy. Who knows about any privacy at all on the platform. I could go on and on and on and on.
  - 1_player 7y ago
    No replies is a feature. Grown with IRC, Slack replies are awful and so awkward to use. Should I check "Also send reply to #channel?" or not? I check it 50% of the time and I still don't know if I should. I hate them.
    - CodesInChaos 7y ago
      Slack only has an embedded thread feature, not a reply feature. Stackexchange chat has a proper reply feature. You can reply to a message in the same channel. Your message still goes on the bottom of the current channel, but it pings(highlights) the user and contains a link icon to the original message. Hovering on a reply also highlights the message it responds to (if it's on the screen). This is mainly used when responding to older messages, where it otherwise wouldn't be easy to see what you're responding to.
    - comis 7y ago
      I agree, Slack replies are awful. The only chat reply feature I've ever enjoyed was Flowdock's. It doesn't create threads it just connects replies with colors. It's great.
onikolas7 7y ago
Lets hope Linus needs voice and chat one day...

by m712 7y ago

Discord is also proprietary software and is backed by Tencent. Read the privacy policy, it might surprise you. Please try investing in Free, Open Source alternatives first.

Pfhreak 7y ago

Have any suggestions? I am not aware of any that function as well or as broadly. I would be thrilled to be wrong.

fladd 7y ago
https://matrix.org https://matrix.org with https://riot.im https://riot.im as a client.
- Pfhreak 7y ago
  Color me thrilled. These look fantastic.

sxp 7y ago

What's the best Free alternative? Since WebRTC is pretty powerful & cross platform, is there a really good WebRTC text + audio chat system that matches the core functionality of Discord?

fladd 7y ago
https://matrix.org https://matrix.org with https://riot.im https://riot.im as a client.
- przmk 7y ago
  I do not use Discord but I'm under the impression that it has voice channels like Mumble and Teamspeak whereas Matrix does not (yet) have them. This is a big deal-breaker for many teams and I'm definitely waiting until it has that feature before I deploy my own server. For a chat-only replacement, it's definitely perfect.
  - petersjt014 7y ago
    Voice chat is apparently harder to implement, but it's still possible to do right now with Jitsi [1]. And even without it, Matrix supports an 'opt-in' style of voice channel that should work fine with smaller groups. [1]: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/6471 https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/6471
- cwyers 7y ago
  For anyone without the wherewithal to deploy their own Matrix server and without a friend who has one, it looks like there's nothing like the (generous) Discord free tier. Looking at the recommended hosting provider on Riot.im's website: https://modular.im/services/matrix-hosting#fair-billing-policy https://modular.im/services/matrix-hosting#fair-billing-poli... It looks like if I wanted to invite 10 friends to my room on Modular.im, I'd have to pay $17.50, compared to $0 for Discord.
  - petersjt014 7y ago
    A closer equivalent would be riot.im's servers, which are free in the same way as Discord/IRC's public rooms are. If you wanted custom integrations or the like you'd have to pay out for it, but the free option's still there. You can find a decent number of communities there--#GnuLinuxLovers comes to mind.
  - petersjt014 7y ago
    I should also say that Matrix has a lot of other really nice aspects to it that give Discord and friends a run for their money: - Open source. Self-explanatory. - Federated. Sure, you can probably redundant-ify your IRC server with Apache Something and Amazon AWS/ Cloudflare whatever if you really wanted to, but I regularly see Matrix rooms with 10+ addresses because the protocol's designed around that redundancy, not the other way around. And of course with Discord none of this even applies...good luck if Intern Greg elbows the Big Red Button, or they pull a yahoo groups/google+/etc. - The protocol leaves a lot of room for experimentation that Discord isn't nearly open enough for. [1][2][3] - There's bridges to other discord, irc, and dozens of other platforms, sidestepping the adoption problem (note that there's been even more added since this graphic was made). [4] They aren't exactly languishing in obscurity either: the government of France is one of their userbases [5]. Yeah, I'd say Discord-style VC would be nice, but the lack if it isn't exactly holding them back. [1]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/matrix-live/ https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/matrix-live/ [2]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/freebird/ https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/freebird/ [3]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/lightrix/ https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/lightrix/ [4]: https://matrix.org/blog/2017/03/11/how-do-i-bridge-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/ https://matrix.org/blog/2017/03/11/how-do-i-bridge-thee-let-... [5]: https://vector.im/#case-studies https://vector.im/#case-studies
- clarry 7y ago
  How about a portable & lightweight client?
  - jeltz 7y ago
    For the chat there is weechat, but I do not think any of lightweight the clients with audio support are mature.
  - petersjt014 7y ago
    If you want a _really_ lightweight matrix client, I'd say <300 lines of Go would be pretty light. Go is quite portable too: https://gitlab.com/meutraa/mm/tree/master https://gitlab.com/meutraa/mm/tree/master
arminiusreturns 7y ago
I would say mattermost and/or mumble. Each has it's strengths and weaknesses, and neither completely fills the discord role, but I think as soon as mattermost has a murmur integration it will be the place to be. Also irc is totally underrated.
- croon 7y ago
  I've been on IRC more or less 24/7 since 1996 and love it, and started using Mumble in 2005 or 6. While I think they're both great, neither of them are an alternative to Discord. Getting in? One click on email/URL and then sign up. Join a channel? One click. Voice chat? One click. Stream your game? One click. Seamlessly switch to mobile app? Done. I have yet to meet a user that can't get into it with just an invite link. It's amazingly user friendly. And if I want to, I can granularly create roles for users and administrators of arbitrary levels and access rights. I share the privacy concerns, and that I can't grep any logs easily (though with voice chat that's harder regardless), but simply from a user perspective if it wasn't for the network effect of my IRC communities, and Messenger groups, I could happily just use Discord tomorrow. I strongly dislike that it's closed source and partly Chinese owned, but I've been using Messenger to reach people I couldn't on IRC for years already, and that experience is much worse, with no privacy gain. Credit where credit is due, they knocked it out of the park in most aspects.
- przmk 7y ago
  There are no web clients for Murmur that supports voice to my knowledge. What makes you think it will be possible to integrate both?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - arminiusreturns 7y ago
    There is one: https://github.com/Johni0702/mumble-web https://github.com/Johni0702/mumble-web Also the protocol is open so it should be doable: https://mumble-protocol.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://mumble-protocol.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ For those curious about the switch from murmur to mumble in our conversation, murmur is the server side, while mumble is the client side.

kbar13 7y ago

what's surprising about discord's privacy policy? it seems pretty straightforward. we can push open source alternatives all you want but the truth is that these alternatives don't do a good enough job with the most valuable part of social networks: building the network. yes, word of mouth is a big part of growth, but the developers also need to put in work. discord didn't simply blow up because early adopters told their friends and so on, as much as we want to think that to be the case.

modo_mario 7y ago
Honestly I don't think that's the reason at all i've never seen anything push by discord or it's developers that actually worked and affected me or people I know. No advertising until it reached critical mass. No invite incentive programs that made people get it going (despite apparently there being that one month free nitro thing most people don't know off) Most people came because a)others were there and had chosen it as a platform. b) It's just really nice in every way (other than the bottomline control an privacy part) c) There's no competitors that completely match it's functionality and profit model or if they tried to get close they came too late. You have your voice chats, video chat and of course text chats. No trouble hosting servers. Easily and extensively customisable modding, structure, permissions, etc. Pins, pings, etc Almost all functionality one might need is there and if it isn't there's bots for it. Sharing and inviting is easy. No time limit on how long stuff is saved or needing to be online to see messages. Linked images, articles, videos what have you show up nicely. Theming is consistent. It works on every OS (except maybe bsd idk) and the browsers consistently so you won't have one group being left out and crusading against it. Everything is in a single place unlike the various irc networks. Want to show a pic you took? a webm? No need to host it somewhere else first. If there was an open source alternative that got close hell yes of course I'd use it. I'd consider it a big bonus that i'd drop a bit of functionality for. But as it stands there's no comparable private alternatives either.
- kbar13 7y ago
  yes as i said, word of mouth is an important part of growth. but word of mouth doesn't just happen out of nowhere. discord knows their market, did their research, and did tons of work behind the scenes in marketing, partnerships, developing features that would add growth, etc. you see discord literally everywhere at events, other social media platforms, involved in communities. where do you see this kind of effort from open source alternatives? i believe this is the biggest issue with the "alternatives". my perception is that they think they built an amazing product and that people should just start using it. but that's not how that works.

cyborgx7 7y ago

>Please try investing in Free, Open Source alternatives first. I did. I put a lot of effort into staying as FOSS as possible. Discord is the thing that got me to compromise this, by being so incredibly good.

emptysongglass 7y ago
I find Discord to be the worst UX for a chat app I can imagine. And nothing is open source so what few client alternatives there are live in mortal danger of having their API hacks closed. No replies? Why after all this time are there still no replies? Default notification settings are still to flood you every time you add a "server". Attachment limits are tiny. And can I just say as a sysadmin calling your chat rooms "servers" is a huge slap in the face to my profession? The welcome messages are infantile and spammy. Who knows about any privacy at all on the platform. I could go on and on and on and on.
- 1_player 7y ago
  No replies is a feature. Grown with IRC, Slack replies are awful and so awkward to use. Should I check "Also send reply to #channel?" or not? I check it 50% of the time and I still don't know if I should. I hate them.
  - CodesInChaos 7y ago
    Slack only has an embedded thread feature, not a reply feature. Stackexchange chat has a proper reply feature. You can reply to a message in the same channel. Your message still goes on the bottom of the current channel, but it pings(highlights) the user and contains a link icon to the original message. Hovering on a reply also highlights the message it responds to (if it's on the screen). This is mainly used when responding to older messages, where it otherwise wouldn't be easy to see what you're responding to.
  - comis 7y ago
    I agree, Slack replies are awful. The only chat reply feature I've ever enjoyed was Flowdock's. It doesn't create threads it just connects replies with colors. It's great.

onikolas7 7y ago

Lets hope Linus needs voice and chat one day...