Ok everyone. Hear me out. Let’s just all get in the same room and play the same game.
this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
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wish it was that easy,
My closests friendgroup dispersed around the province, one in kelowna, one in enderby, and im out on the Coast now. Discord (and now steam chat) kept us close
I kinda wish the fediverse had started with an account system which could then be integrated with various servers. It would concentrate on just keeping account configs where new services had new tab areas or such. Then you could have the services instances that would authtenticate and use the login configs for view and such. of course many instances would do multiple things but it would be so great to go to mastadon and have it interact with the same fediverse account as what I would use at lemming or peertube.
Maybe have a party of some kind?
Yeeah.. Noble effort, really. Except people don't give enough of a shit to actually move.
I've arranged for a Matrix space and Teamspeak server to be used for my friend Discord of about 100 people. 10 registered and 0 actually use the Matrix.
The bridged Matrix channel is only used for lighthearted spam from the Discord side.
The Teamspeak got like 6 registrations and 0 active users.
Most people won't budge until they see the ID verification screen, and some not even then.
I don't think making these other programs optional is going to work to migrate a community. You can't say to your football team that you're gonna start playing basketball and be disappointed when they don't come with you.
If the discord and matrix server was fully bridge then maybe you'd are a bit more success as the community would be less fractured. If you're friends don't want to move from discord, and you really don't want to be in discord, that's a tough situation for you be in.
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Some of my friends have registered on Flux but still use discord. It's sort of just there until discord makes it unbearable for them to use but discord will never do that. They'll just slowly tighten the noose until you get comfortable.
They pay for nitro, which to me is bonkers.
when my nitro expired, I was astonished how much basic functionality was locked behind that paywall. The vanilla experience is so unpleasant.
Meanwhile on stoat, there is no subscription and most of discord's paid features are just... features. Sure, stoat is janky as balls, but so was discord when it was new.
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Good. Discord just sucks as an app and as a company.
He mentioned IRC but skipped it, probably thinking it's still text only. However there are now web clients that can display inline images, url preview, persistent chat and push notifications. To me it's the most KISS solution, as it's super easy to setup and self-host.
In order for this to work, one needs an IRC server and a place to host the web client's server. That's it. I use The Lounge but there are others like Convos or ObsidianIRC.
It's still text only. When I hear text only I already assume it supports all you mentioned.
Text is not ASCII only :)
Beyond text only comes voice calls, video calls and screen share, which are paramount for my discord use case. Me and my friends like to game while sharing our screens, so I game in my main monitor and have a matrix of screens on the second. It creates a LAN party feeling and it's important to maintain connection after some moved out of town.
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It isn't a great discord replacement but it's a metadata blackhole with PQC and Tor support that's surprisingly stable.
Downside is that the founder is apparently a die-hard trump supporter. Which doesn't mean the app is bad, but still would leave me wondering if one should contribute to its' success via network effect, or perhaps ignore it.
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I self-host a federated Matrix server and got my family and close friends using it. They actually took to it pretty easy, and although the initial setup was a bit of a headache it's been running smoothly for years now.
I don't really get most of the criticisms of it. I love it.
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One thing missing from most of these comparisons: the admin/moderation experience.
Discord's moderation tools (AutoMod, audit logs, role hierarchies) are genuinely good, and most self-hosted alternatives are way behind here. If you're running a community server, this matters a lot.
My ranking for communities (not just friend groups):
- Matrix (Synapse/Conduit) — best moderation tools of the self-hosted options, rooms/spaces model works well
- Revolt — closest Discord clone, but moderation is still basic
- Mumble/TeamSpeak — voice-only, but rock solid for gaming guilds that don't need text
For just friends? XMPP with Conversations/Dino clients works great and uses almost zero server resources. I run an ejabberd instance on a $5 VPS alongside 5 other services.
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Wow, TeamSpeak is still around???
Sorta, and like the old days they claim they are working on things then take 4 years to do nothing...
Ventrilo. Been sitting in ventrilo for 30 years
Spelar dota
TeamSpeak tested
Great now I feel old
out of the loop. what is discord doing to force an exodus?
ID check. This was also a few months after they had a major leak and hackers stole personal information.
They downplayed it but if it's like all the other social media platforms, it's going to be garbage.
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Bringing in age-ID verification that they had to apply in the UK and Australia globally for all accounts to access NSFW channels and to be able to take the baby filter off of DMs.
They got heavy backlash for it, and have now delayed it.
Every few years we rediscover decentralized chat and I’m here for it.
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