Alternatives to Discord
A voice, video and text chat app for communities and friends, organised into servers and channels. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Discord
A voice, video and text chat app for communities and friends, organised into servers and channels.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Discord.
Stoat
An open-source group chat app with servers, channels, voice chat and role-based moderation for communities.
Stoat is an open-source server-and-channel chat app with voice chat and role-based moderation, no ads, and apps for every platform, but has a smaller user base.
Flotilla
A Discord-style community app built on Nostr relays, delivered as a progressive web app.
Flotilla builds Discord-style communities on Nostr relays as an open-source web app, requiring familiarity with Nostr keys and relays.
Element
The reference Matrix client: end-to-end encrypted chat on a network you can host yourself.
Element is an open-source Matrix client with end-to-end encryption, self-hostable federation and bridges to Discord, but it can be slow with many large rooms.
Mumble
Free open-source voice chat app built for low latency and self-hosting.
Mumble is free open-source low-latency voice chat you can self-host, but its interface and server setup are less polished and text features are limited.
TeamSpeak
Low-latency voice chat server platform long favored by competitive gamers.
TeamSpeak focuses on low-latency voice chat with a self-hosting option, but it is proprietary and lacks Discord's text community and streaming features.
Zulip
Team chat organised by topic inside each channel, so conversations stay readable when you come back hours later.
Zulip is open-source team chat with topic-based threads inside channels and self-hosting, aimed more at work teams than gaming communities.
Rocket.Chat Desktop
Connect to Rocket.Chat workspaces from a desktop client.
Rocket.Chat Desktop is an MIT-licensed client for self-hostable Rocket.Chat workspaces, with server licensing handled separately from the client.
Mattermost
A self-hosted team chat platform with a desktop client, aimed at organisations that want Slack without the cloud.
Mattermost is self-hosted open-source team chat aimed at organisations, keeping messages on your servers but lacking Discord's drop-in voice channels.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Discord as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
Legcord
A lightweight, standalone third-party Discord desktop client with built-in mods, themes and tracker blocking.
Discord's official app is proprietary and gives up Legcord's tracker blocking, mods and themes, but it is the client Discord itself supports and works in the browser.
Vesktop
A custom Discord desktop app with Vencord built in, lighter than the official client.
Discord's official app drops the built-in Vencord mods and uses more resources, but is the supported proprietary client with Nitro features and browser access.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Vencord
A Discord client mod that adds preinstalled plugins, themes and blocking of Discord analytics.
Slack
A team chat platform organized into channels, with huddles, file sharing, app integrations and AI features.
Beeper
A unified chat app that brings WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Discord and other networks into one inbox.
Telegram Desktop
The official Telegram client for the desktop, with open source code and chats that are not end-to-end encrypted.
