Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world Acamon @lemmy.world 1d ago

Alternative to discord?

I don't really like discord, but my gaming group have been using it for rpg stuff. Chat channels, video calls and easy to setup bots have all been really useful.

But I get the feeling the enshitification is going to get worse, so I was looking for somewhere else to migrate to. The video stuff isn't as important, we could switch easily to other services. But before I start a new campaign, and spend time setting up bots with routines for rolling dice and calculating tables, I'd like to do it somewhere that isn't in talks for an IPO.

I'm not really up on stuff like this, so I don't know if there's some obvious similar choices or an alternative medium that I haven't considered.

54 comments

There's Revolt, if you're happy being on an empty platform that none of your friends will ever move to.
- Hah, that's fine, because it would be for our group activity they'd be fine with making accounts. I never used discord to chat with people outside my small group of irl friends.
- Never say never, once Discord goes IPO and the enshittification goes bad enough to annoy gamers Discord is fucked, and Revolt is a drop-in replacement, the fact that it can be self-hosted will also be a plus for some people, mass migrations are rare but they DO happen
- Oooh! This sounds like me!
- Why this over matrix which has similar features, actual users, and is federated?
  
  Revolt has better feature parity with discord.
  
  If all you're looking to do is replace discord with a friend-group who is already on board, it's ideal.
  
  For gaming-related use cases, matrix isn't there yet. It doesn't noise gate voice calls, or support audio chat rooms, just to mention a few things.
https://revolt.chat/ it is from UK and is GDPR compliant.
- Remind me... is that the same UK that currently tries to force apple and google to include governement backdoors into their encryption?
  
  Its open source and you could selfhost a server.
  
  No need to use UK webspace.
- is GDPR compliant
  
  Isn't that required of everything that wants.to operate inside the EU?
Matrix. But if you want something that looks and feels exactly like Discord, there is Revolt. It's FOSS.

https://revolt.chat/
- If only revolt added federation. Then I'd be behind it 100%
  
  In the FAQ, they state that federation is not in their roadmap, but if someone can do it, then they are willing to merge it. Since Revolt is written in Rust, we can use Lemmy devs' activitypub federation crate. I might take a look at it someday.
Matrix.
I wrote a somewhat lengthy "Introduction to Matrix/Element" comment for someone here recently. If you arent paranoid, then you can ignore the sections about not using and removing the web client session after account creation. Let me know if you have any trouble.

The comment in question: https://discuss.tchncs.de/comment/16768943

To use element like discord (with servers and voice channels) you will create a Space(=discord-server) and then add Rooms(=discord-channels) to it.

Normal rooms are usually text only but you can still start a video call (doesnt have video on by default) inside one which all room members will get notified for.

To get something like voice channels you create a "video room" which people can then join and it acts like a voice channel that also has screen sharing and video functionality.

There is full permission management so you can give everyone in the space access to all rooms or use levels like guest/member/moderator/admin/owner etc or you make it invite only. Lots of options.
I've never felt a desire to move off old-school IRC.
- Funny enough, Skype is dead now, just like ICQ, MSN, and many others. But IRC is still alive. Decentralized protocols <3
  
  I'll be that guy in 2051.
Jabber, a.k.a. XMPP. It's decentralized, featureful, standardized, and low on server resources.

Here's a user's guide I wrote.

https://contrapunctus.codeberg.page/the-quick-and-easy-guide-to-xmpp.html
Matrix? I think you can setup text channels and also do voice/video/screen sharing in the channels as well if you’re using element, though I havn’t been able to convince my friends to jump ship yet, so don’t know how it compares to discord
I think Element/Matrix could do the trick

At least that's what I intend to do with some friends for our gaming sessions and daily mindless chat
https://spacebar.chat/
- First i hear of this one, interesting, how far along is it?
  
  Not sure tbh
  
  Not even close to being a replacement currently. I'm hoping it gets there though
  
  https://docs.spacebar.chat/faq/
Internet Relay Chat

a technology handed down to use from the ancients.
- Video chats though?
  
  don't be a creep
If you want a different level of shitty platform, You could just move to a VTT like Roll20.
- FoundryVTT or bust
  
  I bought foundry but never had time to get the hang of it, and in the end we preferred minimal vtt, just chat and a dice / auto bot. But maybe some day I'll get into it! Defintely vastly better than roll20
You know, I'm gonna be the oddball suggestion here.

Forums. What forums? I don't know, the last time I used them was proboards back in 2010 so I'm sure I'm out of the loop on the options, but I do miss forums sometimes. That was where I ran RPGs, back in the day.
- We are considering a seperate play by post game using some of the forums and sites set up for that. But having a voice and video chat with friends, with easy options for adding dice and game management bots is appealing.
  
  Yeah, I hear you. And even if you post at lightning speed, there's something about forums that just feels slower compared to the speed posting in a chatroom can get you.
I mean, our friend group still uses IRC. Go back to the roots, discord is merely a fancy IRC anyway. Quakenet is still up and running, working as smoothly as ever! (So at least one netsplit* a day... :D)
ZULIP
- What's good about zulip? It's not one I'm familiar with.
Features-wise, Guilded has all of the same features that discord has (and maybe slightly more).

https://www.guilded.gg/

54 comments