Pretty much what it says on the tin, but for more context. My friends and I use Discord to play D&D and other TTRPGs. We also use it to send memes and just have conversations. We mostly do the chat, text, images, gifs, etc. But we also use the voice and video chat pretty regularly too. Screen share sometimes as well. So I’d like to try to find something that has all those features if possible.
The new ID or facial recognition requirement they are implementing is a deal breaker for a few of us, and so if I can set up some kind of alternative to make it a non-issue, I’d like to.
I’m running Ubunutu 22.04 LETS, AMD 3700X, 64GBRAM, 10x 6TB HDD, and and 2 4TB NVmE. Have a 2gb up/down internet connection. So I don’t think we should have any issues making it work smoothly for 7 people.
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matrix is unreasonably hard to set-up, why doesnt the docker container or the compose include voice chat? i cant even sign up for stoat to try it out… is this the best we have against discord in the big 26 😭
XMPP is also still a thing and IMO much easier to host (at least ejabberd is). Look into Movim, which looks quite nice as a discord replacement on top of XMPP.
Voice chat works out of the box with Matrix.
It uses WebRTC and tries to do P2P connections. Note that this leaks your IP to the other caller and vice versa, but it’s also quite fast as you can establish a direct connection.
If P2P fails it will try to fallback to your configured TURN server and use that one for relaying.
However not every instance has one (as TURN servers are usually not that modern and straight forward…) and if this is the case it will fallback to Matrix’s global TURN servers.
Setting up Element Call on my instance was difficult on its own, I understand why Synapse doesn’t come with it out of the box, essentially you spin up Matrix’s JWT service for authenticating clients and it if approved forwards the connection to the Livekit ports which must be opened on your firewall (ie port forwarded), otherwise people will not be able to connect to calls.
Big PITA and in my experience, on my home network, can conflict with games with VOIP chats.
Edit: I don’t suggest running Element Call standalone, it has issues of its own, once you get Livekit and JWT running and follow This guide you should have your element call running, pro-tip for those running synapse behind docker and get confused on the whole
./well-knownpart of the documentation you can edit your./well-knownin your homeserver.yaml file like such:serve_server_wellknown: true extra_well_known_client_content: optional: client "org.matrix.msc4143.rtc_foci": [ { "type": "livekit", "livekit_service_url": "https://livekit-jwt.your.domain/" } ]https://matrix-construct.github.io/tuwunel/deploying/docker.html?highlight=voice#voice-communication
tuwunel seems to have some docker guides for how to set up voice & docker.
For 7 people you could look into Virola Messenger. Not open source but uses Mumble under the hood and is super lightweight. No electron shit.
I am not knowledgeable enough yet, but doesn’t self-hosting Nextcloud have a voice feature? I’m looking into setting that all up myself
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters IP Internet Protocol PIA Private Internet Access brand of VPN SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access VPN Virtual Private Network XMPP Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (‘Jabber’) for open instant messaging
4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 15 acronyms.
[Thread #79 for this comm, first seen 9th Feb 2026, 22:30] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
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teamspeak6 is in beta right now but it is my replacement for discord. Check it out, supports most anything people have used disc for
Any Matrix clients support screensharing?
Element and Element Call, although no streaming audio support on the horizon anytime soon.
Matrix hoster here.
I would recommend Matrix as it has pretty much everything, including cross platform clients, threads, voice/video calls, screensharing, spaces (aka servers), federation and E2EE. Matrix also has bridges for Discord and pretty much every other service so this could ease transition…
But self hosting requires reading the docs and having some in depth knowledge and understanding as it can be quite complex.
I would recommend just creating a Matrix account on one of the common global servers and testing it.
If you want to self-host there are some pre-defined setups available (example) but I would still recommend to bring at least 5-10 hours.
Regarding operations: It’s really resilient and barely ever breaks and also doesn’t need a lot of resources. A 1-2vCPU server with under 1GB RAM server is enough for less than 10 people.
E2EE group chats on matrix seems to be a huge problem still. I look forward to their MLS implementation. Hopefully that fixes a lot of these UX issues.
You se knowledgeable on this, so I hope you’ll allow me to ask this.
I don’t know anything about Discord, but I selfhost the Mattermost chat system for my family. They, too, are narrowing the free tier.
Can Matrix replace Mattermost for a family? Several separate “rooms” for various topics, plus 1-to-1 chats.
If it’s just chatting with your use case: definetly yes
may i ask which homeserver and client you use? it seems like synapse and element is not the best choice especially for small number of people.
synapse and element/schildi-chat work quite well for me :)
On mobile the newer Element X clients usually lack some features (like calls) but you can use them quite well for chatting.
Matrix is an option but it’s slow and breaks all the time. I’m a big fan of XMPP myself but good luck convincing anyone else to make an account 😔
could you recommend a good xmpp setup? i heard good things about snikket, maybe something else too?
I’m running Prosody and it was easy to set up and the docs are good.
Dont knock matrix for being slow, it updates just as fast as anyone else’s network speed is and it is focused on encryption and security. Given [gestures broadly to everything these days] people moving away from major platforms should really take into account their digital footprint and privacy.
That’s fair
The Mastodon founder, Eugen Rochko, has just announced that “We’ve moved our internal communications from Discord to Zulip at Mastodon”.
https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/116041405748460511
Zulip is probably more focused toward work than TTRPGs, but it can’t hurt to try it. (I haven’t tried it personally, yet.) It is self-hostable.
It’s a shame, zulip doesn’t have e2ee. not even DMs. but they seem to be working towards federation of some sort? there are no good/perfect solutions out there.
Zulip is great… on a PC. On mobile is a totally different thing, and not in a good way. 😕
Good old Teamspeak 3 or 6
The main issue is you’ll never get the cretins that use it off it. Communities… they’re just sitting there burning the library of alexandria… all the esoteric knowledge they’re “putting on discord” is just gonna vanish.
over a billion in vc funding and discord is as shit as it is.
As an archivist and data hoarder I hate discord with a burning, visceral passion.
Is it worth preserving though?
element.io uses Matrix. It’s not bad.
Can confirm, I host Matrix (homeserver synapse) and Element. Voice is a pain to get set up but I hear there are other matrix services which will do this for you easier. It’s a process though. You can get text chat up in a day, voice is going to be a bit after that, a lot of tinkering.
Dito (Synapse server), Element for desktop app and fruitphones, Shildichat for android (its lighter and has an adorable turtle as a mascot).
And seconding the voice coms, the VOIP relay server is a huge pain to set up, same with the registration page. My nerd herd hosts a few services that federated to share services and the admin group just issues people accounts.
TLDR: no… Were not using discord anymore, we have discord at home.
nerd herd
I understood that reference!
I’ve heard positive things about Dito, if I was doing it over again I think I’d start there
Back in my day, (shakes cane), Teamspeak and Ventrillo were the big voice chat platforms/tools. Both have text chat and channels/rooms; but their focus is voice chat for gaming.
What’s that you say? IRC?
Ventrillo.
Dammit, son, makin’ me feel old now
Roger Wilco
Check out https://stoat.chat/, it’s the closest self hostable group communications platform to Discord.
has anyone tried their iOS client? from their description it seems like it’s less mature than the android version, kinda concerning as my friend group has some iphone users.
Just a fair warning in reply to this that the self-hosted version of Stoat doesn’t currently have voice chat. It’s an open issue that’s currently paused until they can finish their rework.
If you have the skill for it, it seems like you can patch work the existing voice chat back in, but it’s not part of their initial setup and there’s no instructions on how to do so properly
I’ve been using it since it was called Revolt and quite like it, albeit I’ve never used the voice feature. My group doesn’t really have the need for it, but I can see it being a deal breaker for the self-hosted version.
Well that seems like a fairly big deal.
Link to their voice chat implementatoon.
Looks like you can enable it on self hosted version. Probably worth someone trying it out personally. Before giving up on stoat.
sadly, it’s a little more complex than just enabling it. The supported self host deployment uses docker, and the docker containers that are available don’t contain the interfaces for voice or video calling as they are not up to date.
If I understand it right, to enable it would mean you need to either pull the source yourself and run it off of docker, or make a custom docker image using a version of stoat web that contains the ability to do voice calls.
reading the draft of the linked issue, it looks like the author isn’t doing voice call for the reason that they don’t know the proper way to integrate it into the docker image.
So to answer it: yes it looks like you can use voice servers on the current self hosted model, but you can’t use pre-existing docker images, and it will require you to manually add the new web UI in and patch where needed.
Turns out they also don’t support federation or e2ee. If those are things you care about.
Is there a docker-free build you can either install and mod to re-enable voice, or use to mod the docker blobs in accordance ?
Honestly the name choice adds difficulty in getting friends to take it seriously. Why did they pick “stoat”
seems like they had a decent name ‘revolt’ but got some cease and desist and didn’t resist and decided to switch.
The name doesnt matter
IRC is a stupid name too, unless you know what the letters stand for
Msn messenger was stupid
Icq was stupid
Wtf even is “skype”?
It just has to be unique
And a Stout is kinda cute
Stoats are awesome.
Nowadays everyone accepted the name “Discord” but I think it’s a pretty poor choice of branding too.
A communication app called Discord is pretty weird too.
A stoat is a pretty cool animal.
I think without prior knowledge of any voice chat Discord would probably rate worse in perception than Stoat.
you mean unlike the tools discord has replaced, such as “mumble”, “ventrilo”, “roger wilco” and “trillian”?
Xfire
Mumble is a verb like chat but what the fuck has a stoat got anything to do chatting?
now do the other ones
Do them yourself and you want to copy all those failed apps, lmao.
Mumble is great and I still use it. None of those are failed apps.
Not every app seeks to rake in teenagers’ parents’ money with shit like premium emojis.
Discord never replaced mumble. The two are in different circles.
for some, yeah. depends on your use case.
Unironically yes
soundn like a problem with your friends then. who doesn’t love a stoat?
I know, it’s picky lol. I’m still considering it as the replacement for my discord groups (also checking out Element/Matrix). The average users aren’t going to be up for swapping around a lot of platforms, so I am hoping to make one big push on the platform of choice. “Revolt” would have gotten less “wtf is that, how do you even spell it?” than “Stoat”
for what it’s worth matrix has worked well for us. it’s apparently a bitch to set up though.
This whole “FOSS names are bad” sounds like a Mccarthyism sysop by this point. Like, really, who is pushing that crap?
No clue! It was revolt before. I think they had trademark issues with that name. What’s wrong with stoat?
I was wondering why I want getting any updates, checked thegithub a few months ago and found out they rebranded. Haven’t had a chance to try the latest version out yet
What do you meeaaan? Stoats are fucking adorable!
Is there a significant benefit over matrix?
From what I can tell, the only benefit is that the platform is close to the Discord experience. So people migrating to Stoat would feel right at home.
But there’s no federation, no e2ee, apparently it’s difficult to get voice setup if you self host…
Matrix has it’s issues too. Goup chat e2ee is not good. No one uses it. But at least they’ve got federation.
https://continuwuity.org/ seems like a decent server to run if you want to run a matrix server.
Where is the documentation for self-hosting it?
Check their GitHub. Although it looks like GitHub is having issues right now.
There another thread about discord requiring a face scan next month,so I think alternatives might start getting pushed.
Such as https://stoat.chat/
Edit: Not sure you can self-host it, but it does have a back end server listed in it’s source code with a docker, however it might just be for code testing.
Right RTFM… https://github.com/stoatchat/self-hosted yes you can self-hosted it.
To create an invite you:
# drop into mongo shell docker compose exec database mongosh # create the invite use revolt db.invites.insertOne({ _id: "enter_an_invite_code_here" })That’s pretty jank.
Also - I’m getting pretty fed-up with self-hosting documentation that assumes very specific environments and goes into detailed configuration for that environment. Don’t tell me how to setup a server and how to enable/configure SSH and setup UFW as part of setting up your software. Just tell me how to setup your software and what ports it uses.
True on the invite, but you know I bet it wouldn’t take much to fix that code wise.
Having built a bit of software in multiple enviorns, I feel you on the very specific requirements… But it is a bitch to write something that works for all of them. It should be a damn site easier to install it though, especially if it’s docker.
Wait, requiring a face scan of everyone?? I know they started doing that as an age verification thing for some people, but everyone?
Your correction is accurate. I should have been more specific.
Discord announced on Monday that it’s rolling out age verification on its platform globally starting next month, when it will automatically set all users’ accounts to a “teen-appropriate” experience unless they demonstrate that they’re adults.
Users who aren’t verified as adults will not be able to access age-restricted servers and channels, won’t be able to speak in Discord’s livestream-like “stage” channels, and will see content filters for any content Discord detects as graphic or sensitive. They will also get warning prompts for friend requests from potentially unfamiliar users, and DMs from unfamiliar users will be automatically filtered into a separate inbox.
Less a correction, more a question. I’d heard about them doing it in some countries, I didn’t see the post where it was going to be international.
Yeah. Solid chance I’m dropping the few discord-related things I do use here soon.
sigh
That doesn’t sound like it is necessary for private chat, the only thing I really use it for. Would be nice to have an alternative all the same
Bummer that it doesn’t have voice chat yet in the self hosted version. Hopefully soon - I would probably switch if they had that.
