I mean TeamSpeak did only one thing, and it was good.
I used to be on TeamSpeak, and I actually switched over to Discord. Oh the irony. Those were quite the times, people went straight for the voice chat, and I learned to be brave and speak proper English in chat (people chatted less than they talked).
I unlearned that almost completely since.
TeamSpeak can only replace the voice chatting aspect. The vast majority of people use discord for text chat.
It’s really such a different beast. You can chat in a discord server while you’re on your phone when you’re unavailable to chat on voice. I know teamspeak has an app, but it was clunky last time I bothered with it, and it’s still not that type of experience. People love discord chat, they love the emotes, they love their profiles. I just can’t see a lot of people giving that up.
And like I’ve said earlier, I’m not even sure if most people are aware of the changes or if they even care. The people from Aus or the UK that I’ve seen on discord lately seem like they’re just dealing with the id requirements.
This is my issue with finding a replacement, text and voice in one with specific channels.
I like to segregate my topics so things don’t get too cluttered, it’s why I moved from Skype to Discord originally. But I also want my voice chat and text chats to be in the same program.
I’ve used Ventrilo and TeamSpeak before for voice and I liked the self hosting option, but no text. IRC is text without voice. Matrix looks… complicated to self host.
So I’m looking at Stoat (formerly Revolt)
That being said from what I’ve seen teamspeak has had a big redesign from what it used to be. It echos discord a lot more now in design
Steam had 90% of the tooling just needs polishing
I never thought about that. I use the voice chat a little bit, but you are right that it works well enough and I can stream my games.
The only pain point would be for people that don’t use steam for whatever reason. Discord offers the web interface which is useful when video chatting with non gamers.
So seriously, what’s going to replace Discord? Everyone wants to leave, but to where?
And no, Matrix is not and will never be a viable alternative
I’m interested to know why matrix isn’t viable for you? I’ve been trialing it recently with friends and it seems to tick all our boxes. I do admit I don’t do large communities personally
The problem isn’t that there are no alternatives. It’s that there’s like 50 alternatives. Centralization makes us vulnerable, but it’s also super convenient.
There’s a reason we preferred reddit and now Lemmy instead of different forums with different logins for everything.
The biggest problem with getting off Discord is fragmentation of communities.
Honestly I’d love different forums with only a centralized login system that can be optionally used, sorta how ezboard were at one point.
Reddit can’t die fast enough. I miss niche subreddits
First one of those contenders that solves federation in a nice way would be a winner. Quite a lot of them has it on their roadmap so my hopes are not completely lost.
I could probably just google this… but I think I just want to hear a real person explain something this time :P
What do you mean by “solves federation”? As in bringing disparate groups together under a single app?
My, probably very bad, understanding would be something along the lines of a shared, decentralized API. Almost like a specialized internet that only serves the functions of the apps.
bringing disparate groups together under a single app
Yep, that’s pretty much how I’d like to see it done. Similar to lemmy/piefed, where I can reply to your comment from different server. E.g. Fluxer have something like this in their roadmap, fingers crossed.
There’s Stoat (formerly Revolt) and Fluxer. Additionally, Steam has many Discord-like features in app.
I don’t like how fluxer is already paywalling features that other platforms don’t. It feels like discord all over again
Fluxer is AGPv3, recently promised to remove their CLA so the software stays free forever, has an ambitious roadmap with federation, and is currently being worked on by one 22 yr old dude.
It’s very different than Discord.
This chad needs help. I’m more than happy to support him. This is an investment in Open Source™ and the future. If he can’t work on this full-time or near full-time, he’s gonna need to work for Google or some shit. Then it’s never going to be able to compete with Discord.
They’re also not going to be able to run Fluxer on powerful enough hardware. Take a look at Stoat. Similar idea. No funding. Their main server is HELLA slow, which I don’t think it’s their fault. The app is written in Rust, but it feels like it’s running on a potato.
paywalling features that other platforms don’t
I might be wrong here, but I thought you could self-host Fluxer to get around the paywalls. So you could do that. What a gift! And federation is on the way, so maybe one day you can self-host AND talk to other instances! Amazing!
IRC never left.
My group left about 5 years ago (give or take a couple) when there was a hostile takeover of freenode. I haven’t really looked into it at all since then, is freenode back or where did everyone move to?
Everyone moved to libera. It literally happened right as the freenode fiasco happened, so I am surprised you and your group didn’t hear about it.
Slack seems cool to me and my friends, is it not cool to other people?
Slack is a subscription per user so far as I know
Slack is the polar opposite of cool.
Might as well go with Microsoft Teams at that point
It’s owned by Salesforce. Big ick.
Matrix is not
With LiveKit for calls / screen share, it is for my group. Though I’m not saying it doesn’t have issues.
will never be
Community-developed homeservers like continuwuity have gotten a lot of new support on the last few weeks. Clients like cinny are getting pretty close to a replacement ux wise (if you look at PR2599 on Cinny’s GitHub, they are working on and will soon merge support for LiveKit in a way that is very close to voice channels).
I also generally think that the only way to replace Discord as an ecosystem where you talk to many people from different communities is a federated protocol, not a bunch of new silos, one for each community.
I have no first person experience but I’ve read Matrix’ lack of “Discord-like server” grouping is terrible for moderation where you have to manually set permissions for each “room”. If that’s actually true it’s literally impossible for it to become proper discord alternative.
A discord server-like would be a space, containing channel-like rooms. The main difference is that rooms can also exist independent of spaces, if you just need a single chat for some people instrad of a group of chats.
You can set permissions for a whole space, it’s just that they currently work differently than Discord. Members have a power level, and you set the power level from which each function is available. So, e.g. Sending messages from Pl 0 (representing normal users), banning users from PL 50 (representing moderators), changing server settings from level 100 (representing administrators).
It sounds complicated, but once you get used to it it’s pretty easy.
I’ve moved to Matrix from Discord for two small friend groups (<6 people each). Matrix is a fine replacement for the small friend Discord. But it has awhile to go before it can replace 1000+ people servers
The bigger issue is that reports currently don’t federate. A report will always go to the admin of your homeserver (which might be you) not the admin of the homeserver the room you’re in is on, nor the admin of the homeserver of the other users.
Most larger (1-2k people) communities get around that by just having you ping the mods in reply to the offending content, which is a band-aid.
A spec for federated reports is apparently being worked on, but not yet available.
I’ve seen mentioned these:
- Stoat - pretty much same UI, based in UK, not sure where they get $$
- Fluxer - looks virtually like 1:1 Discord clone, based in Sweden, has paid tier pretty much like Nitro on Discord on official server
- Nerimity - a little different UI, but still very Discord-y, based in UK, sourced from donations
- Movim - this one is interesting, but it’s not really Discord style app; it looks more like cross breed between IM and social network (FB/X), origin in France
- Strafe - looks like Discord, supposedly have e2ee
- Spacebar - reverse engineered Discord, IDK about maturity of this one
- Adapt - another wanna be
Saw this a few days ago.
It’s literally on Fluxer.
Pros:
- AGPLv3, WITHOUT a CLA
- Familiar Discord UI
- Text and voice channels
- Images, attachments, gifs
- Emojis, reactions
- Screensharing and video calls
- Main server runs decently fast
- Federation is coming
- Not based in UK or US
Cons:
- Only 1 dude working on it
- You can optionally buy Plutonium, which isn’t necessarily bad, they need money, and the code stays Open Source™
- No mobile app yet (they’re working on it)
- The main server has had some downtime… which I think are just growing pains
- I don’t have friends to invite to Fluxer
This looked perfect! Right up until the no API support. By no means am I asking of that either, just happens to look really nice but also lack that feature.
Seems like they have something: https://docs.fluxer.app/
Stoat still doesn’t have screenshare. It’s also a bloody stupid name - I have no idea who thought that re-brand was a good idea.
Fluxer seems to support it though.
BNoth can be self-hosted, which is a nice bonus.
Do people really use screen share that much? (Sadly) I use discord to reach a lot of my friends for multiple years and we actually used screen share maybe twice? Three times?
I have used it multiple times every day this week.
Why is “one-to-one clone of Discord” the goal for everyone? Why not set your sights on a making a good UX instead?
Well, Discord’s UI is certainly not the holy grail, but it’s quite functional and people are used to it. So it’s pretty much logical you copy the concept to some extent when you want to appeal to these people?
I don’t think it’s necessarily the goal — Discord is just a helpful yardstick to compare things to as a baseline (and some people are looking for something that replaces Discord as closely as possible). Having to switch services is a pain, and whilst it’s not optimal in the long term to just try to replace a thing with a clone, I can see why people don’t have the executive function energy to think too hard about this.
ngl, discord kinda had the best UX before the enshittification began
So you’re saying there are options.
Doesn’t Stoat charge far out the ass?
There are actually many, many options. It’s hard to guess which one will get the momentum and lift off though. You probably don’t want to convince all your friends to switch to another platform just to see it die in half a year…
TeamSpeak had their chance, but they decided to be complacent after getting popular. Now they are playing catchup and very slowly. Discord has given them multiple chances now to take back market share, but TeamSpeak was never ready. This time some other project will take over instead.
Its also closed source as i recently learned…
How did that go unnoticed? I always remember them requiring a license in order to have more than a small handful of people connected to the server you are running locally on your own computer.
The last time i used teamspeak i was like 15 i think. So i just forgor i guess.
I still prefer to open my window and just scream for the person I’m trying to reach. Fuhgedaboutet
I use two tin cans and some string.
They got trounced by Ventrilo, which had the saddest looking UI I’ve ever seen on a commercial product.
There was something kind of special about how simple Vent was. It didn’t need a bunch of bells and whistles, it did one thing and it was relatively easy for people to use. Discord feels so cluttered and it’s full of shit I don’t want.
I liked it, it reminded me of AIM
Bring back Mumble!
If only Mumble contained more than 10% of the features Discord does.
I’m tired of people suggesting replacements that only do one small part of what Discord does. It’s like needing a new car, and all people keep suggesting is new engines. I don’t care if the engine is better than my current car, an engine alone does not solve my needs.
I feel the exact same way… Sadly I don’t think the perfect option exists, it would require something that’s both an encrypted IM program and something you could self host servers on and plug into so users could join based on a link. Like Skype/icq meets teamspeak.
Mumble is alive and well amongst Project Reality players. Same with Teamspeak for the Arma community as well as some roleplaying communities like on RedM.
I self host a mumble for my people I games with, works great
Mobile app is dogshit but the Teamspeak 6 desktop client is decent.
Ultimately my group is using Steam for now and checking out Fluxer self-hosting once the refactor gets done.
I hadn’t heard of Fluxer before this post, but after looking it looks like it’s basically everything I’ve been looking for. Hopefully that refactor gets sorted relatively soon.
I’m in the same boat. Fluxed looks really good! I was able to check it out this morning but I’m assuming their website is getting hammered because I can’t access it now. More people to FOSS self hosted projects! Woo!
There’s also https://movim.eu/ which might suit your needs
TeamsPiqued more like it… in the 2010s even.
They nailed what they did there really wasn’t that much more work to do. A program that can do everything and hosts everybody will always end up speed running enshitification to new lows, why does everybody just want an endless treadmill of dog shit monopolies? Best case scenario is we have many options with people scattered around them and you go to where the group that you want to engage with is.
why does everybody just want an endless treadmill of dog shit monopolies?
They don’t - it’s just been a long game psy-op the past 20 years by the Silicon Valley oligarchs.
Microsoft stands out as a master practitioner of monopolization. We’re talking vendor lock-in, low barriers to entry - but high barriers to exit, jury rigging the “open document format” by constantly introducing breaking changes - and we can’t forget things like SecureBoot, which relied on MS as a CA who gave themselves exclusively the A-OK while giving Linux the FU.
When they tried pushing Windows Store as an exclusive software provider in Windows 8, people were having none of it.
Then you have Google doing the same today for Android, Apple somehow getting away with it on iOS and the EU totally dropping the ball on it.
The fact is that there’s only one right thing to do:
Public 👏 money 👏 , public 👏 code 👏 .
Especially in schools. Dear lord do we need to get Silicon Valley teh FUCK out of schools.
You’ve peaked my interest
Don’t mind me, I’m just sneaking a peak into your chatter
So close
