this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
526 points (98.3% liked)

Selfhosted

44584 readers
1403 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Discord was already succumbing to enshitification. Now with their intention to be owned by Wall Street, that trajectory will certainly accelerate at warp speed once the change of hands happens.

Anyone already get ahead of this and find a solid alternative?

Right now I'm on the fence between Element for Matrix, and Revolt. Both seem to have their pros and cons and I can't find a clear "winner".

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 day ago (4 children)

It never made sense to me how popular discord was to begin with.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 17 hours ago

Other voice chat programs were crap, discord was significantly better and more consistent. Simple as. It still has features way ahead of other services. The business side is shitty but it works without anyone needing to know anything with no troubleshooting.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
  • persistent IRC style chat rooms
  • virtual “servers” to organize said chat rooms, manage privileges, control visibility
  • integration with bots for all sorts of things (moderation, user welcome, dice rollers, etc.)
  • integration with games/music players/etc (I don’t use it but it’s very popular)
  • privacy and moderation controls
  • client allows fine grained notification controls
  • voice, video, and screen casting simultaneously
  • “server” templates: use an existing server config (roles, permissions, rooms, etc.) when creating a new server.

That’s just off the top of my head.

It’s enshittifying, but the value proposition is still hard to beat. I’m really hoping Matrix catches up with the feature set soon.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Its popularity is more inertia based

[–] [email protected] 4 points 13 hours ago

I'm not subject to intertia. I could move my friends to an alternative in a week. Tell me which alternative has all those features and I'll switch.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 17 hours ago

Really? Is there an alternative that hits all the points above? I’m really asking.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 day ago (3 children)

@[email protected] Among my friends, it replaced Facebook Messenger, Teamspeak, and Mumble instantly. It was fast and the voice quality was excellent. The appeal in 2017 was obvious. The bloat that it had tacked onto it since then is egregious.

Don't get me started on the "rewards"...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago

The bloat that it had tacked onto it since then is egregious.

VCs gotta make back that ROI...

[–] [email protected] 15 points 20 hours ago

Don't forget free servers.
On TS3 it was to either know a friend that rented/hosted it, rent/host it yourself or use a public server.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Funny, I remember in 2017 the voice chat had mic issues all the time but now that works much better. But I suppose everything else got bloated..

[–] [email protected] 15 points 22 hours ago

It used to be fast and not full of useless bloat like what you see right now. The usual enshittification.