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

Selfhosted

44510 readers
1067 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".

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 4 points 30 minutes ago

Avoid Revolt as there moderation is questionable

[–] [email protected] 57 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Ah this is so exciting!

Discord 'existing' has held back development motivation on Foss Federated Communication alternatives.

When they go public only good things will happen for projects like matrix :)

I'm very excited!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 29 minutes ago* (last edited 29 minutes ago)

Matrix is cool but it really suffers from complexity.

The spec is a mess because they keep expanding it.

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

I feel like matrix isn't a one-to-one replacement. It's a good slack replacement.

I haven't used matrix enough to know for sure but does it have the discord equivalent of servers?

[–] WhyJiffie 2 points 56 minutes ago

those are called spaces there. but there's no flexible roles system. also no hop-on voice channels yet, but that's a client feature so maybe that's a bit different

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

If you're self hosting, it's Revolt. But the default instance limits you to 20mb or something for files, which is a problem for me, personally.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago (3 children)

Doesnt discord also have a max of like 25mb? Unless you pay for nitro?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 minutes ago* (last edited 8 minutes ago)

It was 8mb then 25mb then 10mb now (for non-Nitro users)

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

I believe it's ~100mb. I don't mind paying for more. That's not an option on Revolt.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 minutes ago

Wait? I thought this was FOSS? Is there no settings to allow you to change the upload size of files?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 51 minutes ago (1 children)

If that, depending on the type of file sometimes its 10mb

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 minute ago

Yea that's what I thought, cause I've had small files get rejected recently now.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Revolt is also an annoyance to self host and the apps don’t support self hosted instances without you rebuilding them because the server is hardcoded.

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

Why even give the option then lmao

[–] [email protected] 2 points 34 minutes ago

That’s just it, it isn’t an option

[–] [email protected] 71 points 7 hours ago (11 children)

it's Element/Matrix if we're lucky. Revolt is just another Discord - surely this single company will last! With Element/Matrix being an open protocol, it won't be a "platform" you have to leave when it goes corporate.

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

Nheko provides an interface that is reminiscent of Discord. Fully featured and fast Matrix client.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 minutes ago

Thank you for the recommendation. I tried element a while ago and found it lacking. Matrix must be the way forward. Disregarding IRC of course.

load more comments (10 replies)
[–] [email protected] 67 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (12 children)

Honestly, I am ready to go straight back to TeamSpeak.

I miss hosting my own server and having full access and control over it

I used to just host it on a piece of shit. 2003 Dell XP machine I put Ubuntu on

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

There is also Mumble. TS3 era voip and text chat features, but it's FOSS.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 21 minutes ago (1 children)

If they add federation I'm sold. Honestly it would be nice if it integrated with Activity Pub

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 minutes ago* (last edited 13 minutes ago)

It's not that kind of application. Federation would be massive overkill for a project like Mumble.

It's a voip server and client for video gaming, with a couple adjacent features sprinkled in.

It doesn't even really have accounts, and adding servers is just matter of configuring their IPs. What would you even use federation for?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 23 minutes ago (1 children)

It was so featureless back when I last used it. I don't remember it having half the features ts3 had in 14

[–] [email protected] 2 points 19 minutes ago* (last edited 10 minutes ago)

Oh, it's basic af. But it did what it needed to do, and still does, for some.

I havent used it in ages, I have no clue what sort of stuff continued development has enabled. If anything.

My friend group went first from Skype to the massively better TS3, and finally to Mumble. I don't remember really missing anything.

load more comments (11 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›