this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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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".

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 18 hours ago
[–] candyman337 22 points 1 day ago

https://spacebar.chat/ looks like it will eventually be good, it looks like it's in its infancy right now though

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 day ago (7 children)

man I wish mumble had a better interface and a chat function, it could real FOSS competition with Discord, but the lack of a chat feature is holding it back

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's so much easier to set up and install than Matrix.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago (3 children)

It’s so much easier to set up and install than Matrix.

Unbelievably so. Mumble is... basically one setup command. Don't even need a domain. And it needs absolutely no resources, can run on a Pi Zero.
Setting up my own Matrix server was honestly one of the most difficult things I've ever attempted in decades of non-professionally using computers and I'm still not sure I'd be able to properly take care of the installation if it breaks. Sooo many moving parts. All the federation-oriented projects that rely on adoption rates reaaaaally desperately need setup wizards before any other additional feature.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 day ago (10 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago (3 children)

What are your thoughts on xmpp? Recently I have come to like a lot and am pretty active with friends there.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago (5 children)

There are people using xmpp? Last time I set up a server and tried using it with Pidgin, I couldn't find a soul that used it

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Element/matrix all the way

if you want something that looks like discord there are themes for the clients, there's even commet.chat for a discord like experience (but they haven't added calls yet)

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (3 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] 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Just use croc to share files. Then size doesn't matter.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day 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] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why even give the option then lmao

[–] [email protected] 8 points 23 hours ago

That’s just it, it isn’t an option

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (5 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've been tinkering with old BBS software :)

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