Collection
Open
Chat Design
Updated 6mo
Chat Design and specifically Feb 2026 Discord Alternatives
Collection
Updated 6mo
Chat Design and specifically Feb 2026 Discord Alternatives
Why we're staying on Discord
Discord Shortly after I started working on Firefly Zero, I registered a bunch of social accounts: Mastodon, Bsky, and Xitter. While I personally only use Mastodon, I want to provide everyone a convenient way to get project updates in their own favorite place. You can contribute to our projects from any OS and IDE, so why should I limit where you get you updates? Discord followed shortly after, with the same motivation and purpose. I created two channels: #general where Discord would post a message for every new person joining (and others would send a “waving hand emoji” to acknowledge the fact) and #releases where I would post the same updates as on all other media.
Is End-to-End Encryption Optional For Large Groups? - Dhole Moments
One of the recent topics in Messaging App Discourse is whether it makes sense to prioritize End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) when searching for an alternative to Discord. Who’s Saying “No&#…
FR#153 – What does a Discord replacement look like?
With Discord announcing age verification globally, people are searching for alternatives. But a Discord alternative on the open social web might just look structurally quite different.
Welcoming Discord users amidst the challenge of Age Verification
Matrix, the open protocol for secure decentralised communications
Garden | The Paper Pilot
Any and all opinions listed here are my own and not representative of my employers; future, past and present.
Chatty Community Gardens
Group chat is fertile soil for low-stakes ideation. With tending, seeds of thought can grow into structured, evergreen knowledge.
Chat is minimum-viable anything
Chat is the minimum-viable tool for online organizing. Without complete control over our means of communication, our ability to organize depends entirely on the goodwill of the very same hegemonic incumbents which we seek to surpass.
Cozy Community Software — Open Indie
As Commune edges closer to an early-access release, I've been musing on the concept of the cozy web vibes that we intend to cultivate in ...
Communal Bonfires — Open Indie
Online community platforms are assembly-kits for large, communal bonfires, designed to draw people towards the light and into the warm to...
Eugen Rochko (@Gargron@mastodon.social)
We’ve moved our internal communications from Discord to Zulip at Mastodon, and I think there are plans to do the same for our Patreon community Discord. The harder part will be untangling my gaming communities from this…
Introducing Chatto
I'm building an Open Source group chat application that's simple to self-host, familiar to use, and easy to customize.
Discord Alternatives, Ranked
Building an online community takes more than tools. But the right tool can make all the difference.
A few design decisions for a new chat platform
Discord has recently made a controversial decision that could be the start of long-term decline. The situation has people looking at alternatives. However, a lot of the alternatives I feel bark up the wrong tree, or are good for certain… Continue reading →
While this absolutely sucks, we are going to see a lot more places implementing universal global age verification over this next year, because the number of states and countries legally requiring it has gotten to the point no one can keep up anymore.
The Verge
Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month
I think the ideal discord-alternative would have a self-hosted instance per community (so a "server" really is a server), but all speaking a shared protocol so you can have them all in the sidebar of a unified client. Then you just need unified identity across all servers... atproto solves this???
