Technology

waits for matrix fanboys to still chime in

Matrix is probably the closest to Discord overall. If Element is bugging out on you, it might be worth trying other clients. Nheko worked well when I tried it, for example. Do note that the matrix.org homeserver is sometimes overloaded, so if you're having responsiveness issues, choosing or running a different homeserver will probably clear them right up.

Mumble.info is great for voice. If your text chat needs are pretty basic, it might be a good fit. I don't think it saves message history.

XMPP is a protocol, not an app. If you you saw an interface you didn't like, you could always just use a different client. I don't usually recommend it, since setting it up with all the features people usually expect is a bit complicated and error-prone, but it would probably be fine among a small group of friends if one of them has tech skills. I don't think it offers voice, at least not in any widely-supported way.

I use Steam Chat for playing games with family and friends. It has better audio quality than discord in my opinion, and you can make groups (something like Discord servers) too. It doesn't have all the functionality of servers, but the basic idea is there.

I am actually surprised nobody mentioned it yet Why use some third party application, when you can use the Steam's one.

It's not like the OP is concerned about privacy. They were using discord. They didn't say it has to be open source.

For talking outside of gaming or away from PC, I use signal.

IRC.

I setup a Mattermost server for me and the boys. It’s more slack than discord. But chat, rooms and voice all worked. Push notifications worked on android and Apple. But, I had to admit defeat. No one wants to leave discord because they all have at least 1 friend who won’t leave it.

I tried to self hosted matrix, but it suffered the same feigned interest.

Discord is banned in Turkiye.

Considering the nature of these programs, I think the most important thing to hone in on is: what's popular in Turkiye? Features and functionality don't mean squat if no one's around to enjoy them.

...tad off topic, but this thread is making me miss xFire. That shit was better 10 years ago (maybe more like 15? idk, I'm old) than Discord was at its peak. ...litigated out of existence by Yahoo's frivolous weaponization of our legal system. This is why we can't have nice things.

Edit - Fuck you, Yahoo.

Jitsi meet is what I use for calls with my friends. You can continue using revolt or matrix or something for the text channels.

https://meet.calyx.net/

You could self host revolt.

Teamspeak 3 is ancient, but works.

However there is a new version of Teamspeak (TS5) which is much closer to Discord and looks much nicer. You could give that a try

There isn't a full replacement for Discord out there, it'll have to be old school with multiple things together.

Teamspeak is great for voice comms (or Mumble). And you could use Matrix or XMPP for text chat. Matrix should be a lot better if you either self-host or join a smaller server that isn't so overloaded all the time.

For game streaming Broadcast Box paired with OBS Studio seems like a good option for low latency streaming.

matrix: unstable overall

"Unstable" is an understatement, and this comes from a girl who uses it all day every day.

If you or one of your friends can self-host, my group used mumble before discord. I still don't really know why we switched.

When it got banned? My Friend is from Turkiye. He still used it.

XMPP/Jabber has whatever interface you choose (determined by the client you use), and does voice pretty darn well.

I'm currently using Jmp.chat as a SIM/data provider, and they provide an XMPP account via Snikket. I can connect to that account with pretty much any XMPP/Jabber client.

To me, XMPP/Jabber is the most flexible, because it's a protocol, and you choose which parts you want. And you can choose which clients you use. I have 2 clients on my phone and one on my laptop. They all work fine with the same account, with messages showing up at all simultaneously. One client (Snikket) has multiple accounts in it. The thing is XMPP/Jabber as a protocol is like SMTP - it's a standard, so all clients can communicate with each other, if they support the same features (eg OMEMO encryption, which is popular now).

Alternatively check out:

Teleguard, it's from the folks at SwissCows. They claim E2E, and from the way you connect devices, and that you can't recover an account from them, I tend to believe it. Though I haven't seen a third party evaluation (I belive they're closed source, unfortunately). So do with that what you will.

Simplex Chat, self hostable, they claim it's very secure. I've used it some, the phone app is a bit heavy on ram use.

There are numerous others out there.

On one hand, it's cool that you have an excuse to ditch Discord. The platform sucks in several different ways and the more people leave it, the better off the world is.

But on the other - you seem to be aiming for the wrong goal. I know what it's like to have one thing blocked after the other, so I know for sure that migrating every time something gets blocked is just not a sustainable long-term strategy. You might replace Discord for unrelated reasons... But I strongly advise you to look into censorship circumvention methods. Especially stealthy ones, like they use in China. Set it up for your family and friends (maybe distributing the server costs between them). You will need it.

In fact matrix is great

To those suggesting mumble, are there any good guides out there? The website is shockingly bad for introductory information.

Revolt: Voice chat is not stable. They do not accept new registrations.

That's news to me. Where do they not allow new accounts signing up????

IRC: it’s open source, it’s free, its retro

Theres also zulip, but I havent tried it yet, but its supposedly open source discord, but you have to host the server yourself I think.

https://www.mumble.info

There's not a great 1:1 replacement. I'd suggest some sort of hybrid approach. Personally, I use mumble for voip and matrix for text. I haven't experienced any significant stability issues with matrix, but self-hosting probably plays in my favor there.

KiwiIRC is a web based IRC client. Does not have voice chat afaik, but since it's IRC it's very lightweight and had a low entry barrier.

Your experience with XMPP will vary depending on the client you use. It's not a 1 to 1 replacement for discord, and I'm not sure if there's a client that can do group calls, but It can do 1 on 1 calls and group text chats. I'd recommend Cheogram for mobile, and possibly movim for desktop.

For group audio calls, if you found matrix unstable, then Mumble is likely your best bet, or perhaps Signal, if that's not banned as well.

I'm in the same boat and also looking for a privacy-respecting platform for communicating with family and friends. So I'd also like to add items that are not yet mentioned to the list of suggestions:

• Jami
• Peer Calls - can be selfhosted; you can try it out straight away using their flagship instance located here.

self-hosting matrix is possible, and after I got it set up, it works fine. That said, push notifications were acting up a lot at first (might have been fixed by an update since that hasn't been an issue in a while), and it is rather annoying to get your desktop and mobile clients set up to not be annoying about not being verified (iOS apps seem more fiddly with verifying than Android apps in my experience)

Despite my annoyances at first, the Element client really is the best and most mature one out there, and I do recommend it. Don't bother with any of the other ones; despite what the fluffychat settings want you to think, Element is the only client that can do any kind of audio/video calling, and most of the other clients only have web apps, so there's no hope for getting push notifications on mobile.

Ultimately it has worked for me, but my demands are three humans in a voice call once a week, no screenshare (use Parsec for that), and occasional text messages.