@commetchat@fosstodon.org
the UI of discord is not why I've been using it.
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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It's certainly part of it, for many people. Try to sell your friends on using that old IRC client and tell me they don't take one look at it and turn their nose up at you.
Glad people who like the UI can get it in Matrix too but personally yeah, the Discord UI has never been one I've liked. Way to insist on being fullscreen at all times
I was immediately gonna comment "but does it support element-call" and to my surprise:
Supporting both, 1:1 calls over WebRTC, and voice channels with MatrixRTC + LiveKit
So to my knowledge this is the first client thats not an element fork that supports the new call system 🎉
Looks like it was added only a week ago, so maybe there will be some bugs, but still im very happy to finally see this in an independent client.
afaik both fluffychat and cinny support it, but they don't advertise it well.
FluffyChat from my testing just now only supports the legacy 1:1 p2p calls not the new element-call system (here called MatrixRTC + LiveKit) that supports large group calls and performs much better. I dont think cinny supports it either if i look at their changelogs from the last year.
MatrixRTC + LiveKit
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God please let matrix figure out text channels and better calling 🙏
But.... They already have text channels pretty much figured out and are on better calling rn with Element Call
The messaging experience between Discord and Element is night and day. On Discord, I open the app, go to a server, and can see all the rooms and all the messages almost instantly.
On Element (at least on Android), chats from different communities intermingle with my groups. I tapped on a large and slow-moving group, and watched messages slowly lurch into view as most of the messages were "join" and "leave" ones.
ETA: I tried Commet, and I'm happy to say that while it still has the loading issue and several problems typical to new apps, it does separate private group chats from ones linked to spaces!
On Discord, I open the app, go to a server, and can see all the rooms and all the messages almost instantly.
On Element (at least on Android), chats from different communities intermingle with my groups.
are you using the spaces feature in element? that's the same thing as discord "servers". they are on the left, unless you have none yet. the default setting in element is a bit silly, you should turn off showing rooms from all spaces when a space is not opened, it'll be much better.
on phone the space list is at the bottom.
I tapped on a large and slow-moving group, and watched messages slowly lurch into view as most of the messages were "join" and "leave" ones.
which app are you using? element X, or the old, plain element? the old app is slow, the new one should work much better in that regard.
you can also disable showing name change and membership change events if you don't care, but membership is good to be aware of and shouldn't be a problem with element x
I think this is a good example of how Matrix does support most of the things we expect from Discord, but the defaults are sometimes wrong (showing rooms from spaces if not in a space), and the sheer number of client apps that are all slightly different and outdated in various ways adds a ton of friction to using it.
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The last couple updates made it better, but I wouldn't exactly call Element a smooth experience. For example it recently began to try and access a keyring that doesn't exist, ignoring the one that I already have readily available, and that works for everything else.
This is the latest in a long series of frustrating experiences with Matrix in general. To this day, Element isn't stable, and Element X is somehow worse. It is, imo, a very promising option, but it is also far from perfect.
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Yeah I just set up a synapse + livekit server last night. Voice, video, and screen share rooms work flawlessly
Isn’t that its purpose?
The one silver lining of commercial apps shitting the bed (or shitting on their users) is that it helps accelerate development of FOSS/decentralized/federated alternatives because of the sudden interest.
Maybe that would help because I have a really hard time understanding how matrix works.
Ive been using it for many years now and i understand it can be confusing at times. Do you have any specific questions that i might be able to answer? I have onboarded dozens of people at this point and somehow we always figured it out.
I appreciate your help. I might reach out to you soon.
Maybe I should also look up some YouTube videos about it. That always helps as well.
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Like lemmy more or less
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This seems like the better alternative to discord than the other centralized platforms
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But no friends list :(
Return to Pidgin
It's cool that it "supports threads", but - as so many other clients - it forgets to actually expose threads! As in: once the initial comment starting a thread slides up in the chat, the only way to access the thread is to scroll all the way up there again.
Fake edit: OK, Commet shows all threads if you type "thread" in search. Still, having a button to do just that would be infinitely better.
Also: no support for polls? :(
The age old matrix problem, every client is uniquely shitty and poorly put together.
I swear the day a feature rich and actually competent matrix client is released is the same day gnome devs will stop having stupid takes and Wayland devs will stop arguing.
And KDE devs will stop assuming they know better than their users...
What kills me is that even the "official" clients (Element, and Element X) are not full-featured. What kills me even more is that Element X (the official "new" app and the "replacement" for Element) supports some additional features over Element, but not all - as in, some things are not possible in it, but are possible in Element.
It's like it's run by an insane asylum...
This looks promising. For my self host/privacy friends, this one simply has unifiedpush support (simple-x still hasn't).
PS. This app isn't listed here: https://unifiedpush.org/users/apps/ Time to tell them.
Thank you so much! Always down to try a new matrix client. So much potential.
Looks good, I fiddled around with it for a bit. For now, I prefer FluffyChat. I‘m actually wondering how little it is mentioned in the recent pop up of discord alternatives / matrix clients given how polished and easy to use it is.
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Saved for later, will probably try once it publishes to flathub.
Looks good actually.. I think I will keep using Element for now.. but for new people joining matrix coming from Discord, I would definitely recommend trying out Commet.
My best friend used to go by @comet on Discord. He's the one who made my friend group's server, and he's essentially the only reason I ever got it in the first place (now, he's one of the first to join my Matrix instance). The fact that this project is named Commet is NOT good for my "main character syndrome"!
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