Or pay nothing and host it on your own.
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
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Fuck it. I'm making the CPU cores and harvesting the silicon myself. Hand crafted indie servers and infrastructure from scratch.
You really should. I made the switch six months ago and my skin has never been more vibrant!
As you can read in the other responses that misunderstood the post, some people do not want to self-host and want something hosted. That's the beauty of opensource though: whatever suits you.
I've been trying out different alternatives with my friends. Screenshare and audio sharing capabilities across Linux, Windows and Mac is the one feature that Discord does right that no one else seems to. I really like Element (and by extension Matrix), but they really like to stick their head in the sand when it comes to important feature requests. The lack of screenshare with audio is a big thing that helps bring about the unfortunate choice to stick with Discord.
I know it's a tricky thing to get right, and I have love for the work that open source does; I don't have quite the level of skill yet to make/contribute an implementation myself. But it's strange it's been this long and nobody seems to have gotten this feature working, despite a big want for it.
EDIT: After taking a look at the issues on the element repos, it seems like this is getting worked on! https://github.com/element-hq/element-web/issues/29891 https://github.com/element-hq/element-desktop/pull/2850
This kind of lack of perspective is why open services always struggle. It seems like it's the only tool the advocates of it use since they fall into the "I have a hammer to everything that isn't a nail doesn't matter" trap.
This post could have been a list of free instances to join. But instead it offers people to learn hosting and sysadmin stuff.
I'm sure there will be a bunch of replies trying to teach me how easy it is... But I am a sysadmin. I'm not your audience, and some people don't see a difference.
People who use corporate platforms do it because it's easy. Joining matrix instances is pretty easy. Presenting Matrix like people need to host servers to use it is detrimental.
But instead it offers people to learn hosting and sysadmin stuff.
It does not. The post says paying for a hosted matrix server. That means you pay for somebody to host it. There's nothing more to it.
The full discord nitro plan costs 10$/month. That can get you a server for your friends and you can communicate with other servers. If everybody chips in, it's the cost of discord nitro minimum if you're 5 friends.
I think they're complaining you don't list where to host it/managed hosting.
That literally what the link provides
I'm aware, just guessing.
This isn't that, though.
OP's link is to a list of companies you can pay to host a matrix instance for you, so you don't have to deal with any of the hosting yourself.
But I agree most people would be sufficiently served by an account on a public instance.
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This is also why bluesky picked up over all the other twitter alternatives. The average user doesn't want to learn all this shit, they just want to use something that works (which in that situation is unfortunate, because Mastodon is right there and works perfectly fine out of the box with their default public instance, but it is what it is I guess).
Realistically I don't see Matrix picking up as a widespread discord clone. Just the entire idea of Matrix being a protocol and having different clients to choose from is enough to turn a lot of folks away from it. Meanwhile, Stoat is practically building a 1:1 discord clone, and is much easier for the average user to understand.
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It's mostly rust but there's typescript, js and go too.
Donate, buy merch, become a member, etc...
I'm on over 40 Discord servers. And yes I had one for my own group which I moved to Matrix. That still means I'm in over 40 Discord servers. Plus I also run Matrix.
People pay for Discord Nitro?
I pay for Discord Nitro because it's where the vast majority of the people I have real interactions with online are and I like being able to send my own emojis outside of my own server. I also like having better audio and video quality for my server's voice chat. Dumb, maybe, but it's literally less than a club cover fee per month.
Legcord's fake nitro is free.
Does it improve video and audio quality?
No clue, I'm not on discord, just trying to be helpful
Vencord.
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From everything I've seen matrix is not comparable to Discord, but instead like a slightly amped Signal. What am I missing?
But it is. I made the move with some friends. We created a space with some rooms for games and calls and some for memes and general shit.
Everything that discord does as well. If you don't care about the themes and personalisation of your space it is great and free.. And open source... And offers encrypted spaces
Actually I did just ask the same thing, and the TL;DR is that most clients do handle it as signal with group chat folders. Cinny does look like Discord, but currently lacks voice calling. It's currently web only with PWA support for mobile, though.
commet is basically discord running on matrix as far as I’ve seen. Still needs some work but i think it’s promising
Okay, then if it really is not discord, or to be specific, not self-hosted discord (because I don't care about the upfront cost of self-hosting), then I'm gonna start ignoring these matrix posts because they seem to be trying to convince people who want - someone in your link used burgers as a metaphor - A burger to instead get a hot dog.
I don't want a hot dog.
Yeah, they all really do feel like "Oh you want to stop playing World of Warcraft, but still want an online game to play? Try Second Life!" and I think that's partly because there isn't an app out there that feels like Discord besides Discord. Cinny (Matrix), IRC, and Stoat come close, but none support voice calls at this point, at least that I can find. Matrix itself supports calling (though I think that's still experimental), but Cinny doesn't. If it ever ends up supporting voice calls, that will likely end up being the Discord alternative In wouldn't feel bad recommending.
Until then, though, we don't really have a true Discord alternative. Just various chat apps that don't quite hit the mark.
Stoat literally supports voice calls and Matrix has supported 1 on 1 voice calls for a long time and now they are testing group voice chats
I'm sorry but it will be difficult to deliver something that fits all the checkboxes Discord filled without a lot of money behind it.
Following the food analogy, you don't want a burger, you want a whole buffet with all the foods discord delivered.
I disagree, it's more like we want a burger, but the only options that are out there are a meat patty here, a bun over there, and one project somewhere claims to have invented cheese and ketchup but can't get them together unless the burger is made of tofu and you have to add them yourself using chopsticks.
Discord already serves burgers, they are technically poisoned, but they are whole burgers with cheese and ketchup.
I agree to disagree, a burger is a functional food (product) and a lot of the options provided deliver a functional product for what it is designed to do.
Mumble is great for voice chat, XMPP is great for plain text, etc.
Discord is a set of products wrapped in a platform. You have chats, voice, video, screensharing, filesharing, threads, bots, etc.
But since you want the whole buffet you'll need to wait while Stoat and Spacebar finish cooking all the food, they don't have a team of chefs backed by VC money.
If you don't care for all that just keep using Discord or move to a proprietary buffet like Root until it enshittifies like Discord.
I haven't actually used Stoat, but they don't have group voice calls listed on their website, so I assumed they weren't there. My mistake on that part, but also they should probably list that on their website. That would probably put Stoat as the most viable alternative, especially if they add federation (especially over XMPP, which it seemed from their website was the most likely they'd go with?)
Nowhere in my comment did I state that Matrix didn't support voice calls. What was said was this:
Matrix itself supports calling (though I think that's still experimental), but Cinny doesn't.
Cinny doesn't. Their UI does not have a call button that I can locate, unless they're hiding it because I'm the only user in the room.
Fundamentally Stoat is probably the one that's there as a Discord replacement, since it does have calls, and between two different apps you can get a fully functiobal Discord alternative out of Matrix. But you have to use two apps to get it. If Stoat adds XMPP federation I will 100% switch in a heartbeat tho, I've been saying we could have a discord-like XMPP client since I started using XMPP.
Back on topic, though, the things I want out of a true discord replacement are this:
- Group voice calls
- A server system that is separated from DMs/group chats, at least visually
- Roles within those servers to manage people's access
That's all. That's all Discord has over literally every other chat app. If something is missing those 3 features, it's not a Discord alternative. It's a chat app, which is fine! But when people say shit like "Signal is a good Discord alternative" it makes me question how they're defining every word in that sentence, because it is 100% on the level of saying Guild War 2 is a good Second Life alternative. And my experience with most of the big "Discord alternatives" is that they aren't. The default Matrix+Element experience is not like Discord. I had to start a whole ass Lemmy thread to be pointed to Cinny, which has 2 of those features! Missing the third. Element has two of those features! Missing the third on mobile. I want a cheeseburger and what's happening is one place will sell me a grilled cheese, and the other is selling me a burger with a slice of cheese on top.
I already commented elsewhere but I think https://commet.chat/ is the best alternative, it runs on matrix, has voice chat and text. Still needs some work but I think it’s the better part of both worlds
It absolutely seems like the best alternative, yeah. I'll need to get some back end stuff handled to test calling (or just make an account on a server with it), and see how it works
For info:
Group voice calls
They're testing that right now. It's going well.
A server system that is separated from DMs/group chats, at least visually
Roles within those servers to manage people's access
They're testing that right now. It's going well.
I know, I mentioned that.
A server system that is separated from DMs/group chats, at least visually Spaces.
On mobile on the element client, absolutely not. The spaces group chats show up in your DMs, and there is not a way to turn that off. Yes I know about other clients existing, there's one where you can turn that off, but it's not even mentioned on the main Matrix website.
Cooool. Now just convince everyone else on discord and we're good.
What's that, you say? You can't? You're still trying to convince people to get off Facebook after 10 years? Huh.
With that attitude no one would ever move. It takes time to change
It also isn't going to come by just abandoning a platform and no longer interacting with the communities on it. Torpedoing my ability to communicate with my friends doesn't make them all change platforms.
Can Matrix do emotes like Discord yet?
YES there's a client that adds support for GIFs and custom emojis https://commet.chat/
Looks promising, but I need an iOS client too.
Fluffychat does this I believe
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