this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
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Don't use Discord!
IRC and Matrix are better, free alternatives.
Matrix sadly doesn't have the bots, apj, or infrastructure that Discord has. Not to mention its a horrible alternative to Discord, not having permissionable channels is a deal breaker..
Trust me, I want to abandon this ship more than anything but my games/orgs/clans rely heavily on a lot of discord automation that just isn't even possible in Matrix.
Discord got popular because it did Skype and Mumble better than both, but it has suffered a lot from Enshitification
How has it suffered at all in enshitification?
Added undismissible gamification features nobody asked for, hiding more and more features behind boosts, and constant breaking of their mobile app.
Ignorant question, which features have been hidden behind pay wall that was available before hand?
Video streaming bitrates is the one that most affects my day to day. You could stream 1080p for free back in the day. I also believe the ability to post server emotes in other servers is also something that was locked behind the introduction of Nitro, but I can't confirm since at that time I was only in a single channel.
With this said, Discord needs to make money somehow, but crippling your own platform isn't the way.
Dont you think its fair to limit streaming bitrate? Thats a very expensive service and they still provide a good enough version to free users.
Ah yes, I definitely want banner ads, "Quests" and a Microtransactions Store for NAME COLOURS
That's not Enshitification at all...
/sarcasm
But realistically for a free tool with the functionality it has. The skippable microtranactions arent a big deal. The core functionality hasnt been effected at all.
I would argue that any amount of resources being spent on adding features nobody wants and nobody uses is Enshitification, as they're not being used on fixing the myriad existing problems or adding features people actually want
They tried being a game store at one point, where you bought Steam games through them.
They’re doing this again, pushing to be a kind of market place and data gathering tool for games.
I use both matrix and discord regularly and matrix is nowhere near a viable alternative for discord, the way they work is just too different. The only real alternative I've been able to find is guilded but it's no better than discord since it's still completely centralized and closed source
I'm on Matrix. That felt like an epic accomplishment that required both mobile and desktop. I don't remember why it was so difficult, but the registration/login/association process was awful. Maybe that's just Matrix.org.
Looking for things to do with my Pi that I'm upgrading today with an SSD. Maybe I'll run my own Matrix server on it so that there can be something else technically running with no traffic.
Came here to say this. Matrix is also a bit clunky still.
I don’t want to use it but the thing is I need to convince my friends and the 50 servers I’m in to switch too…
Also: Stoat (formerly Revolt)
I wonder who sued them... maybe Revolut?
can't embed content on irc. that alone makes it not viable as alternative, because communities rely on this feature to share content and memes.
IRC doesnt fit the usecase at all.