element.io uses Matrix. It's not bad.
this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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Can confirm, I host Matrix (homeserver synapse) and Element. Voice is a pain to get set up but I hear there are other matrix services which will do this for you easier. It's a process though. You can get text chat up in a day, voice is going to be a bit after that, a lot of tinkering.
Dito (Synapse server), Element for desktop app and fruitphones, Shildichat for android (its lighter and has an adorable turtle as a mascot).
And seconding the voice coms, the VOIP relay server is a huge pain to set up, same with the registration page. My nerd herd hosts a few services that federated to share services and the admin group just issues people accounts.
TLDR: no... Were not using discord anymore, we have discord at home.
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Rocket.chat would be my first recommendation, tho it looks more corporate aimed. It also claims to support Matrix federation.
You could also give Jami a try, it's p2p so it doesn't need servers.
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Matrix hoster here.
I would recommend Matrix as it has pretty much everything, including cross platform clients, threads, voice/video calls, screensharing, spaces (aka servers), federation and E2EE. Matrix also has bridges for Discord and pretty much every other service so this could ease transition...
But self hosting requires reading the docs and having some in depth knowledge and understanding as it can be quite complex.
I would recommend just creating a Matrix account on one of the common global servers and testing it.
If you want to self-host there are some pre-defined setups available (example) but I would still recommend to bring at least 5-10 hours.
Regarding operations: It's really resilient and barely ever breaks and also doesn't need a lot of resources. A 1-2vCPU server with under 1GB RAM server is enough for less than 10 people.
You se knowledgeable on this, so I hope you'll allow me to ask this.
I don't know anything about Discord, but I selfhost the Mattermost chat system for my family. They, too, are narrowing the free tier.
Can Matrix replace Mattermost for a family? Several separate "rooms" for various topics, plus 1-to-1 chats.
If it's just chatting with your use case: definetly yes
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I still use IRC. There are now modern web clients like The Lounge or Convos that can display/share images in the channels, keep history and push notifications. Apparently Convos can do video chat but I never tried it. Unfortunately I'm not aware of screen sharing features for any of these.
So on a very simple setup, you need an IRC server, then install and connect one of those clients to your server, and use them through a web browser, either on a computer or on a phone.
It's obviously not entirely Discord-like, but it is a simple way to chat and share images.
Yes, Mattermost. It's very similar to Slack and Discord. I have hosted it for years for our organization.
There's a web interface, and has an app available. Can have all sorts of integrations and bridges to other services.
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Back in my day, (shakes cane), Teamspeak and Ventrillo were the big voice chat platforms/tools. Both have text chat and channels/rooms; but their focus is voice chat for gaming.
What's that you say? IRC?
Ventrillo.
Dammit, son, makin' me feel old now
Roger Wilco
Hahahahaha
I'll be over here crying in the corner.
Next you're gonna mention ICQ
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Check out https://stoat.chat/, it's the closest self hostable group communications platform to Discord.
Just a fair warning in reply to this that the self-hosted version of Stoat doesn't currently have voice chat. It's an open issue that's currently paused until they can finish their rework.
If you have the skill for it, it seems like you can patch work the existing voice chat back in, but it's not part of their initial setup and there's no instructions on how to do so properly
Well that seems like a fairly big deal.
Link to their voice chat implementatoon.
Looks like you can enable it on self hosted version. Probably worth someone trying it out personally. Before giving up on stoat.
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Honestly the name choice adds difficulty in getting friends to take it seriously. Why did they pick "stoat"
Nowadays everyone accepted the name "Discord" but I think it's a pretty poor choice of branding too.
A communication app called Discord is pretty weird too.
A stoat is a pretty cool animal.
I think without prior knowledge of any voice chat Discord would probably rate worse in perception than Stoat.
you mean unlike the tools discord has replaced, such as "mumble", "ventrilo", "roger wilco" and "trillian"?
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No clue! It was revolt before. I think they had trademark issues with that name. What's wrong with stoat?
Personally, I associate stoats with Dwarf Fortress. And much butchering thereof.
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This whole "FOSS names are bad" sounds like a Mccarthyism sysop by this point. Like, really, who is pushing that crap?
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There another thread about discord requiring a face scan next month,so I think alternatives might start getting pushed.
Such as https://stoat.chat/
Edit: Not sure you can self-host it, but it does have a back end server listed in it's source code with a docker, however it might just be for code testing.
Right RTFM... https://github.com/stoatchat/self-hosted yes you can self-hosted it.
To create an invite you:
# drop into mongo shell
docker compose exec database mongosh
# create the invite
use revolt
db.invites.insertOne({ _id: "enter_an_invite_code_here" })
That's pretty jank.
Also - I'm getting pretty fed-up with self-hosting documentation that assumes very specific environments and goes into detailed configuration for that environment. Don't tell me how to setup a server and how to enable/configure SSH and setup UFW as part of setting up your software. Just tell me how to setup your software and what ports it uses.
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The Mastodon founder, Eugen Rochko, has just announced that "We’ve moved our internal communications from Discord to Zulip at Mastodon".
https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/116041405748460511
Zulip is probably more focused toward work than TTRPGs, but it can't hurt to try it. (I haven't tried it personally, yet.) It is self-hostable.
Zulip is great… on a PC. On mobile is a totally different thing, and not in a good way. 😕
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It's a shame, zulip doesn't have e2ee. not even DMs. but they seem to be working towards federation of some sort? there are no good/perfect solutions out there.
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TeamSpeek or Mumble.
Both have excellent voice chat.
Teamspeak still requires a license above a small user size, but has multiple clients that can accomodate different target audicences. The TS3 client still looks like it did back in the windows 7 days and the TS5 client is just copying discords homework (Not a clue what happend to 4 and I believe 6 is under development). Both use the same server backend and database structure so both work with one server and different user expirences.
Mumble is still the gold standard for handling large user bases (there is a reason big EvE Online alliances use mumble). It will take longer to set up, the configuration is handled by the server, not through authorized user accounts like TS.
teamspeak6 is in beta right now but it is my replacement for discord. Check it out, supports most anything people have used disc for
Matrix is an option but it’s slow and breaks all the time. I’m a big fan of XMPP myself but good luck convincing anyone else to make an account 😔
Dont knock matrix for being slow, it updates just as fast as anyone else's network speed is and it is focused on encryption and security. Given [gestures broadly to everything these days] people moving away from major platforms should really take into account their digital footprint and privacy.
So do you have to have an account on a specific server and then get the client or get the client first? I can't recall how to do it any longer.
Its pretty similar to Lemmy or anything else in the fediverse, someones full user name includes their home server.
Your admin just needs to have configured the service to except comminication from other servers and not just its internal users.
I'm on dbzer0 and they have one. Does that mean I can just use my dbzer0 account?
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Matrix?
IRC, RocketChat, Slack. Technically Matrix, but for your usecase I wouldn't recommend it, as it's a bit heavy, and if you're just planning on using it with other people on the same server there's not a point.
EDIT: Just noticed the voice chat thing. I've used Jitsi for that, and it works well. Also self-hostable
Jitsi is great as a Skype/Zoom replacement. It's not a 'room' on a server, but voice and video chats are stable and fast.
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I am not knowledgeable enough yet, but doesn't self-hosting Nextcloud have a voice feature? I'm looking into setting that all up myself
Any Matrix clients support screensharing?