this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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Discord was already succumbing to enshitification. Now with their intention to be owned by Wall Street, that trajectory will certainly accelerate at warp speed once the change of hands happens.

Anyone already get ahead of this and find a solid alternative?

Right now I'm on the fence between Element for Matrix, and Revolt. Both seem to have their pros and cons and I can't find a clear "winner".

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[–] pory@lemmy.world 83 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

it's Element/Matrix if we're lucky. Revolt is just another Discord - surely this single company will last! With Element/Matrix being an open protocol, it won't be a "platform" you have to leave when it goes corporate.

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Nheko provides an interface that is reminiscent of Discord. Fully featured and fast Matrix client.

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 hours ago

Thank you for the recommendation. I tried element a while ago and found it lacking. Matrix must be the way forward. Disregarding IRC of course.

[–] kitnaht@lemmy.world 37 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (3 children)

Revolt is F/OSS

https://github.com/revoltchat/

It's not just a company with a clone of Discord, all the server back end, etc is open.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

...theoretically for now

It a centralized server controlled by the devs

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 1 points 49 minutes ago

Host your own then

[–] renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net 52 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Yes, which is good, but the lack of federation is a deal-breaker. It means that you either:

  1. Use their servers - This requires entrusting them with your communities, just like Discord.
  2. Host your own private instance - You can control it, but the lack of federation means it'll be isolated from communicating with other communities. This makes it really difficult to convince people to use your self-hosted servers.

Until Revolt adds a way for different instances to federate, Matrix is really the only other option.

[–] aleq@lemmy.world 17 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

My experience with Matrix is that the federation itself is a deal breaker. I have a pretty beefy server and good connection which was getting ddosed by running Matrix and timing out on so many requests for avatars/profiles etc. Maybe I did something wrong, but the whole experience rendered me quite skeptical to the viability of it as a federated chat.

That said I've had nothing but good experiences using it with big servers set up by pros.

[–] hobovision@lemm.ee 4 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Why would an optional feature be a deal breaker?

It also seems like an issue that could be easily solved by whitelisting.

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 hours ago

but also with request ratelimiting

[–] renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I get why Federation can cause issues (most of the time it's moderation related), but why would an extra option be a deal-breaker? Federation can always be disabled on a per-domain basis if you prefer. In fact, I'd argue it's best practice to only allow domains on a case-by-case basis to prevent spam and abuse.

On the converse, you can't enable Federation on a platform that doesn't have it.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

They were talking about matrix itself, not a specific option. And I’m not going to lie, having to hand hold your servers federation choices seems like a hassle. At that point why not just use a self hosted, non federated option?

[–] white_nrdy@programming.dev 2 points 3 hours ago

I think the point they're making is you can effectively have a self hosted non federated option with Matrix. Just disable federation as a whole (which I'm pretty sure is completely possible. Given companies use matrix for comms, and might not want federation, for similar reasons to what is being discussed here)

[–] drkt_@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 9 hours ago

That doesn't really change that it's one company hosting it. Unless you're willing to make 10 different accounts because your super-FOSS friends aren't willing to join each others instances?