A friend and I spend a good chunk of the past week looking into Discord alternatives because of Discord speeding up towards enshittification.
We looked into two popular alternatives, Revolt and Matrix/Element, and wanted to share what we found from a non-techie Discord user's perspective. We put our findings here along with articles going into detail about Discord's increasing decline. Feel free to reach out if you find typos, broken links, or outright mistakes!
Personally I've started moving my community to Revolt because it's a better fit for my community, but I will be keeping my Matrix account in case other Discord communities decide to move over there. Depending on what your Discord server needs and techie levels, both can be good alternatives. Neither are outright replacements and both are undergoing development, so both options should continue to improve in the future.
EDIT (2026.01.18): Should have edited the main post earlier, but Revolt Chat has rebranded to Stoat Chat. See more details in this reblog addition.
Changed to Stoat (formerly Revolt) to replace Discord.
Also joined Proton for a replacement to Google. Seems to be mostly 1:1 except spreadsheets.
Did a full comparison / feature review for Google vs Proton, and Discord vs Stoat, for those looking for an update. Ill hunt down the original thread and try to add it on there for more people to see it.
(Sorry for any typos)
vvv -Comparisons / Review below- vvv
- Gmail > ProtonMail
Google Drive > Proton Drive
- Missing: No spreadsheets
Google Docs > Proton Docs
- Missing: No "tab" feature
Discord > Stoat
Overview: Stoat is a community-based chat client very similar to Discord. Open sourced, so all programmers can code to it. Has a dev Server you can join and participate, can also search for keywords of certain features to check up on status.
- Dev Community:Has feedback option, changelog, and full sourcecode links directly in the settings section. Has a dev server for contributing, hanging out, etc.
- Profile: User Name follows identical convention as old Discord - [username]#1234. Has pfp, display name, profile info, profile bg
- Appearance: wide range of themes and colors and fonts to select presets or manually override, various emoji packs. Variety of language options, includinf sillies (OwO, Pirate, 1337, etc).
- Sync across devices: appearance, themes, languages
- Security: Has a section to track sessions. Has 2FA, backup codes, and a way to delete or disable your acct.
- Communities: Has a Servers with Categories, Channels, Roles (with colors and ranking), Permissions, Server Profiles, emojis, invites, bans, search feature, etc.
- Creating Server Invite is wonky. Must create an invite using a desktop app or webapp (cannot create the invite link using webapp in desktop mode, or via mobile app -- unsure if it's just my phone.). Directions: right click on Server icon > create invite > copy link, paste link to friends or wherever
- Has Android app (limited features, beta). Not able to generate invite link. Notifications don't seem to work at all. Need to close and reopen for most changes to take effect, and sometimes to reconnect and load chats and refresh friendslist
- No iOS app (unsure if planned, but iOS store is a bitch to get your app added to it to begin with, so they're probably working on the Android app first to base it on).
- Custom Emojis allowed in servers (though the tags are a bit wonky - still usable)
- Uses true basic markdown (which means no underline, no spoiler tags, no sub-header)
- New: Channels can have icons!
- Missing: Threads, Polls. No plans that I can see to add these features currently.
- Voice channels: The UI is set up, and there seems to be an old system in place but it has been reported to be unreliable and wonky. Says they plan to finalize new system some time in the next couple months, but no official ETA. (I have not tested the old system to report specifically)
- Pinging: @[user] available, but currently no @[role] or @[everyone]. The feature has been requested and coded, but not yet pushed to production (no ETA given)
- Pins: Only available via web app in beta.
- Bots: readily available, have fun
- PluralKit bot: There is a Bot called RevoltBot that ties in to PluralKit, but I personally haven't used it yet. Seems like it would take some effort to set up. I plan to explore this soon. Ill rb this post with instructions once Ive figured it out. Here's a link for those interested: https://github.com/y2k04/revoltkit/
So I'm pretty sure we know that discords CEO is stepping down and is getting a new CEO (tbh if this is the first time hearing that dw it was mine too) So, a server that I'm in recommend that we could go to revolt.chat (login link, there is an opinion to sign up if needed) as a substitute if the app goes to paid subscription after the new CEO comes in
SS of my revolt account + a SS of the announcement posted ↓
My post comparing Discord vs Stoat has gotten a surge of likes/reblogs.
I've been half using it for a bit now but still waiting on certain features. Mainly Android stuff (notifications and masq).
I plan to take a fresh look at it to review again in the next few days since popularity is growing again. Gonna actually get that pkbot to see if i can come up with a tutorial or somethin', since the new Stoat app doesn't have plugins (last i checked anyhow).
Their dev server has been blowing up today though, so things are looking promising for Stoat. Hoping they get a dev soon, they mentioned being interested in one.
Due to Discord not being a whitelisted platform in all countries, as well as the companies habits of just randomly deciding on the worst moves possible, Eggs Attorney is also setting up a Revolt server!
Currently the space is being set up and is exceptionally small, but we welcome anyone who was unsure about/couldnt connect to Discord to message us so we can add you, and once we feel more confident we'll post the link here :3
