What is Discord and what are its top alternatives?
Discord is a popular communication platform that allows users to chat via text, voice, or video in real-time. It is primarily used by gamers but has found popularity among various communities for its ease of use and feature-rich environment. Key features of Discord include creating servers for different topics, voice channels for efficient communication, customizable roles and permissions, integration with third-party apps, and a sleek user interface. However, some limitations of Discord include occasional server outages, lack of end-to-end encryption, and potential security concerns due to privacy issues.
- Slack: Slack is a popular alternative to Discord that offers channels for communication, direct messaging, file sharing, and integration with third-party apps. It is widely used by businesses for team collaboration. Pros include advanced search functionality, integrated video calls, and file storage. Cons compared to Discord include pricing for additional features and restrictions on free plans.
- Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams is a comprehensive collaboration platform that combines chat, video conferencing, file storage, and app integration. It is part of the Microsoft 365 suite and is widely used in corporate environments. Pros include seamless integration with other Microsoft tools, security features, and extensive customization options. Cons compared to Discord include a steeper learning curve and limited options for customizing roles and permissions.
- Telegram: Telegram is a messaging app that offers secure and private communication through end-to-end encryption. It supports group chats, channels, file sharing, and voice calls. Pros include strong security features, cross-platform availability, and no ads. Cons compared to Discord include less focus on voice communication, limited integrations with third-party apps, and smaller user base in comparison.
- Zoom: Zoom is a video conferencing platform that allows users to host virtual meetings, webinars, and online events. It offers features such as screen sharing, breakout rooms, and virtual backgrounds. Pros include high-quality video and audio, easy user interface, and recording capabilities. Cons compared to Discord include a primary focus on video calls, limited text chat functionality, and a separate platform for social interactions.
- Riot.im: Riot.im is an open-source collaboration app that offers secure messaging, voice/video calls, and file sharing. It is built on the Matrix open standard for decentralized communication. Pros include end-to-end encryption, decentralized architecture, and extensive customization options. Cons compared to Discord include a smaller user base, fewer integrations with third-party apps, and potential complexity for new users.
- Mumble: Mumble is a low-latency voice chat software designed for gamers and online communities. It offers positional audio, in-game overlay, and customizable user permissions. Pros include high audio quality, low resource usage, and open-source code. Cons compared to Discord include a steeper learning curve, limited text chat features, and fewer server management options.
- Wire: Wire is a secure messaging app that offers end-to-end encryption for text, voice, and video communication. It focuses on privacy and data security, making it a good choice for sensitive conversations. Pros include strong security features, cross-platform availability, and collaboration tools. Cons compared to Discord include fewer customization options, limited integrations with third-party apps, and pricing for advanced features.
- Tox: Tox is a decentralized and secure messaging platform that prioritizes user privacy and data protection. It offers text chat, voice calls, video calls, and file sharing in a peer-to-peer network. Pros include end-to-end encryption, decentralized architecture, and no ads or tracking. Cons compared to Discord include a smaller user base, limited features for group communication, and potential complexity for new users.
- Jitsi Meet: Jitsi Meet is an open-source video conferencing platform that allows users to host virtual meetings with no account registration required. It offers features such as screen sharing, chat, and recording. Pros include easy setup, no cost for basic features, and strong security measures. Cons compared to Discord include a focus on video calls, limited text chat functionality, and fewer customization options.
- Rocket.Chat: Rocket.Chat is an open-source communication platform that offers text chat, video conferencing, and file sharing for teams and communities. It can be self-hosted or used in the cloud. Pros include extensive customization options, integrations with third-party apps, and scalability. Cons compared to Discord include potential complexity for setup, limited user-friendly interface, and fewer built-in features.
Top Alternatives to Discord
- Slack
Imagine all your team communication in one place, instantly searchable, available wherever you go. That’s Slack. All your messages. All your files. And everything from Twitter, Dropbox, Google Docs, Asana, Trello, GitHub and dozens of other services. All together. ...
- Skype
Skype’s text, voice and video make it simple to share experiences with the people that matter to you, wherever they are. ...
- Zoom
Zoom unifies cloud video conferencing, simple online meetings, and cross platform group chat into one easy-to-use platform. Our solution offers the best video, audio, and screen-sharing experience across Zoom Rooms, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and H.323/SIP room systems. ...
- Gitter
Free chat rooms for your public repositories. A bit like IRC only smarter. Chats for private repositories as well as organisations. ...
- Google Hangouts
Message contacts, start free video or voice calls, and hop on a conversation with one person or a group. ...
- WhatsApp
It is a cross-platform mobile messaging app for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia. It allows users to send text messages and voice messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other media. ...
- Telegram
Users can send messages and exchange photos, videos, stickers, audio and files of any type. It provides instant messaging, simple, fast, secure and synced across all your devices. ...
- Jira
Jira's secret sauce is the way it simplifies the complexities of software development into manageable units of work. Jira comes out-of-the-box with everything agile teams need to ship value to customers faster. ...
Discord alternatives & related posts
- Easy to integrate with1.2K
- Excellent interface on multiple platforms876
- Free849
- Mobile friendly694
- People really enjoy using it690
- Great integrations331
- Flexible notification preferences315
- Unlimited users198
- Strong search and data archiving184
- Multi domain switching support155
- Easy to use82
- Beautiful40
- Hubot support27
- Unread/read control22
- Slackbot21
- Permalink for each messages19
- Text snippet with highlighting17
- Quote message easily15
- Per-room notification14
- Awesome integration support13
- Star for each message / attached files12
- IRC gateway12
- Good communication within a team11
- Dropbox Integration11
- Slick, search is great10
- Jira Integration10
- New Relic Integration9
- Great communication tool8
- Combine All Services Quickly8
- Asana Integration8
- This tool understands developers7
- XMPP gateway7
- Google Drive Integration7
- Awesomeness7
- Replaces email6
- Twitter Integration6
- Google Docs Integration6
- BitBucket integration6
- Jenkins Integration5
- GREAT Customer Support / Quick Response to Feedback5
- Guest and Restricted user control5
- Clean UI4
- Excellent multi platform internal communication tool4
- GitHub integration4
- Mention list view4
- Gathers all my communications in one place4
- Perfect implementation of chat + integrations3
- Easy3
- Easy to add a reaction3
- Timely while non intrusive3
- Great on-boarding3
- Threaded chat3
- Visual Studio Integration3
- Easy to start working with3
- Android app3
- Simplicity2
- Message Actions2
- It's basically an improved (although closed) IRC2
- So much better than email2
- Eases collaboration for geographically dispersed teams2
- Great interface2
- Great Channel Customization2
- Markdown2
- Intuitive, easy to use, great integrations2
- Great Support Team1
- Watch1
- Multi work-space support1
- Flexible and Accessible1
- Better User Experience1
- Archive Importing1
- Travis CI integration1
- It's the coolest IM ever1
- Community1
- Great API1
- Easy remote communication1
- Get less busy1
- API1
- Zapier integration1
- Targetprocess integration1
- Finally with terrible "threading"—I miss Flowdock1
- Complete with plenty of Electron BLOAT1
- I was 666 star :D1
- Dev communication Made Easy1
- Integrates with just about everything1
- Very customizable1
- Platforms0
- Easy to useL0
- Can be distracting depending on how you use it13
- Requires some management for large teams6
- Limit messages history6
- Too expensive5
- You don't really own your messages5
- Too many notifications by default4
related Slack posts
Sentry has been essential to our development approach. Nobody likes errors or apps that crash. We use Sentry heavily during Node.js and React development. Our developers are able to see error reports, crashes, user's browsers, and more, all in one place. Sentry also seamlessly integrates with Asana, Slack, and GitHub.
Last time we shared there information about our decision about using YouTrack over Jira actually we found much better solution that our team have loved. Linear is a minimalistic issue tracker that integrates well with Sentry, GitHub, Slack and Figma which are our basic tools. I would like to recommend checking out Linear as a potential alternative to "heavy" issue trackers, maybe at enterprises that may not work but when we're a startup that works awesome!
Skype
- Free, widespread258
- Desktop and mobile apps147
- Because i have to :(110
- Low cost international calling57
- Good for international calls56
- Best call quality anywhere, generally10
- Beautiful emojis5
- Chat bots4
- Translator2
- Skype for business integration with Outlook2
- United kingdom1
- Not the Best, but get the job done1
- Really high CPU utilization during video/screenshare5
- Not always reliable3
- Outdated UI3
- Birthday notifications are annoying3
- The worst indicator noises of any app ever3
- Finding/adding people isn't easy2
related Skype posts
Uploadcare is mostly remote team and we're using video conferencing all the time both for internal team meetings and for external sales, support, interview, etc. calls. I think we've tried every solution there is on the market before we've decided to stop with Zoom.
Tools just plainly don't work (Skype), are painful to install for external participants (Webex and other "enterprise" solutions) can't properly handle 10+ participants calls (Google Hangouts Chat).
Zoom just works. It has all required features and even handles bad connections very graciously. One of the best tool decisions we've ever made :)
I use Slack because it offers the best experience, even on the free tier (which we're still using). As a comparison, I have had in depth experience with HipChat, Stride, Skype, Google Chat (the new service), Google Hangouts (the old service). For self hosted, Mattermost is open source and claims to support most Slack integrations, but I have not extensively investigated this claim.
- Web conferencing made easy25
- Remote control option16
- Draw on screen13
- Very reliable12
- In-meeting chat is pretty good11
- Free9
- Pair programming sessions with shared controls9
- Easy to share meeting links/invites8
- Good Sound Quality7
- Cloud recordings for meetings6
- Great mobile app5
- Virtual backgrounds4
- Recording Feature4
- Other people use it4
- User Friendly actions4
- Reactions (emoticons)2
- Auto reconnecting2
- Chrome extension is great to easily create meetings2
- While sharing screen, you can still see your video2
- Mute all participants at once2
- When ending the videocall, everybody gets kicked2
- Different options for blocking chat2
- Easily share video with audio1
- /zoom on Slack1
- Registration form1
- Meant for business and education1
- Zoom0
- Limited time if you are a basic member20
- Limited Storage14
- Hate how sharing your screen defaults to Full Screen11
- Quality isn't great (Free)10
- No cursor highlight on screenshare.9
- Potential security flaws8
- Onboarding process for new users is not intuitive7
- Virtual background quality isn't good5
- Security5
- Editing can be improved4
- Doesn't handle switching audio sources well4
- The native calendar is buggy4
- Dashboard can be improved4
- Pornographic material displayed3
- Any body can get in it3
- Not many emojis3
- Past chat history is not saved3
- Recording Feature3
- En In reality,the chat in the meet not is excelent,noo3
- Zoom lags a lot3
related Zoom posts
Using Screenhero via Slack was getting to be pretty horrible. Video and sound quality was often times pretty bad and worst of all the service just wasn't reliable. We all had high hopes when the acquisition went through but ultimately, the product just didn't live up to expectations. We ended up trying Zoom after I had heard about it from some friends at other companies. We noticed the video/sound quality was better, and more importantly it was super reliable. The Slack integration was awesome (just type /zoom and it starts a call)
You can schedule recurring calls which is helpful. There's a G Suite (Google Calendar) integration which lets you add a Zoom call (w/dial in info + link to web/mobile) with the click of a button.
Meeting recordings (video and audio) are really nice, you get recordings stored in the cloud on the higher tier plans. One of our engineers, Jerome, actually built a cool little Slack integration using the Slack API and Zoom API so that every time a recording is processed, a link gets posted to the "event-recordings" channel. The iOS app is great too!
#WebAndVideoConferencing #videochat
Server side
We decided to use Python for our backend because it is one of the industry standard languages for data analysis and machine learning. It also has a lot of support due to its large user base.
Web Server: We chose Flask because we want to keep our machine learning / data analysis and the web server in the same language. Flask is easy to use and we all have experience with it. Postman will be used for creating and testing APIs due to its convenience.
Machine Learning: We decided to go with PyTorch for machine learning since it is one of the most popular libraries. It is also known to have an easier learning curve than other popular libraries such as Tensorflow. This is important because our team lacks ML experience and learning the tool as fast as possible would increase productivity.
Data Analysis: Some common Python libraries will be used to analyze our data. These include NumPy, Pandas , and matplotlib. These tools combined will help us learn the properties and characteristics of our data. Jupyter notebook will be used to help organize the data analysis process, and improve the code readability.
Client side
UI: We decided to use React for the UI because it helps organize the data and variables of the application into components, making it very convenient to maintain our dashboard. Since React is one of the most popular front end frameworks right now, there will be a lot of support for it as well as a lot of potential new hires that are familiar with the framework. CSS 3 and HTML5 will be used for the basic styling and structure of the web app, as they are the most widely used front end languages.
State Management: We decided to use Redux to manage the state of the application since it works naturally to React. Our team also already has experience working with Redux which gave it a slight edge over the other state management libraries.
Data Visualization: We decided to use the React-based library Victory to visualize the data. They have very user friendly documentation on their official website which we find easy to learn from.
Cache
- Caching: We decided between Redis and memcached because they are two of the most popular open-source cache engines. We ultimately decided to use Redis to improve our web app performance mainly due to the extra functionalities it provides such as fine-tuning cache contents and durability.
Database
- Database: We decided to use a NoSQL database over a relational database because of its flexibility from not having a predefined schema. The user behavior analytics has to be flexible since the data we plan to store may change frequently. We decided on MongoDB because it is lightweight and we can easily host the database with MongoDB Atlas . Everyone on our team also has experience working with MongoDB.
Infrastructure
- Deployment: We decided to use Heroku over AWS, Azure, Google Cloud because it is free. Although there are advantages to the other cloud services, Heroku makes the most sense to our team because our primary goal is to build an MVP.
Other Tools
Communication Slack will be used as the primary source of communication. It provides all the features needed for basic discussions. In terms of more interactive meetings, Zoom will be used for its video calls and screen sharing capabilities.
Source Control The project will be stored on GitHub and all code changes will be done though pull requests. This will help us keep the codebase clean and make it easy to revert changes when we need to.
Gitter
- Github integration63
- Free55
- Markdown support45
- Markdown19
- Graceful integration17
- Project-oriented16
- MARKDOOOOWN15
- IRC bridge12
- Integrates with everything9
- LaTeX8
- Apps available for most platforms4
- Cross-repository issue reference2
- Github login2
- IRC support1
- My new fav'rite thing is on it1
- Very fast work1
- Very open1
- Now open source1
- Open source1
- Free unlimited archives1
- Open access (no invitation needed)1
- Single account for all communities1
- Free, open & free hosting1
- Sends data to US Gov2
related Gitter posts
Shortly after I joined Algolia as a developer advocate, I knew I wanted to establish a place for the community to congregate and share their projects, questions and advice. There are a ton of platforms out there that can be used to host communities, and they tend to fall into two categories - real-time sync (like chat) and async (like forums). Because the community was already large, I felt that a chat platform like Discord or Gitter might be overwhelming and opted for a forum-like solution instead (which would also create content that's searchable from Google).
I looked at paid, closed-source options like AnswerHub and ForumBee and old-school solutions like phpBB and vBulletin, but none seemed to offer the power, flexibility and developer-friendliness of Discourse. Discourse is open source, written in Rails with Ember.js on the front-end. That made me confident I could modify it to meet our exact needs. Discourse's own forum is very active which made me confident I could get help if I needed it.
It took about a month to get Discourse up-and-running and make authentication tied to algolia.com via the SSO plugin. Adding additional plugins for moderation or look-and-feel customization was fairly straightforward, and I even created a plugin to make the forum content searchable with Algolia. To stay on top of answering questions and moderation, we used the Discourse API to publish new messages into our Slack. All-in-all I would say we were happy with Discourse - the only caveat would be that it's very helpful to have technical knowledge as well as Rails knowledge in order to get the most out of it.
From a StackShare Community member: “We’re about to start a chat group for our open source project (over 5K stars on GitHub) so we can let our community collaborate more closely. The obvious choice would be Slack (k8s and a ton of major projects use it), but we’ve seen Gitter (webpack uses it) for a lot of open source projects, Discord (Vue.js moved to them), and as of late I’m seeing Spectrum more and more often. Does anyone have experience with these or other alternatives? Is it even worth assessing all these options, or should we just go with Slack? Some things that are important to us: free, all the regular integrations (GitHub, Heroku, etc), mobile & desktop apps, and open source is of course a plus."
related Google Hangouts posts
I own an Escape Room. Since right now everyone is practicing social distancing, I would like to run my Escape Room games virtually. I would like to allow approx 4 users to log in to play. They can chitchat a few minutes before their game to get to know each other. Then once the game begins, I will introduce myself and give them the plot to their escape game. I will have a wide-angle camera mounted to the wall to show the room, and as the game master, carry a tablet or webcam around as players talk to me and direct me to show them certain items in the room, move in for closeups in certain areas, try lock combinations, etc. I will be their hands while they solve the puzzles. I am not sure if Google Hangouts Google Meet or Zoom is better for this. I did try it yesterday using google hangout meet and it was good, but I think there may have been a wifi issue where it was choppy. Just trying to figure out the best option. Thank you! Catherine
I'm looking for advice on what App to use in conversation and phone calls to someone who lives out of the country. Should I use Google Hangouts, Google Hangouts Chat, or does anyone have any other suggestions? I would greatly appreciate any help you could possibly provide. Thank you
- Free14
- Easy to carry on with contact3
- No privacy1
- Centralized1
- Maximum to 8 person video call1
related WhatsApp posts
- Lightweight16
- Free8
- Unlimited history8
- Great bot API8
- Can hide phone number4
- Media editor3
- Delete without a trace2
- Great bot2
- Requires phone number3
- Notification customisation is limited3
- No video call2
related Telegram posts
Jira
- Powerful310
- Flexible254
- Easy separation of projects149
- Run in the cloud113
- Code integration105
- Easy to use58
- Run on your own53
- Great customization39
- Easy Workflow Configuration39
- REST API27
- Great Agile Management tool12
- Integrates with virtually everything7
- Confluence6
- Complicated6
- Sentry Issues Integration3
- It's awesome2
- Rather expensive8
- Large memory requirement5
- Slow2
- Cloud or Datacenter only1
related Jira posts
So I am a huge fan of JIRA like #massive I used it for many many years, and really loved it, used it personally and at work. I would suggest every new workplace that I worked at to switch to JIRA instead of what I was using.
When I started at #StackShare we were using a Trello #Kanban board and I was so shocked at how easy the workflow was to follow, create new tasks and get tasks QA'd and deployed. What was so great about this was it didn't come with all the complexity of JIRA. Like setting up a project, user rules etc. You are able to hit the ground running with Trello and get tasks started right away without being overwhelmed with the complexity of options in JIRA
With a few TrelloPowerUps we were easily able to add GitHub integration and storyPoints to our cards and thats all we needed to get a really nice agile workflow going.
I'm not saying that JIRA is not useful, I can see larger companies being able to use the JIRA features and have the time to go through all the complex setup to get a really good workflow going. But for smaller #Startups that want to hit the ground running Trello for me is the way to go.
In saying that what I would love Trello to implement is to allow me to create custom fields. Right now we just have a Description
field. So I am adding User Stories
& How To Test
in the Markdown of the Description
if I could have these as custom fields then my #Agile workflow would be complete.
#StackDecisionsLaunch
Last time we shared there information about our decision about using YouTrack over Jira actually we found much better solution that our team have loved. Linear is a minimalistic issue tracker that integrates well with Sentry, GitHub, Slack and Figma which are our basic tools. I would like to recommend checking out Linear as a potential alternative to "heavy" issue trackers, maybe at enterprises that may not work but when we're a startup that works awesome!