If you're interested in funding or helping us find funding for a Discord replacement that's federated and end-to-end encrypted, we're interested in implementing that at @spritely ... we even had been talking about that being our big focus for 2026.
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@cwebber @spritely @SprocketClown Matrix is probably going to be the long term answer. The UI UX is steadily improving, but might be OK already. The Element X iOS and Android clients are both now pretty good, and there are many others to try too.
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@dthompson @cwebber @spritely The most mentioned one would be https://stoat.chat/. I heard it is decent but I have not tried it myself.
Alternatively:
* https://commet.chat/
* https://fluxer.app/
* https://fermi.chat/
* https://sharkord.com/
* https://www.rootapp.com/And probably a few more that I have not yet discovered. This is a crowded space, holy shit
@polyfloyd wow I hadn't seen https://commet.chat before this, thanks, this is a super nice Matrix client. cc @douginamug
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@ekaitz_zarraga @cwebber @spritely It's often used by fandom communities as semi-private spaces apart from the more public Tumblr as well as by non profits and professional associations / communities of practice.
The UX is pretty great for moving between multiple servers with channels that have threaded conversations. Flexible admin controls and a lot of bots/add ons, too.
I never bothered with it until about two years ago when it became one of my main online social platforms.
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If you're interested in funding or helping us find funding for a Discord replacement that's federated and end-to-end encrypted, we're interested in implementing that at @spritely ... we even had been talking about that being our big focus for 2026.
We have the skills and the underlying tech to pull this off. What we need right now is resources. Funding for open source nonprofits like ours really fell apart in 2025. If you think you know how to help, feel free to reach out.
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@ekaitz_zarraga @cwebber @spritely It's often used by fandom communities as semi-private spaces apart from the more public Tumblr as well as by non profits and professional associations / communities of practice.
The UX is pretty great for moving between multiple servers with channels that have threaded conversations. Flexible admin controls and a lot of bots/add ons, too.
I never bothered with it until about two years ago when it became one of my main online social platforms.
@ekaitz_zarraga @cwebber @spritely It also has integrated audio and video chat (better than Slacks imho) and support things like watch parties really well (though I haven't used those features much).
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@ekaitz_zarraga @cwebber @spritely It also has integrated audio and video chat (better than Slacks imho) and support things like watch parties really well (though I haven't used those features much).
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@wcbdata
What needs to be fixed about Zulip? I'm curious, as I'm very intrigued by how it works, and I think it could work very well for organizing conversations.@viq Sorry about that - replied to a similar question further up the thread (as an accidental case in point, I suppose!)
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@ekaitz_zarraga @cwebber @spritely Yeah, it has some quirks but is relatively intuitive for being so robust.
I was part of a 100+ person writing group that migrated from (private) Reddit chat (which sucked). There was the usual grumbling but even the very non-technical folks figured it out pretty quickly.
(They do not plan to move again and I can't think of what to even suggest... )
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@viq Sorry about that - replied to a similar question further up the thread (as an accidental case in point, I suppose!)
@wcbdata
”see answer over there" is a perfectly reasonable response
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@SprocketClown @tim @cwebber @spritely Gotta agree, as someone who has set up a Matrix server, the UX has been and still is a disaster (give them 10 years and it’ll still look like XMPP), and they have literal “pro” versions of Matrix that are NOT the same source as community and are hosted by them.
Discord isn’t a good company, but they made a functional UX and understood that simple is intuitive.
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If you're interested in funding or helping us find funding for a Discord replacement that's federated and end-to-end encrypted, we're interested in implementing that at @spritely ... we even had been talking about that being our big focus for 2026.
We have the skills and the underlying tech to pull this off. What we need right now is resources. Funding for open source nonprofits like ours really fell apart in 2025. If you think you know how to help, feel free to reach out.
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@polyfloyd @cwebber @spritely I took a quick look and I don't see anything that mentions Stoat having federation or any other decentralized features. Commet probably has that due to being built on Matrix. Other than that, they all seem centralized but self-hostable with the exception of Root which afaict is proprietary SaaS.
@dthompson @polyfloyd @cwebber @spritely That’s because Stoat doesn’t have decentralized federated features. In fact, if you want to connect to another server, you have to compile the client and distribute it.
Saying this, Federation of chat channels might be unnecessary tech. What you need is a client that easily connects to multiple servers (“communities”) simultaneously with a single login, of which that login server can be federated.
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Funding-infrastructurally: one thing I'd like to see is some kind of mechanism where non-wealthy individuals with a little cash to spare can pledge $support if some corporate sponsor pulls out, especially if it's for questionable reasons.
(Just a thought.)
(Hey have you heard of ActivityPub, maybe that would be good for this.) -
@SprocketClown @tim @cwebber @spritely Gotta agree, as someone who has set up a Matrix server, the UX has been and still is a disaster (give them 10 years and it’ll still look like XMPP), and they have literal “pro” versions of Matrix that are NOT the same source as community and are hosted by them.
Discord isn’t a good company, but they made a functional UX and understood that simple is intuitive.
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@dthompson @polyfloyd @cwebber @spritely That’s because Stoat doesn’t have decentralized federated features. In fact, if you want to connect to another server, you have to compile the client and distribute it.
Saying this, Federation of chat channels might be unnecessary tech. What you need is a client that easily connects to multiple servers (“communities”) simultaneously with a single login, of which that login server can be federated.
@polyfloyd @cwebber @spritely @shanie yes, decentralized identity would resolve the issue of needing a separate account for each chat server, but I think the fediverse has shown the community-oriented server approach to be rather brittle. good enough for right now but not a model I want to replicate.
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@SprocketClown @tim @cwebber @spritely Stoat has a good UX but not decentralized in any way and their plans for that are not robust (see: “maybe one day”). It’s a “kick the Discord problem down the road a bit” solution. Perhaps that’s what we need with no real solution available right now.
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@polyfloyd @cwebber @spritely @shanie yes, decentralized identity would resolve the issue of needing a separate account for each chat server, but I think the fediverse has shown the community-oriented server approach to be rather brittle. good enough for right now but not a model I want to replicate.
@dthompson @polyfloyd @cwebber @spritely personally I find the decentralized nature of Mastodon to be quite robust, but that’s because I limit who can join my server so I don’t get overrun, in data bandwidth, storage, or moderation…
A feature that would be welcome and might alleviate your concerns is high availability so other servers can carry the load when one server fails or disappears, kind of like IRC.
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If you're interested in funding or helping us find funding for a Discord replacement that's federated and end-to-end encrypted, we're interested in implementing that at @spritely ... we even had been talking about that being our big focus for 2026.
We have the skills and the underlying tech to pull this off. What we need right now is resources. Funding for open source nonprofits like ours really fell apart in 2025. If you think you know how to help, feel free to reach out.
@cwebber @spritely if it can be made as simple to install and run as Mastodon, then I could see it being a great opportunity. I’m advocating for hyper local installs as a way around age verification. https://www.empathyforward.org/2025/12/community-based-fediverse-instances/
My own FOSS efforts are focused on making this easier to manage.
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@SprocketClown @tim @cwebber @spritely Stoat has a good UX but not decentralized in any way and their plans for that are not robust (see: “maybe one day”). It’s a “kick the Discord problem down the road a bit” solution. Perhaps that’s what we need with no real solution available right now.
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