@jonty There's literally nothing I can recommend to anyone that:
- Features a server and subchannels style of interaction, along with voice channels and screen sharing all rolled into one unified interface.
- Has good clients/apps across iOS, Android, Linux, Windows, and Mac
- Is actively developed and will still be around and working in 5 years, i.e the developers are funded somehow
- Can be reasonably self-hosted (i.e not a Matrix homeserver)
When people point to "Discord alternatives", they're either just random crap (Stoat) or they don't understand the ways people use Discord (i.e recommending IRC and other non-starters), or even worse: judge people for wanting this feature set
The closest thing is Matrix and Matrix is far far far far from what anyone wants. And dear god, the clients. Oh. My. God. The Matrix clients suck in so many ways. So yeah, from what I can tell, there are no Discord alternatives. It's all bad.
I still use IRC every day but IRC is not good enough for even my small friend group that's on Discord. We like our channels, VC, etc. And we hate Discord, but what can be done, ya know.