CantaloupeDo you prefer XMPP or Matrix powered apps as a discord alternative?
soldan
Ulrich
ProdigalFrogThat’s a screenshot of the Movim client’s WIP of Discord-like servers w/spaces, which is being rapidly worked on.
poVoqThe problem is that “Discord” means something else for almost anyone and there is no alternative that 100% covers all the usecases.
For many public chats, IRC with a modern server and client is perfectly suitable, and for my private gaming sessions Mumble is as voice chat is doing fine even though friends are complaining that they can’t just use it in a browser.
For general IM stuff XMPP is best, but I guess few people use Discord for that. Matrix is in general slow and clunky, no real point of using that except if you are forced to because some very specific FOSS projects insist on using it.
P.S.: I mostly use IRC through a XMPP gateway.
From my digging on alternatives the main contenders are (in no particular order)
- Stoat
- Essentially 1:1 on discords format
- UK based, so its future there is uncertain
- Infrastructure is lacking, was crippled by the initial influx after discord’s announcement.
- Missing some minor UI and UX features, feels unpolished.
- Spacebar
- Reverse engineered discord
- Greatest potential, IMO, but as of a few days ago all it has is potential.
- lacks significant client development, relying on an external client named Fermi, which feels quite amateurish.
- XMPP
- Highly mature, looks very promising, but lacks any kind of guild/nested channel grouping support which makes it unsuitable for my group, so I didn’t look too deep at it.
- Matrix
- IMO the most likely discord successor.
- Minor functional hiccups, that vary from client to client
- Of the clients I tested, Cinny is the most discord like, but I hear commet is closer.
- Nested spaces provides the minimum format equivalence.
- Fluxer
- Slightly sus vibes
- Lacks self hosting instructions
- Media is non-permanent, which is I guess fair to keep infra costs down, but its unsuitable for my groups media usage habits.
- Looks promising, but I’ve not actually tried it given the lack of self hosting instructions.
One thing that’s wormed its way onto the to do list that haunts the back of my mind, is I’d like to see if I could abuse the matrix or XMPP protocols to get some of the nicer discord-like features lime invite links, server side channel ordering, and space membership over channel membership. But that’s unlikely to happen any time soon.
EDIT: Forgot Fluxer. Added.
I belive just Matrix and XMPP.
Do they have voice chat integration? It’s not a big deal for me, but for a lot apparently it is.
I Cast FistMovim.eu seems to be. Rocketchat also claims to federate via matrix
- XMPP
Highly mature, looks very promising, but lacks any kind of guild/nested channel grouping support which makes it unsuitable for my group, so I didn’t look too deep at it.
No XMPP clients currently have that feature, but the Movim client is actively working on implementing it, and it should be ready in a few weeks. They recently launched a modest funding campaign to accelerate development.
One thing that’s wormed its way onto the to do list that haunts the back of my mind, is I’d like to see if I could abuse the matrix or XMPP protocols to get some of the nicer discord-like features lime invite links
I think I’ve seen invite links being proposed for Matrix, but I don’t remember the status of that idea, and can’t find a relevant MSC at the moment.
This bot looks like it could be helpful for now:
martini1992Why has IRC not been mentioned? The basics of Discords UX is based on it after all.
I suspect many Discord refugees will be looking for an all-in-one app that can do both solid text chat with discord-style servers and many rooms/spaces in them, as well as the ability to seamlessly have voice/video calls with groups of friends, as well as screenshare applications to watch movies together or stream games while chatting.
IRC is only capable of the text chat part, and would require an additional video conferencing app with a separate account to fulfill the video call part, which most would find off-putting after having it all-in-one for over a decade.
Xmpp. Looks less polished, but works better, and isn’t mostly controlled by the ex-Amdocs Matrix Foundation.
Fluxer is a better Discord alternative than Matrix and XMPP.
That said, XMPP is more private. Matrix is worse than everything else.
Fluxer, while promising, is currently too buggy for people to switch to, and still has an unproven back-end that needs to show it can scale up. I am hopeful for it though, as it uses GPL, and the dev plans to implement federation and encryption at some point.
XMPP is rapidly gaining Discord-like features thanks to the Movim client, but it too is not yet a 1:1 replacement. It is however pretty stable, and could be used while users wait for those additional features.
marcie (she/her)is movim even encrypted from what i can tell it isnt
It is. It offers OMEMO encryption of both chats and video/audio calls. It’s based on Signal’s encryption, but modified to work with a federated/decentralized model.
does it have an android app, or is it all web based
Movim only offers a PWA, but there are other native Android XMPP apps, such as Monocles Chat, but it isn’t as advanced as Movim in some ways, as it’s still lacking the ability to make or receive group voice/video calls, nor can it screenshare. It is however able to make 1-on-1 calls, even with Movim users.
sudoer777This sort of fragmentation is the biggest thing I dislike about XMPP. Although Matrix kind of fucked it up also when they switched mobile to Element X
I agree, it’s an unfortunate downside. But it’s still probably our best option long-term.
At least in XMPP’s case, I think a way of dealing with the fragmentation is to treat Movim as the ‘main’ app, and to encourage any friends willing to leave Discord to just use that, and not mention other options unless you know they’re a bit more tech savvy, and can understand the limitations of the other clients and just think of them as fun little bonuses (until they catch up, anyway). :)
Most normal people also use Discord on mobile though so that wouldn’t really work, and I’m not aware of a free XMPP server like matrix.org that exists
Movim works on mobile via the installable PWA, it works quite well.
Movim.eu offers free XMPP accounts just like Matrix, and virtually all other XMPP servers are free as well.
mononokeMovim has supported OMEMO since 2021 from the looks of it.
not by default tho
A lot of clients don’t have encryption enabled by default since they’ve been around for quite a long time, before this was a primary consideration in web communication standards. In these cases, like with Gajim, it is a simple toggle in the client options. I don’t use it but I assume Movim is similar.
with Gajim, it is a simple toggle in the client options. I don’t use it but I assume Movim is similar.
Can confirm, it’s just a toggle, and then you can click a padlock icon in any chat to send any new messages as encrypted.
yeah i hope matrix just fixes things up to make the experience smoother. seems to be taking them forever. it not being on by default is a nonstarter im not going to explain to my non tech friends how to encrypt their messages. this is basically the only real reason why signal is so great, its easy and preset out of the box. simplex seems good too and is making more progress than matrix it seems, idk how many users it can have in one chat though
I’ve personally not had terribly good experiences with Matrix. I found it to be slow at times, but more annoyingly, it would very consistently not un-encrypt messages both for me and the people I was talking to, requiring both parties to regularly need to re-send messages until they finally unencrypted properly. This made it a real ball-ache to use, as you could send a message, and then hours later have someone else say they can’t read it. I’m also not a fan of how much Metadata it spreads around.
XMPP on the other hand has always been snappy and fast, and I much prefer the clients available for it. It’s currently the most promising federated option, IMHO, with Movim being the most promising client as a Discord replacement.
It’s still missing some essential Discord-like features, such as groups of rooms in a server and drop-in voice rooms, but both features are being actively worked on, and a funding campaign was started to accelerate development.
But what it can do already is:
- Excellent text chats, including with very good optional encryption
- Group voice/video calls with screensharing (must use a chromium based browser to screenshare an app’s audio)
- A neat integrated blogging feature for communities & individuals
- a built-in paint program to draw stuff to input into the chat
- Full working and proven federation thanks to the XMPP back-end
Ok, but what is XMPP?
RelativityRangerstop the disinformation, thanks
lemmy.ca/comment/21700498
lemmy.ca/comment/21700498
I found it to be slow at times, but more annoyingly,
Slow at what, exactly? If you mean slow at delivering messages, it suggests that you were using the world’s largest public server, which sometimes gets overloaded enough to be slow. In that case, your criticism is not of Matrix, but of a particular server. To compare apples to apples, you would have to either pick a different server or compare the largest one with a similarly loaded XMPP server.
it would very consistently not un-encrypt messages both for me and the people I was talking to,
When was that? Which clients were in use? This is relevant because unable-to-decrypt errors were fairly common until roughly mid-to-late last year. They put a lot of work into finding and addressing the causes, and I haven’t seen a single one in more than a few months. I suspect the experience you’re describing here is either out of date, or you’re using clients that haven’t applied the fixes yet.
I also notice from your recent Lemmy posts that you are evangelizing Movim pretty hard lately. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but praising XMPP without mentioning its drawbacks, while spreading outdated and vague criticism of other options, is a somewhat misleading way to do it… and a disservice to the community.
I also notice from your recent Lemmy posts that you are evangelizing Movim pretty hard lately.
I am, mainly due to the Discord situation which has resulted in much more interest in alternative platforms. After everything dies down and everyone is settled in their new platform, I’ll likely be posting about it a bit less.
but praising XMPP without mentioning its drawbacks
I am mentioning its drawbacks; it does not have two very important Discord features as of now, which I explicitly point out. I also pointed out that screen sharing audio only works with Chromium browsers, which is another downside (I only use Firefox myself).
while spreading outdated and vague criticism of other options
You yourself said that the issues I had were only fixed a few months ago. I had been using it in the period you mention the problem existing in, but stopped using it due to those issues. I think it’s a little unreasonable to expect me to regularly re-try every other platform before relating my past experiences with it (a few months is not that long ago). I’m glad to hear that problem has been finally resolved for them. As it’s not relevant anymore, I won’t mention it when relaying my experience with it in the future.
You yourself said that the issues I had were only fixed a few months ago.
No, I said I haven’t seen a single one of those errors in more than a few months. I haven’t been tracking the timeline, but I’m pretty sure the fixes were being put in place closer to a year ago.
I think it’s a little unreasonable to expect me to regularly re-try every other platform before relating my past experiences with it
When we choose to publish old experiences instead of gathering updated information first, it’s important to also state when those experiences were, so readers can take it into account. Things are constantly changing in this field. (Mostly for the better, I think.)
In any case, thanks for clarifying, and thanks in advance for adjusting your spiel now that you’ve been made aware that your information was out of date.
Bullshit community lol
My gaming groups use Matrix, mainly for its stronger ecosystem and better long-term outlook. Despite developing slowly and not yet doing everything we want, Matrix is consistently improving and growing to serve more and more use cases. We’re willing to tolerate some inconveniences for now, in exchange for having the contact networks we build today continue to grow for decades to come. We use Mumble for voice chat, because it’s great, but might switch to MatrixRTC when Element Call leaves beta and becomes available in more Matrix clients.
I recently wrote up a few tips for Discord users considering Matrix.
If chat for a small gaming group was all I needed, I might choose XMPP. It’s arguably easier to administer than Matrix once you learn about all the XEPs required for comparable features (ease of admin is relevant to me because I self-host) and I would be able to guide a small group through client choices and setup. But I have found XMPP’s ecosystem to be a poor fit for large and diverse contact networks.
I don’t know what people use discord for, honestly. I just call up my friends on signal for the regularly scheduled gaming session and play. All I need is audio.
I don’t understand what people need video or screen sharing for while gaming. Are they playing a game watching each other’s facial reactions or something? And others talk about screen sharing… Are you guys gaming while watching the other person’s screen? I’m puzzled.
Signal can audio and video calls with screen sharing 🤷
Matrix I only use for opensource projects or as a replacement or client for IRC (IRC sucks ass). There was also a time fosdem streamed everything on matrix. It was glorious. I wish more conferences (and fosdem itself) had chatrooms for every talk, rooms for different topics, and a general chat room for everybody. We don’t have to fly and waste fuel to participate in conferences. Not everybody has deep enough pockets to pay 2k for a flight to Sydney and a further 1k for food and lodging there. Or worse, a trip to the US to get fondled by US border patrol and sent to Guantanamo bay for having said “Trump is a dunce”.
My gaming friend group is 8 or 9 people. When you want to hang out digitally, you just jump in our discord and see who is currently playing. You jump in the channel, join the conversation. If the others are currently in a match that can’t be hot joined, someone will put on a stream for you, so you can watch and have an easier time joining the conversation.
Sometimes a friend is playing a game that you don’t own or they want to show you. Easily done with a stream. Streaming on Discord is very useful to us.
We use the webcam feature for our Tabletop Roleplaying Sessions.
One “feature” that Discord has that will be missed by our small community: Being able to see who is in a voice call without having to join it.
We have spent the last week exploring alternatives and it looks like we will be using a combination of self hosted matrix and mumble unless self hosted stoat gets voice very soon.
So Mumble for voice chat and Matrix for text chat?
Does your group ever use video calls and/or screen sharing?
Matrix has voice chat. You can enable it in the element client. Settings, Labs, video voice experiment. Enable it and you can have voice and video rooms.
irelephant [he/him]Matrix, and it’s not even close.
Matrix clients suck, but xmpp ones are way worse.
XMPP, hands down.
Not only for me, but for other people. XMPP is leaner, more robust, easier to administer and overall not a nu-protocol, so it’s easier on the staff of the instance operating as well, leaving them more of their allotted time to tend to the community. And with client utilities like Gakim, Conversations and Movim, focusing on the service proper is even easier.