In recent times, group voice chat has gained immense popularity, with Discord emerging as a dominant player in this arena. Discord has won the hearts of gamers and professionals alike, offering seamless real-time communication that streamlines workflows. Effective communication is paramount, whether you’re enhancing collaboration in a professional workspace or coordinating with a gaming team. However, if Discord doesn’t quite meet your needs, fear not! Here are the top 10 Discord alternatives that you can explore.
What Should a Good Discord Alternative Have?
A robust Discord alternative should encompass certain essential features, including end-to-end encryption (for those concerned about privacy), an intuitive user interface, and the ability to create private servers. While Discord is celebrated for its user-friendly interface, private servers, and gaming-focused functionalities, it does have limitations. For instance, it imposes a 500 MB file upload limit for Nitro users and a mere 50 MB limit for free users, which may not be sufficient for all users.
If you find Discord’s limitations frustrating, it’s understandable why you might be considering switching to another platform. Without further ado, let’s dive into the list!
1. Telegram
Telegram is often regarded as a WhatsApp competitor, but it offers much more than just messaging. Unlike WhatsApp, Telegram is feature-rich and, in our opinion, competes more directly with Discord. It boasts instant messaging, supports both private and public communities, provides extensive customization options, and much more.
Telegram supports private and group video calls, similar to Discord, and offers a range of bots to manage large groups, integrate scripts, and automate queries. One standout feature is its end-to-end encryption for private messaging, a crucial aspect of privacy that Discord lacks. Telegram also offers a premium subscription with extra perks, making it an enticing Discord alternative.
2. Steam Chat
Built into Steam, one of the gaming world’s most popular platforms, Steam Chat offers low-latency voice chat, text communication, and noise cancellation. It’s entirely free and allows you to create groups with channels for text and voice chat. Steam simplifies group invitations through unique URLs, similar to Discord, and offers robust role management for group members.
While Discord restricts users to a single role per server, Steam Chat allows members to hold multiple roles, providing more versatility in moderating groups. It also offers a web client, enabling use without downloading Steam itself. One limitation, however, is that it only allows image file sharing, not other file types.
3. Element
Element stands out for its end-to-end encryption, a feature highly valued by those prioritizing privacy. Beyond encryption, Element offers tools to streamline team workflows and is compatible with the Matrix.org ecosystem, facilitating communication across various Matrix-based platforms. While it may not be gaming-centric, Element supports messaging, image and video sharing, and file transfers within groups of any size. It also includes group video and voice calls.
4. TeamSpeak
Before Discord’s rise, TeamSpeak was the go-to platform for gaming-related conversations. It uses the Opus codec for low-latency voice communication, competing favorably with Discord in terms of voice and text capabilities. TeamSpeak revamped its UI, adopting a design language reminiscent of Discord. It enables users to create dedicated servers with end-to-end encryption, something Discord lacks.
One drawback is that creating servers and inviting over 32 members in a server incurs costs, unlike Discord, which allows multiple servers with many users at no cost. However, TeamSpeak offers excellent privacy and versatility.
5. Mattermost
Although Mattermost is more akin to Slack, it can serve as a suitable Discord alternative for professionals and gamers alike. It is open-source and self-hostable, offering features like boards for goal setting and collaboration. Mattermost includes voice and video calls, screen sharing, and ample customization. While it may not be ideal for gaming, it provides a checklist feature that can be useful for gamers to track trending games and suggestions from the community.
One limitation is the 100 MB file upload limit.
6. qTox
qTox prioritizes privacy, using military-grade encryption to secure data. While the project is archived, it remains a solid option for chatting with friends. It features text, voice, and video chat, as well as screen sharing and unlimited file sharing. qTox is decentralized, meaning no server outages will disrupt your communication.
7. Slack
If you’re using Discord for professional purposes and need an alternative, Slack is worth considering. While it doesn’t resemble Discord visually, it boasts a clean and straightforward interface. Slack offers a range of features tailored to improve productivity. It supports voice chat via huddles and screen sharing, although these features are not as robust as Discord’s. Slack’s third-party app integrations and bots make it a versatile platform.
8. Skype
Skype, while somewhat limited in comparison to Discord, can be a viable option when other alternatives fall short. It allows group calling, group messaging, and screen sharing, albeit with limitations. Skype is user-friendly and offers file sharing up to 300 MB, making it suitable for group communication.
9. Microsoft Teams
Primarily designed for professionals, Microsoft Teams can also serve as a platform for chatting with friends during gaming sessions. It supports voice and video calls for individuals and groups, and the file transfer limit is generous at 100 GB. However, it does not allow the creation of communities, which may be a drawback for some users.
10. Mumble
Mumble is an open-source VoIP platform known for low-latency audio calls. It features default encryption and is lightweight in terms of resource usage and bandwidth consumption. Mumble offers positional sound, setting it apart from other VoIP software.
While none of these alternatives may replicate Discord entirely, they come close and offer unique features that may better suit your needs. Whether you’re a gamer or a professional, you can find a suitable alternative from this list.
