Some time ago when Discord used Surveillance Services to face scan all their users a lot of possible alternatives where thrown around.
- It should be already hosted by someone
- have voice chat
- Be easy to sign up to so that i can convince people
Look at Mumble. It’s FOSS (Free Open Source Software)
Mumble lacks a ton of stuff that Discord has. There’s no persistent text chat, no screen sharing, no video. What it does have is really really easy administration.
It frustrates me that all these Discord alternatives are trying to do everything Discord does when even Discord can’t pull it off sustainably at scale. Discord has been in the “be really cool to attract users” phase, and now it’s morphing into the “Oh crap we actually have bills to pay” phase. That’s why you’re seeing ads now, and it’s only going to get worse.
I don’t want a billion concurrent users. I want a place for my small group of friends to hang out that isn’t hard to deploy or manage.
Mumble lacks a ton of stuff
You’re there to voice chat while gaming. It’s not a support forum and it’s not a wiki.
Why ‘systemd’ something simple?
You’re there to voice chat while gaming.
And while doing so, one might want to do one of the things they listed… being able to quickly share screens is a huge part of discord for my group, we’re always showing each other new games we’re playing or helping each other out on games we’re playing together
Yeah, and who ever sends text to people they want to game with?!?
Fair point. My game client has a text chat for the game in question, but the voice chat isn’t working under lutris because another group coded it and they cheated with the APIs.
So we can and do use text chat from the game itself and the voice chat is the only broken bit.
Ventrilo. Hobbles away on my cane.
I went back to using in-game communication and social features and I can’t believe we stopped doing it. It is so much more immersive to hang out in, say, a guild hall to chat with whoever happens to be online, than to be available 24/7 in an outside app.
Matrix is really good i have a homeserver setup with a livekit instance using sable client and its really good. VC works really well theres a soundboard that you can customize if your willing to mess around with the element call src code (hopefully that changes at some point to be easier) screensharing does work but desktop audio doesnt tab audio does seem to work but only from chromium based browsers (i.e brave) (this can be workd arround by routing audio through your mic but is a bit of a pain hopefully it gets implimented soon. (Also sable doesnt yet have a desktop or mobile site but the web app works well in mobile browsers)
We are using Fluxer, looks a lot like Discord, but is open source. It’s hosted, but you can also self-host.
Element, or whatever Matrix client of choice if you prefer a different one.
Discord is still king. People are way too invested.
Matrix is decent for me. Voice, video, and screen share, works well. Have not had issues with small friend groups
I use matrix with a friend, matrix calls (the one that has the option for video) drop out on their own with no warning and the ring tone is very easy to miss, I wish there was anything to do about those two problems. Other than that it’s great, legacy calls seem more robust
Matrix + Jitsi
We have element call now and its so much better
So screensharing works without issues? Is it customizable on the backend?
And how is it better, if I may ask?
Screensharing does indeed work but only tab audio works atm. The audio quality imo is better in element call there is noise suppression i explained it a bit more in another comment on this post here
Thank you!
We use matrix
Signal, but I don’t play with randos, just people I know.
The dust hasn’t settled yet. Still waiting for options like Fluxer or Stoat to cover the basic use cases fully.
Mumble + phpBB
I don’t do online multiplayer. If I’m playing a video game with someone, they’re in the room with me and we can just talk.
When i play with my brother we use our phones to, get this, call each other. Obviously harder to do with more people but if its just you and a buddy your phone can be used as a phone.
I’ve done this before and it works in a pinch.
isn’t that expensive?
Many cell plans, at least in the US, offer unlimited calling.
My phone bill is $40/mo no matter how much I use my phone.
This is what I did years ago. No cell phone, land line. DSL still required a phone line at the time but long distance was included free. Would play Diablo 2 with someone I knew who was about 800 miles away.
What’s with your ingame audio?
web.fluxer.app is your best choice.
Fluxer for me and my friend group. Signal was actually the primary plan but it doesn’t work for two main reasons for us, both related to the fact that we record ttrpg sessions. Since I don’t think this would affect most people, I’d also recommend Signal, though some people dislike needing a phone number to sign up.
