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.
this post was submitted on 02 May 2026
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I don't do online multiplayer anytime. If I'm playing a video game with someone, they're in the room with me.
The dust hasn't settled yet. Still waiting for options like Fluxer or Stoat to cover the basic use cases fully.
We are using Fluxer, looks a lot like Discord, but is open source. It's hosted, but you can also self-host.
Ventrilo. Hobbles away on my cane.
Mumble + phpBB
The steam voice chat feature really improved and is very intuitive to use now. I'll frequently use that.
We've been using steam for many years for our weekly gaming sessions. Can't remember why we stopped using discord but it was way before all the photo ID requests. I definitely don't miss discord downloading like 20 updates every week.
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.
Signal, but I don't play with randos, just people I know.
I've tried Fluxer but it's been a bit fiddly for me on Linux. It's okay, voice chat works, but there are bugs for me with video chatting or screen-sharing. If it starts getting fixed, I'll stick with it, otherwise I'm gonna keep looking.
Element, or whatever Matrix client of choice if you prefer a different one.
Fluxer appears to be the most promising, though it is still very new and they are working furiously to get it up to par with a tiny dev team that consists of two (three?) people. Most basic features are quite usable now, though.
Stoat and Fluxer so far
Stoat desktop feels like it was just put in the oven, especially on Linux. It may get there someday, but I cannot recommend Stoat in good faith.
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 use matrix
Still using Discord here. Never sent them a face photo. Can't say either way for the other people I still talk to on there.
Prior to that I remember using TeamSpeak, which apparently still exists. Still proprietary and monolithic though, which might not be to your preference.
I think most established accounts theyve already collected enough data to infer your age, they are only asking for identification for a subset of the population so that can verify their data or when they flag as underage.
Same, we are planning on ditching when stuff like facial recognition actually kicks in but we are just trying to have fun in the evenings and the ability to easily share text/images/video/streaming with a small group has a lot of inertia.
Also one friend plays on xbox and as far as we know discord is the only one that is cross compatible.
Since you say you're planning to ditch it when that facial recognition kicks in, I'm genuinely curious: are you okay with, or unaware, that Discord is already monitoring all your activity and messages to determine your age?
I assume absolutely every single app is doing shady shit like that, and to be honest I don't really care if they are estimating my age off of what I do. I do care about showing my ID, because it has details that I don't want them to have and is a completely different thing.
I assume absolutely every single app is doing shady shit like that
No. Only the proprietary and/or corporate-controlled ones.
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web.fluxer.app is your best choice.
Telepathy
TeamSpeak or an old fashioned LAN Party
I'm very tired so I thought you were saying discord was gone and what would I do then and I was like "well. Me and twin game from adjacent rooms so we'd open the doors and yell but husband would be annoyed" and now I understand you mean new program.
I'd probably go back to ventrillo since I know it existed.
The ultimate start to a polycule.
I use a self-hosted TeamSpeak6 server with my friends. My friends use Discord without me afaik. I can't make people share my principles, but they're slowly coming around to how bad companies can be with their encroaching data hoarding.
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.
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Back in the day we used Ventrilo for voice chat.
Stoat seems like a nice, newer alternative to Discord.
Mumble is a drop-in replacement for Ventrilo. Cons: very basic. Pros: very basic.
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Ventrilo
Holy hell haven't heard that name in years
I use a matrix client called "Commet", but for easy sign-up, I guess it's Stoat or Fluxer.
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.
for only voicechats, mumble seemed good
Element works fine for me
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