r/DiscordAlternatives

Hi y'all,

My third post here this week, I honestly did not expect to write that many posts in such a short time 😃

Since my initial post and our feedback form got quite a bit of traction I'm following up with a very early open beta test for venta.

I have written a big post about who we are and what we're doing over here https://venta.gg/#/blog/initial-release-and-a-bit-of-story-time I also mentioned some known issues that I didn't quite get around to fix just yet, but I eventually will in the near time.

I'm also committed to have a fully transparent road map over here https://venta.gg/#/roadmap - things like self hosting and federation are my top priority after fixing all the bugs that are currently open.

The download is currently a windows "native" app (tauri / angular). The web only application currently is not a huge priority for me, as I want to get the native look and feel right. This will be tackled after the self hosting and federation.

I know, installing an exe from a randos pc isn't a wise choice. To make your choice a bit easier, I have created a full impressum here, so if I was to send you malware you have my legal name, company and address to sue me. You can verify that this is me by looking at the official swiss UID index over here. 😄

Last but not least, I know that trying to build a community on venta initially is quite hard when everyone is still chilling on discord, so my friend has setup a discord community if you want to chat or have issues or suggestions. Currently we're quite alone in it, so feel free to join.

Okay, really last but not least: Our WebRTC infra goes via Cloudflares SFU. We have a hard cap currently at 1TB ingress and egress. If that would be hit, all voice calls and private calls would stop working. Just keep that in mind, I'd post a discord announcements if we'd hit that.

If you hit issues with sign up, its probably the spam blocker. Let me know if its too aggressive and I turn it down a bit.

EDIT: I'll fully open source this on github tomorrow. Maybe the client a bit later, but the backend should be live by tomorrow or the day after at https://github.com/AlpineBits-ch

Hey everyone!

Some of you may know that I posted on here about a week ago. Someone called it a borderline joke.. and honestly, they werent wrong. Less pitch this time, I promise.

For a bit of context, Discord going down here meant my friend group slowly stopped talking. Not dramatically, just less. Im a developer, so I did what developers do. We dropped everything else and spent the last seven months building a replacement. Now, we're finally almost ready.

What we shipped: E2EE on voice calls and DMs, including file attachments. On by default. A huge chunk of that time went into getting the encryption right from day one, which is why I delayed the launch instead of just putting security on a roadmap.

Of course, E2EE isn't the whole story. We built a ton of features to actually help communities beyond just security, but I'm not going to bore you with a giant feature list this time :D You can check my previous post on here if you want the full breakdown.

Four things worth being upfront about:

1. No forward secrecy yet. I built a Double Ratchet implementation early, but cut it to ship the core alpha infrastructure. That decision still bothers me, but getting the alpha out to test real world network stability became the priority. Bringing Double Ratchet back is the immediate next step
2. Fenrid is currently not open source. The plan is to get 100 people into alpha, measure real stability, clean up the codebase so it's actually readable, then put the entire codebase public around August or September for code audits and transparency. We will still handle the hosting/infrastructure, but the code will be fully open for inspection and contributions
3. Server text channels are plaintext for performance and discoverability. If that's a dealbreaker for your use case, fair enough. I highly recommend checking out Matrix instead
4. No self hosting anytime soon. It is genuinely complex infrastructure and I'm not going to throw a fake date at you. Honest version is that we chose proving the product is worth using over solving federation first

Private alpha is targeting late this month with 100 spots. Honestly, things might slip into the first week of June depending on how stable the current build feels, but we are pushing hard.

Join the waitlist and come break things with us!: fenrid.com

We're on Discord in the meantime (ironic i know): discord.gg/vMmNRg2bRw
I'm currently connecting via VPN with a special kind of latency punishment until Fenrid is home..

But anyways, happy to answer questions about the architecture!

I think we all were super excited when the first, nice-looking Discord alternatives/clones were popping up when Discord hit us with the Age verification shit. And I think some of them look pretty good, even if AI was involved. However.

This sub is absolutely filled to the brim with shitty, vibecoded hobby projects, we get daily "I build X the next Discord killer with E2E, unlimited streaming, bla bla" ads on them, people just post random changelogs of their apps on here EVEN THOUGH 95% of the people on here don't know shit about your app. Post it on Github or on your Website. Or in your App ffs. where you know - the 5 people who actually use your app may read about changes.

It sucks so much how much creativity got sucked out because everyone now thinks they can become the next Larry Page if they just prompt hard enough. I don't have anything against doing AI-assisted coding but man - it's tough to see how many apps are out there where the whole system logic is unminified with sourcemaps available on the production assets so we can see all endpoints, understand how responses get back from the server and what the client is doing with it 1:1 without any obfuscation, potentially opening you up for attacks - and in the end a few people MAY give their and their friends data over to some random vibecoder who doesn't know bumshit about security or how to store sensitive information in the right way.

So PLEASE. If you think about building yet another Discord killer, come up with a good concept. How about a decentralized system? Maybe try use the Matrix protocol, maybe go self-hosting first with a centralized client/web-app - there are so many options but please stop filling this space with uncreative, vibecoded shovelware that nobody needs.

Hi y'all,

Since my last post resulted in quite a lot of activity and a lot of DMs I'd like to organize this a bit more.

I have created a feedback / waitlist page where you can share your thoughts anonymously and optionally join our waitlist.

https://tally.so/r/Gxq9GQ

Here is the feature set of the current implementation

• Guilds (Categories, Channels, Advanced Permission system)
• Private Calls
• Noise cancellation, autogain via rust (configurable)
• Wiki Pages for Guilds
• Voice / Screenshare / Cam streaming (Cloudflare SFU servers, not Live Kit)
• Initial E2EE with MLS in DM's (basic implementation, lacks things as joining new devices etc, will be completed in the full release)
• Full cross platform support (iOS, Android, Linux (deb, rpm) and Windows)
• Friends
• Ringtone, Message (..) sound customization
• Appearance customization, probably a bad thing 😃

What's currently missing / bugged:

• Profile Mutations
• Privacy settings (Who can add you as friends, who can send you DM's, etc)
• Full translations (current impl. can be found here)
• Some settings and actions are currently missing here and there, slowly coming together
• The whole UI currently still looks a lot like discord, this is something we want to change but no idea beats that discord style UI as of now
• Public discovery of servers, since we want to get this right and not accidentally promote some randos server to our current 5 users.
• Product Name. We have around 4 internal names for it but nothing yet decided.
• Obv. a whole bunch of annoying bugs, we will get there soon.

Best,

Dominic

Right now a lot of communities I'm in have moved to different platforms and it's hard to keep track of everything. Are there any good tools that let you view everything at once or manage it easier?

(I know if it exists it will probably be against Discord TOS, but I'm good with the risk as long as they haven't suddenly started cracking down on alternate clients)

Edit: I'm also down for suggestions for alternate clients that actually let you customize how chats are sorted or view all chats at once

Hi everyone, we’re the team building Nexoria, a new Discord alternative focused on privacy, better organization, and built-in tools for communities.

We know a lot of people are looking for alternatives that are not just another Discord clone, so we’re trying to build Nexoria around a few ideas Discord does not handle especially well: privacy, large community organization, built-in features, and reducing the need to rely on a stack of bots.

Some of the main features currently include:

• End-to-end encrypted text, voice, DMs, and group DMs
• Voice channels, video, screen share, push-to-talk, and noise suppression
• Subspaces nested inside larger spaces, similar in spirit to Guilded-style server groups
• Text, voice, and calendar channels
• Public space discovery
• Roles, private channels, granular permissions, and audit logs
• File uploads, threads, reactions, pins, markdown, code blocks, GIFs, custom emoji, and previews
• Soundboard and custom sound packs
• MFA, device approval, session management, and session revocation

One of the features we’re most excited about is subspaces. A main space can contain smaller subspaces, each with its own channels, permissions, tools, and organization while still staying under the same parent community. The goal is to make larger communities easier to manage without endless channel/category clutter or forcing people to create a bunch of separate servers.

We also started with a strong focus on TTRPG communities, so Nexoria includes tools that are useful for online campaign groups, like organized spaces, calendar channels, shared communication tools, voice/video, screen share, roles, private areas, and public discovery for communities that want to be found.

Nexoria is still early, and we’re actively building based on user feedback. We’d especially like to hear from people who have tried Discord alternatives, miss Guilded-style organization, or care about privacy and encryption in community platforms.

You can check it out here:

https://nexoria.chat

Happy to answer questions, hear criticism, or get suggestions for what you think a Discord alternative needs to get right.

Hey,

So I got fed up with where Discord was heading and just... started building something.

That was December 2024. It's now May 2026. We went from an idea to public beta in a year and I'm genuinely shocked we got here this fast.

https://preview.redd.it/lksbgnybe80h1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=09ac286ec02d366f6790460db9098c1f7745e9e8

Here's what Tavrn actually is:

Servers, channels, voice/video calls, DMs, custom emojis, moderation tools, the whole thing. But built from the ground up with privacy actually in mind, not as a marketing line, as a genuine product decision.

No face scans. No ID uploads. No behavioral AI running in the background deciding if you're an adult. No data selling. Ever.

What makes us different:

• Free tier is fully functional and we're never changing that
• Optional premium (Tavrn Cocoa, $4.99/month) for extras like GIF avatars, HD uploads, bigger calls
• We've been in public beta since February 2026 and have shipped constantly since
• One person building this (yes really)
• Your feedback actually changes things

What we're still working on:

• Native mobile apps (PWA works great for now)
• More integrations
• Expanding bot/developer tools

I'm not gonna pretend Tavrn is perfect. Things break. But we fix them fast and we're building in public which means you can actually watch this thing grow in real time.

Over a year of active development, 30+ builds shipped, and we're just getting started.

If you're genuinely looking for a Discord alternative, come check it out.

tavrn.top 🧡

Also feel free to check our history and fact-check me using our roadmap and blog site: blog.tavrn.top

Happy to answer literally anything in the comments, including hard questions about missing features, the roadmap, or why I thought building a chat platform alone was a good idea (it wasn't but here we are)

Hi everyone, we’re the team building Nexoria, a Discord alternative focused on privacy, better organization, and built-in community tools.

A big feature we recently added is subservers, similar in spirit to Guilded’s old server-group system. A main server can contain multiple subservers, and each subserver has its own channels, tools, permissions, and organization while still staying under the same larger community.

Nexoria also includes:

• Encrypted servers
• Text channels
• Calls
• Screenshare
• Music sharing / native music bot features
• Public servers for discovery
• Subservers for better organization
• Built-in tools so communities do not need to rely as heavily on bots

We started with a strong focus on TTRPG communities, so Nexoria also has built-in features like:

• Dice rolling
• Shared session notes
• Drawable maps
• D&D-style character sheets
• Campaign organization tools

The goal is not just to clone Discord, but to build something more organized and useful for communities that need more than endless categories, channels, and bots.

We’re still early and actively building based on feedback, so we’d genuinely like to hear from people who have tried Discord alternatives, miss Guilded-style organization, or feel like Discord does not work well for larger or more structured communities.

You can check it out here:

https://nexoria.chat

Happy to answer questions, hear criticism, or get suggestions for what you think a Discord alternative needs to get right.