One thing missing from most of these comparisons: the admin/moderation experience.
Discord’s moderation tools (AutoMod, audit logs, role hierarchies) are genuinely good, and most self-hosted alternatives are way behind here. If you’re running a community server, this matters a lot.
My ranking for communities (not just friend groups):
Matrix (Synapse/Conduit) — best moderation tools of the self-hosted options, rooms/spaces model works well
Revolt — closest Discord clone, but moderation is still basic
Mumble/TeamSpeak — voice-only, but rock solid for gaming guilds that don’t need text
For just friends? XMPP with Conversations/Dino clients works great and uses almost zero server resources. I run an ejabberd instance on a $5 VPS alongside 5 other services.
TeamSpeak 6 has been on my radar too. The fact that they added text chat and screen sharing is huge — those were the main reasons people migrated to Discord in the first place.
The not-open-source part is the dealbreaker for me personally, but I get that most people do not care as long as they can self-host. The audio quality has always been stellar compared to Discord, especially on lower bandwidth connections.
Curious if they have improved the permission system. TS3 permissions were powerful but absurdly complicated to configure.
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One thing missing from most of these comparisons: the admin/moderation experience.
Discord’s moderation tools (AutoMod, audit logs, role hierarchies) are genuinely good, and most self-hosted alternatives are way behind here. If you’re running a community server, this matters a lot.
My ranking for communities (not just friend groups):
For just friends? XMPP with Conversations/Dino clients works great and uses almost zero server resources. I run an ejabberd instance on a $5 VPS alongside 5 other services.
Teamspeak 6 is looking reaaaally promising. Text chat, screen sharing, webcam support. Self hostable, not open source tho.
Looking forward to the first full release
TeamSpeak 6 has been on my radar too. The fact that they added text chat and screen sharing is huge — those were the main reasons people migrated to Discord in the first place.
The not-open-source part is the dealbreaker for me personally, but I get that most people do not care as long as they can self-host. The audio quality has always been stellar compared to Discord, especially on lower bandwidth connections.
Curious if they have improved the permission system. TS3 permissions were powerful but absurdly complicated to configure.
I did not get the permissions so far
Lots of daw boolean values where I have no idea what they do