Discord has spent the last year making itself harder to use. Phone verification, age checks in multiple regions, ID upload requirements, and a steady stream of UI changes that nobody asked for. For a platform that grew because it was the easy option, it’s starting to feel like the opposite.
If your gaming group is looking at alternatives, here’s what actually exists and what the trade-offs are.
The options
Fluxer
Fluxer is the newest entry and the one we’ve been most impressed with. Text channels, DMs, voice and video calls, screen sharing, mod tools, bot support – it covers the full Discord feature set in a single self-hostable app. Open source (AGPLv3), made by a Swedish company, GDPR-friendly.
It’s in public beta, so the third-party ecosystem is thin. Don’t expect a huge bot marketplace yet. But for a private group that needs chat and voice without Discord’s baggage, it does the job and the clients (web, desktop, mobile) are polished enough to hand to non-technical people.
TeamSpeak
TeamSpeak has been around since 2001. It predates Discord by over a decade, and it’s still the best option for pure voice chat. Lower latency than Discord, no telemetry, no tracking, no account system – your players just pick a name and connect.
The trade-off is that it’s voice-only. No persistent text chat, no channels with message history, no file sharing. If your group just needs to talk during game sessions, it’s perfect. If you want a community hub with text channels, you’ll need to pair it with something else.
TeamSpeak hosting is cheap ($3-10/mo depending on slot count) and there are dozens of providers. Or you can self-host with the free 32-slot license.
Stoat (formerly Revolt)
Stoat – previously called Revolt, rebranded in early 2026 – is another open-source Discord alternative with servers, channels, roles, DMs, and voice. It’s self-hostable (AGPL-3.0) and has been around longer than Fluxer.
The catch is complexity. Self-hosting means running MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ, LiveKit, and several other services. The user base is smaller than Discord’s, and the recent rebrand adds some uncertainty about where the project is headed.
Matrix / Element
Matrix is a federated, encrypted chat protocol. Element is the most popular client. It’s the privacy-maximalist option – end-to-end encrypted by default, decentralized, nobody controls the network.
The reality is that it’s rough around the edges. Voice/video works but isn’t as polished as Discord or TeamSpeak. The UI takes some getting used to. For a small gaming group, it’s overkill unless you specifically care about federation and E2EE.
Element offers managed hosting for organizations, but pricing targets enterprises ($5-10+/seat/month). Self-hosting Synapse is resource-hungry – expect 4+ GB of RAM for a small deployment, and it grows with media uploads.
Mumble
Mumble is the open-source voice chat that refuses to die. Around since 2005, uses almost no bandwidth, has good audio quality, and runs on anything. A Mumble server uses so little CPU and RAM that you could probably run one on a toaster.
Like TeamSpeak, it’s voice-only. Unlike TeamSpeak, it’s fully open-source and free with no licensing concerns. The downside is that the UI looks like it was designed in 2005, because it was.
Guilded
Guilded (owned by Roblox) is a free Discord alternative with a gaming focus. Voice, text, scheduling, tournaments, and some features Discord doesn’t have (like threaded conversations that actually work). You can’t self-host it – it’s a hosted service.
If your concern with Discord is age verification and data policies, Guilded has the same problems. Same corporate incentives. If your concern is Discord’s specific UI decisions or feature set, Guilded might be worth a look.
What we’d actually recommend
For most gaming groups, Fluxer is the simplest path away from Discord right now. One app, text and voice, self-hostable, no age verification. It’s what we use ourselves.
If you only care about voice and want the lowest possible latency, TeamSpeak is still the answer. Nothing else comes close for that specific use case.
We host Fluxer for groups that don’t want to deal with self-hosting. Game server customers get a Fluxer instance included at no extra cost. For everyone else, Matrix/Element is worth considering if encryption and federation matter to you – just know it’ll take more work to set up and maintain.
The honest answer about switching
The hardest part of leaving Discord isn’t finding an alternative – it’s getting your group to move. People are comfortable with what they know, even when it’s getting worse. The groups that successfully switch are usually the ones where one person sets up the alternative, gets it working, and makes it easy for everyone else. “Here’s the link, click it, pick a name, done.”
That’s the approach we take with our hosting. You tell us what you want, we set it up, and you hand your group a link. No Docker, no YAML, no port forwarding.