Keep in mind that this project is likely vibe coded, or at least seems very AI assisted. (Copilot is mentioned in the .gitignore file and this was built by a single person in about 4 months)
A bunch of security issues have already been opened.
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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https://github.com/Sharkord/sharkord/issues/86 This one seems pretty bad.
That person homepage, the posts, the avatar... Yeah full vibe on.
Already fixed but I wouldn't expose it to the internet for now.
I recommend https://conversejs.org/ or https://github.com/processone/fluux-messenger which are both running on tried-and-tested platforms (XMPP).
Do either of these also support voice channels with screen sharing/streaming?
I'm so happy to see a few alternatives popping up already and I hope to see them fleshed out well.
As someone who's pretty new to things like FOSS, self hosting, etc. I am hopeful that there will be a release that's more "idiot proof".
I have a few friends who aren't going to spend time trying to learn all the small things needed to set up stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to set up something and just invite them and they just have to make an account in an app type thing to use. Lol
This is the current flow. All the pain seems to be in setting it up. User join/sign on flow is super easy
As someone who has been advocating for the use of the federated Matrix protocol for a long, long time now, the proliferation of new, competing options actually is frustrating to me. Technically Matrix is actually already fleshed out very well, has several different clients, and even has Thunderbird support so if you're already using Thunderbird you don't even need a separate client.
The beginnings of Matrix go back as far as 2014 so it honest has at this point 12 years of development behind it. I know Matrix has it's issues, but it's by far the most secure combined with being able to communicate with large groups of people via federation. There's definitely slightly more secure options, because they lack federation (and thus don't leak metadata), but I personally am ambivalent about them because some of them have a kind of crypto-bro feel to the companies behind them and I'm skeptical they won't go down a path similar to Discord while Matrix on the other hand has been slowly but surely leveraging itself into a position of secure government communications all over Europe. So, to me, Matrix already has a game plan for staying relevant and staying solvent, while things like SimpleX or Stoat I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop and for the enshittification to begin
Open source bona-fides are great and all, but for a lot of these messengers, I absolutely think not enough discussion is made regarding their financial plans to stay afloat whereas the reality is that while Matrix doesn't exactly have money coming out their ears, they have a slow, steady gameplan that is working out so far.
The whole reason everyone moved to Discord was because it was a centralized place and since Discord needed to pay for it's servers, it had to find a way to finance that, and enshittification naturally happened. I think it would be foolish to pretend that can't happen again with several of the current alternatives.
Hello from XMPP. Now you understand how we felt.
Exactly, this isn't even a new problem... it just keeps happening.
The whole reason everyone moved to Discord was because it was a centralized place and since Discord needed to pay for it's servers, it had to find a way to finance that, and enshittification naturally happened.
No! Stop perpetuating this "they have bills to pay" nonsense. Discord has more than enough money to run itself and be profitable.
The enshitification happens in services like Discord when shareholders gain control of the product.
Edit: toned down a word.
Personal opinion, Discord was already enshittifying before they did an IPO, like at least 6 years ago or more. The IPO just gave them an excuse to speed up the process.
I fully agree.
I don't like Matrix because you can't sort and categorise channels in a server. The most recently messaged in channel is always at the top. That's not the UX I want, I want to be able to put things in places with intentionality.
That literally has to be a client option. Pick your favorite client with a receptive team and request sorting as a feature.
Exactly this, that's a client quirk, probably Element in this case.
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Someone just needs to make a discord clone on Matrix, can’t be that hard, right?
Already did, it's called Commet.
The Element client has “spaces” which you can add rooms to. I’ve only played around with it for a few minutes but it seems like exactly what you’re asking for.
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(see: A/C chargers, character encoding, instant messaging, etc.)
The standard is webrtc.
Multiple clients using it isn't an issue.
How does it compare to stoat?
The initial release was literally 7 HOURS ago so its not really recommendable yet at all. Idk why it keeps getting spammed here today.
Stoat has been around for 5 years and used to be called Revolt until recently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoat_(software)
Neither are e2ee or federated so not particularly future proof or enshittification resistant unless you self host (which most people dont...)
It's got a better name
Like you have room to talk.
I was about to challenge this, but no lie, your name is awesome.
But I'm biased. I have a cousin in New Jersey with the same name.
Gasp! You take that back!
Sharkord to replace Discord? Sad. Lame. Possibly worse than Stoat.
Nah you're right, it's definitely better than Stoat, but both are F-tier.
Everything is written in typescript.
I managed to spin it up yesterday and it seemed to work pretty well during my brief testing.
Can we see? As usual the dev tells us virtually nothing about it.
The Dev has a small demo available here: https://demo.sharkord.com/
Alright, this is pretty damn cool, thanks
Exactly what changes are being made? I see age verification, but other than that, anything outrageous?
Demanding ID scans from everyone or keyloggers to infer age is outrageous enough.
Since we legislate to the lowest common denominator, I see the internet becoming rather restrictive for people who solicit popular sites.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| IP | Internet Protocol |
| TCP | Transmission Control Protocol, most often over IP |
| XMPP | Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol ('Jabber') for open instant messaging |
2 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 7 acronyms.
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