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this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
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This kind of lack of perspective is why open services always struggle. It seems like it's the only tool the advocates of it use since they fall into the "I have a hammer to everything that isn't a nail doesn't matter" trap.
This post could have been a list of free instances to join. But instead it offers people to learn hosting and sysadmin stuff.
I'm sure there will be a bunch of replies trying to teach me how easy it is... But I am a sysadmin. I'm not your audience, and some people don't see a difference.
People who use corporate platforms do it because it's easy. Joining matrix instances is pretty easy. Presenting Matrix like people need to host servers to use it is detrimental.
But instead it offers people to learn hosting and sysadmin stuff.
It does not. The post says paying for a hosted matrix server. That means you pay for somebody to host it. There's nothing more to it.
The full discord nitro plan costs 10$/month. That can get you a server for your friends and you can communicate with other servers. If everybody chips in, it's the cost of discord nitro minimum if you're 5 friends.
I think they're complaining you don't list where to host it/managed hosting.
This isn't that, though.
OP's link is to a list of companies you can pay to host a matrix instance for you, so you don't have to deal with any of the hosting yourself.
But I agree most people would be sufficiently served by an account on a public instance.
Yeay its maybe not that bad. Sorry I think I might be chasing the argument. I'm an old bastard who still has friends on IRC from 35 years ago and they STILL argue IRC serves the role of Twitter, discord, etc. I share their passion but more often than not I feel like they turn away allies.
I'm also still in some IRC channels from way back, and I can't deny I hate what discord did to the IRC community. ("Look how they massacred my boy...")
Of course, Discord pulled it off for a good reason - the experience was seamless, featureful, rich, and modern - none of which IRC can claim. And it's only cantankerous sticks in the mud such as I who care about ideological concerns like interoperability and open standards.
And another thing that Discord did is to absolutely explode the channel count. In the IRC days, a particular community or friend group would make do with one single channel. But that group moves to Discord, and suddenly creates a general channel, announcements channel, music channel, games channel, cooking channel - all for one single friend group, and multiply that by the number of groups you are in - because the Discord model permitted it and made it frictionless.
And I think that's why for some people who use Discord at the moment, it wouldn't be enough to simply have a channel on a public Matrix instance. People are used to having a whole 'server' to themselves (of course discord 'servers' aren't servers, but let's set that aside) and so they'd need at least a 'space' in Matrix, being the more reasonably named analogue.
This is also why bluesky picked up over all the other twitter alternatives. The average user doesn't want to learn all this shit, they just want to use something that works (which in that situation is unfortunate, because Mastodon is right there and works perfectly fine out of the box with their default public instance, but it is what it is I guess).
Realistically I don't see Matrix picking up as a widespread discord clone. Just the entire idea of Matrix needing a protocol and having different clients to choose from is enough to turn a lot of folks away from it. Meanwhile, Stoat is practically building a 1:1 discord clone, and is much easier for the average user to understand.
How do hosts of those instances afford to make them free?
Can Matrix do emotes like Discord yet?
YES there's a client that adds support for GIFs and custom emojis https://commet.chat/
Looks promising, but I need an iOS client too.
Fluffychat does this I believe
I'm on over 40 Discord servers. And yes I had one for my own group which I moved to Matrix. That still means I'm in over 40 Discord servers. Plus I also run Matrix.
From everything I've seen matrix is not comparable to Discord, but instead like a slightly amped Signal. What am I missing?
Actually I did just ask the same thing, and the TL;DR is that most clients do handle it as signal with group chat folders. Cinny does look like Discord, but currently lacks voice calling. It's currently web only with PWA support for mobile, though.
Okay, then if it really is not discord, or to be specific, not self-hosted discord (because I don't care about the upfront cost of self-hosting), then I'm gonna start ignoring these matrix posts because they seem to be trying to convince people who want - someone in your link used burgers as a metaphor - A burger to instead get a hot dog.
I don't want a hot dog.
Yeah, they all really do feel like "Oh you want to stop playing World of Warcraft, but still want an online game to play? Try Second Life!" and I think that's partly because there isn't an app out there that feels like Discord besides Discord. Cinny (Matrix), IRC, and Stoat come close, but none support voice calls at this point, at least that I can find. Matrix itself supports calling (though I think that's still experimental), but Cinny doesn't. If it ever ends up supporting voice calls, that will likely end up being the Discord alternative In wouldn't feel bad recommending.
Until then, though, we don't really have a true Discord alternative. Just various chat apps that don't quite hit the mark.
Stoat literally supports voice calls and Matrix has supported 1 on 1 voice calls for a long time and now they are testing group voice chats
I'm sorry but it will be difficult to deliver something that fits all the checkboxes Discord filled without a lot of money behind it.
Following the food analogy, you don't want a burger, you want a whole buffet with all the foods discord delivered.
I haven't actually used Stoat, but they don't have group voice calls listed on their website, so I assumed they weren't there. My mistake on that part, but also they should probably list that on their website. That would probably put Stoat as the most viable alternative, especially if they add federation (especially over XMPP, which it seemed from their website was the most likely they'd go with?)
Nowhere in my comment did I state that Matrix didn't support voice calls. What was said was this:
Matrix itself supports calling (though I think that's still experimental), but Cinny doesn't.
Cinny doesn't. Their UI does not have a call button that I can locate, unless they're hiding it because I'm the only user in the room.
Fundamentally Stoat is probably the one that's there as a Discord replacement, since it does have calls, and between two different apps you can get a fully functiobal Discord alternative out of Matrix. But you have to use two apps to get it. If Stoat adds XMPP federation I will 100% switch in a heartbeat tho, I've been saying we could have a discord-like XMPP client since I started using XMPP.
Back on topic, though, the things I want out of a true discord replacement are this:
- Group voice calls
- A server system that is separated from DMs/group chats, at least visually
- Roles within those servers to manage people's access
That's all. That's all Discord has over literally every other chat app. If something is missing those 3 features, it's not a Discord alternative. It's a chat app, which is fine! But when people say shit like "Signal is a good Discord alternative" it makes me question how they're defining every word in that sentence, because it is 100% on the level of saying Guild War 2 is a good Second Life alternative. And my experience with most of the big "Discord alternatives" is that they aren't. The default Matrix+Element experience is not like Discord. I had to start a whole ass Lemmy thread to be pointed to Cinny, which has 2 of those features! Missing the third. Element has two of those features! Missing the third on mobile. I want a cheeseburger and what's happening is one place will sell me a grilled cheese, and the other is selling me a burger with a slice of cheese on top.
For info:
Group voice calls
They're testing that right now. It's going well.
A server system that is separated from DMs/group chats, at least visually
Roles within those servers to manage people's access
They're testing that right now. It's going well.
I know, I mentioned that.
A server system that is separated from DMs/group chats, at least visually Spaces.
On mobile on the element client, absolutely not. The spaces group chats show up in your DMs, and there is not a way to turn that off. Yes I know about other clients existing, there's one where you can turn that off, but it's not even mentioned on the main Matrix website.
I disagree, it's more like we want a burger, but the only options that are out there are a meat patty here, a bun over there, and one project somewhere claims to have invented cheese and ketchup but can't get them together unless the burger is made of tofu and you have to add them yourself using chopsticks.
Discord already serves burgers, they are technically poisoned, but they are whole burgers with cheese and ketchup.
I agree to disagree, a burger is a functional food (product) and a lot of the options provided deliver a functional product for what it is designed to do.
Mumble is great for voice chat, XMPP is great for plain text, etc.
Discord is a set of products wrapped in a platform. You have chats, voice, video, screensharing, filesharing, threads, bots, etc.
But since you want the whole buffet you'll need to wait while Stoat and Spacebar finish cooking all the food, they don't have a team of chefs backed by VC money.
If you don't care for all that just keep using Discord or move to a proprietary buffet like Root until it enshittifies like Discord.
People pay for Discord Nitro?
I pay for Discord Nitro because it's where the vast majority of the people I have real interactions with online are and I like being able to send my own emojis outside of my own server. I also like having better audio and video quality for my server's voice chat. Dumb, maybe, but it's literally less than a club cover fee per month.
Legcord's fake nitro is free.
Vencord.
wait for the free trial, sign up with it using like a gift card that has a few cents on it or an empty paypal account. trial lasts like 2 weeks but you'll get more than a month as they email you daily "we can't charge your account, you'll lose nitro in 3 weeks"
Repeat this every time they offer you a trial, which they will, without verifying that you've already had a free trial. I've had Nitro for months doing this and have never paid them a dime.
Seems like a lot of hassle to go through for something I absolutely don't care for.
The higher file size limitations are pretty handy for sending videos and high res pictures in chat
I'd rather not deal with those arbitrary limitations. And be nickel-and-dimed at every turn.
But why?
dumb reasons really. I like having an animated avatar but don't want to pay for it. It's stupid I know.
Haha, hey at least you recognize it for what it is. Can't knock you for that. Eff it, enjoy your animated avatar. Don't let anyone take that away from you.
Actually, I privately think ill of someone when I see they have Nitro, because I don't care for the corporation ever since they took My username
Unfortunately, yes.
Cooool. Now just convince everyone else on discord and we're good.
What's that, you say? You can't? You're still trying to convince people to get off Facebook after 10 years? Huh.
Any providers that have hosted Matrix servers?
That's the link of the post 🤔 It seems like you're not the only one mistunderstanding that. Why is that?
Oh I see it now. It looks really close to like an ad that my brain immediately filtered it out, sorry about missing that.
I dunno, I recently read it's not that simple and feasible.
Paying for managed matrix is not that simple? Why not?
I read somewhere that you're wrong.
I think I read what I just wrote back to myself.
It's settled then. That human is wrong, and should probably be mocked for that.