askchapo

Signal is good, end-to-end encrypted, probably the best bet for an accessible secure option. Open-source, group chats, good calls, has very functional desktop + mobile apps, a variety of options for enhanced security (eg disappearing messages, extra-hops for call obscurity).

Stoat(/revolt) is open source, meaningfully secure, and very Discord-like. However, servers are not end-to-end encrypted and it's EU-hosted. Video calls are still beta.

Element does tick the boxes. Personally I've run into too many bugs and confusing issues to like using it.

WhatsApp very deliberately harvests all your metadata (though theoretically technically not chat contents (though who believes that)), it will harvest and log times you're online, when you send and receive chats, possibly even the length of those chats. This data is frequently subpeonad. I would not use it for anything secure ever.

I'mI will always suggest Delta Chat because you don't have to give any sort of phone number or email and can just send someone an invitation QR to join your contacts.

It's all encrypted by default. It's more like WhatsApp than Matrix though and in group chats, everyone has equal privileges. So if you need to maintain strict access controls and can't risk everyone getting kicked out of the chat but a rogue member, then it probably won't work. But it's really good for 1:1 communication or small groups of trusted people.

As far as I know the main creator isn't into anyyhing terrible, whereas Matrix has Israeli ties and the SimpleX guy used to post transphobic stuff on Mastodon. His only sin is being born German.

Maybe Signal or Briar if encryption is a top priority, unfortunately there no good chat apps that are like discord and have encryption (besides matrix, but good is a huge stretch)

Maybe look into this https://simplex.chat/ I haven't dug very deeply yet but it looks interesting. I don't really like or trust Matrix.

TLDR: Check out Mattermost, look out for Fluxer in the coming months.

You will probably need to lean in to something self-hosted to get what you want.

Look into Mattermost which is a company-backed open source Slack alternative. I haven't uses it extensively, but I thought it was decent. Its a bit annoying that there are paid features though.

I am also closely keeping an eye on Fluxer, which is being developed as a FOSS Discord alternative with full feature parity. It already has some momentum with people looking for a Discord alternative as they plan for an IPO this month (plus the face scanning and stuff).

Once they have self-hosting properly documented and supported, I'm going to give it a go.

The issue with apps is that it kinda sucks to ask you users to get something new that they aren't using yet. I only like to do that when I have confidence in the product. i think Fluxer will have its own momentum, so I won't be the only person saying "hey everyone, let's get tf off discord"

I recently saw some stuff for a matrix client called Commet that looks very discord-like. You'll still need to source a matrix host you like though.

Matrix, Signal, Onionshare is great if you need to throw something together quick and secure but it's not fancy.