I’ve been working on a community platform called Hideout, originally because I got frustrated with how Discord handles long-term communities.
It’s great for real-time chat, but over time:
important conversations get buried new members ask the same questions again search doesn’t really help communities grow, but don’t actually retain knowledge
So I started building something that keeps the good parts of Discord, but fixes those issues.
What Hideout does differently
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Chat → Knowledge Messages can be saved into structured posts, so useful discussions don’t disappear into scrollback.
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AI catch-up summaries If you miss a conversation, you get a quick summary:
what happened whether it was important key highlights who was active
No need to scroll through hundreds of messages.
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Actually usable search Trying to make it feel closer to searching a forum or Google, not raw message logs.
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Hybrid structure It’s not just chat:
real-time channels thread-style discussions a growing “knowledge layer” over time
- Voice, DMs, profiles, etc. The usual stuff is there, just not the main focus.
What I’m trying to figure out
Before I go too deep into this, I’d really like input from people who care about:
open platforms long-term community building self-hosting (possibly later) alternatives to Discord/Slack
Some things I’m unsure about:
Would you actually switch from Discord for something like this? Is the “chat + knowledge” idea useful, or overkill? What’s the biggest thing Discord gets wrong for you? Would self-hosting be important, or is hosted fine? Not trying to be: a social media platform an enterprise Slack clone over-engineered like some Matrix setups
Just trying to build something communities can grow with instead of outgrowing.
If you’ve tried alternatives like Matrix, Zulip, etc., I’d especially like to hear how those worked (or didn’t).
Appreciate any thoughts 👍
Check it out: The Hideout