There’s been quite a bit of…unsettlement (totally a word) regarding the news that Discord has a new CEO and the company is going public (typically a sign of things going shittier than before).
I’d just like to re-post this which I shared some time ago, if you’ll indulge me in my rare post which isn’t a Steam Deck / Gaming News # post - a rarity for me.
In the end, this is not the be-all-and-end-all alternative, it won’t be for everyone. Matrix exists of course. But this is a nice place. And I thought considering recent events I’d recommend it regardless!
Following is just a copy of what I posted last time. It’s mostly Linux chat, gaming, handhelds (like the Steam Deck), movies and…general chats. Anyway, here’s the post:
So…this one is a bit left-of-field.
A friend of mine (Gardiner Bryant of YouTube - who reports on Linux and the Steam Deck) has started a Revolt server.
What is Revolt?
It’s kinda like a FOSS alternative to Discord. You’ll see the layout is almost a direct copy, and it’s far less polished…but then again you haven’t got the downsides of Discord’s constant upselling either:
Why is this relevant?
…I can hear you ask? Well, so far its just a few developers and creators in there, but I thought of all spaces…maybe those very devs and creators whose work you use and watch…well it might be nice to join in there?
My personal friends who are in here so far are:
-
imLinguin whose GitHub is here - but you may know most as a developer of Heroic Games Launcher
-
Lazorne whose project is RetroDECK - my personal fav emulation option for the Steam Deck
-
Eben Bruyns whose GitHub is here - but you may know best as the dev of Junk-Store
-
Kyle Gospo whose project is Bazzite
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Gardiner himself, of course whose YouTube link is here,
What is the damn link to the damn server, woman?
I mean, you will have to make an account on Revolt, but it might be interesting to some here. You’re all very welcome!
Why do we fragment again? We have matrix already - why make another application.
Revolt isn’t new. Matrix and revolt are around the same age and are both not even feature competitive with Discord. So until there is a fully featured truly open alternative to discord, there will be still others trying to take discord’s audience.
Does matrix have multiple chat channels per server / community yet? Last I asked they didn’t understand my question. Basically matrix just isn’t meant to be a replacement for discord.
It does have that.
A “server” in Matrix is a space. A chat channel is called a room. A space can hold as many rooms as you want.
Fun fact, unlike Discord, a space can even hold other spaces in it!
But as far as I can remember, you can’t administer the rooms in a space as one. Like you need to be invited into each separate room.
Not saying that you couldn’t add that, I’m saying they don’t seem to want to “do what discord did”. Which is a bummer since the success of discord clearly shows what would be needed.
PS: It’s fine to do that as a UX design choice, more like IRC. But the issue is that people like you (no offense) say it’s the same when it isn’t. Like not even understanding what the problem is.
But as far as I can remember, you can’t administer the rooms in a space as one. Like you need to be invited into each separate room.
Nope, again - I don’t understand who told you this. When you’re creating a room in Matrix you can make it either public, invite only, or only joinable via membership in a specific space.
Here’s a screenshot of the room security interface:
Not saying that you couldn’t add that, I’m saying they don’t seem to want to “do what discord did”. Which is a bummer since the success of discord clearly shows what would be needed.
You are correct in that they “don’t want to do what discord this”: recently (and you can see this in their apps like EleX) they’ve transitioned to looking and acting more like modern mobile chat apps like Signal/WhatsApp/Telegram - a decision I’m assuming they’ve made as most of their funding comes from people who want a replacement for those apps and not Discord.
Regardless, just using a Discord-like client (e.g. Commet) is enough to get the experience you want.
I really hope indie gamedevs start moving off Discord. Sometimes it’s the only source for finding help or reporting bugs.
Yeah, and it’s doubly infuriating because Discord is not a good replacement for support forums. It isn’t searchable via search engines, and even the built in search is fucking dog water.
Let’s say I have an error, so I google “{Program} {Error code} Solved”. With a forum, I would find a thread that is already talking about the specific error, with comments regarding troubleshooting steps or a solution… But with Discord, all I get is a generic link to the program’s server.
And even once I’m in the server, there often isn’t a good way for me to find existing threads about my specific error. Maybe I check the pinned messages, but some servers have dozens of channels; am I expected to check the pins on every single channel? Oftentimes that seems to be the expectation, because asking a question will often just get a “check the pinned messages, ya thud-fuck” type of response.
Or maybe I search it, but (again) am I expected to search every single channel? And since Discord doesn’t use fuzzed searches, searching for “Error code 0x00548327” won’t return any results if the thread simply uses “Error 548327” instead. With Google (or any half-decent search engine, really) you get results for both. But not with Discord.
So instead, I ask in the support channel. And that leads me to my final gripe… My response takes actual effort from another person in order to solve. Maybe I get lucky and they have a bot set up to respond to a keyword/error number in my comment… But if not, or if I didn’t use the specific keyword that the bot was searching for, then I need to rely on other people. If there are 200 people with the same issue, that’s 200 times that someone needs to respond to what is essentially the same message. With a forum, you could simply find the post, and read the responses. No human interaction necessary, because it has already been done. The question and answer process has already happened. But with Discord, I’m forced to wait on someone to actually respond, and the devs/admins actually need to dedicate time and resources to ensuring it gets answered. That constant vigilance takes a lot more time and effort away from actual mod duties.
Fucking preach! I feel like this falls on deaf ears most of the time though sadly.
It’s a comically bad experience.
I get it that it’s probably easier to setup a Discord server, than to run your own forum, but you can always get a managed solution or use reddit (I would prefer if Lemmy was used, but I am also realistic).
I’m actually against companies running their own subreddits, purely because I’m an old redditor who remembers when it was specifically disallowed by Reddit. The original intent was for the site to the run by the people, not by companies. Companies were actually prevented from moderating their own subs; the worry was that they would use their mod powers to suppress any sort of negative press or criticism, no matter how valid.
For instance, maybe there’s a popular TV show. The company wasn’t allowed to have a hand in moderating the official fan sub for the show, because it was left up to the public. If the show did something unpopular, the broadcasting company shouldn’t have the ability to suppress the criticism about it.
But Reddit has since done a complete 180 on that topic, and now goes out of their way to install corporate moderators. Subs are now run as an extension of the company’s marketing and/or PR departments
Agreed. Just at this point I think it’s fair to say that this policy is definitely not in effect.
I normally like GitLab issues as a place for bug reports.
A FAQ and an old style forum works pretty well for help.
In fact, just make a community on Lemmy for the forum part and you’ll have what’s required.GitHub also has this new “Discussions” thing which should do some good, for those that want to stay on GitHub
Is there a way to puppet a discord account through revolt like there is on matrix? There are a lot of communities I am in that I need discord for.
Not currently a Revolt user, but this would be a requirement for me to consider switching, too.
It looks like its API supports webhooks, so should be relatively straightforward to enable it (or perhaps through a third party, like Zapier)?
Quite frankly I find the idea positively revolting.
Revolt to Discord is what BlueSky is to Twitter.
Just another continuation that can (and will) enshittify.
I’m failing to find any info on how they are funding the servers in their website.
Well, once the service becomes large and popular we could try to find people interested in investing into the platform, then we just need to make sure it stays interesting to more and more investors over time. Should be sustainable, sounds oddly familiar tho but i definitely just made it up rn on my own
Does Signal not do everything people need?
Damn, that’s… quite the line up of Steam Deck related devs, shit.
Welp, I’m convinced.
I got distracted when I started inviting people I know into the server, so…there will be more to come!
Just switched my friend group over to Matrix. Honestly looked at Revolt, but no federation was a non-starter. Convincing friends to leave is hard enough, unfortunately being locked into a single server was a non-starter. It’s too bad, they have a great UI, but I think they should have left the backend to trusted protocols.
Just imagine the good they could have done by being a new competent Matrix client that can do everything, but instead they are a Discord clone.
It would have been a massive win win
If you like Discord’s UI, there is a new Matrix client being developed - called Commet.Chat - that is trying to look and feel like Discord.
Might be worth checking out!
Oh that’s AMAZING! I’m going to try it out tonight!
I also hadn’t used it in a while - used to be very rough around the edges.
Just installed it on my phone, it’s actually pretty usable now!
I will continue using element, signal, and simple x instead. They have all the security and privacy features this product doesn’t.
Is it e2e encrypted?
No
I think all you can do in an open group chat is use vpn/tor/anonymous email. Besides private messages, but then the server can be forced to disclose the metadata.
Revolt isn’t federated, encrypted, has no video chat, claims privacy but that claim seems to be simply because they are based in Europe. The layout is nice and ui is better than element but that’s the only upside i see. I hate the matrix client ui’s and chat sorting options.
Exactly. I wish they would have just built a great UI on top of Matrix or even XMPP, but they insisted on doing it this way. None of my friends want to switch to something that they’re boxed-in with, they don’t want an app just for one server. Matrix is the only option we have, but all of the UIs are… meh.
Yeah, they kinda screwed up Element with combining mobile and desktop features into one app. The first time I tried creating a call on desktop, it was suddenly apparent how confusing they had made it, because you can do it in multiple ways (normal calls & conference calls).
There are other UIs that look very nice, but sadly don’t support voice chat. Hopefully these other clients can catch up, but it’ll likely take a while.
So, I briefly tried out Matrix some four years ago and left because it was utter trash and from waht I gather from your comment it is still pretty much trash now. But despite there not being a single usable client, people still try to convince everyone that Matrix, by some obscrure metric, is superior to all other chat programs.
Sorry to say, but a chat protocol on its own is a tech demo at best and as long as there isn’t a single feature complete and usable client, it’s an alternative for no one except hardcore tech enthusiasts.
When I last used Matrix/Elements I had to deal with “lost keys” issues multiple times in just two months. This issue is a dealbreaker if it happens just once in a year and apparently, it’s still a semi regular problem for some of my friends.
Just accept it, Matrix will never be a replacement for Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram or even just Microsoft Teams.
Never is a strong word. Element has made a lot of progress and I can see the potential in it to compete with some of these platforms.
But no, it’s not there yet.
I agree, I don’t think it’s trash. From my experience, chatting is very good, voice/video are just the next thing they are tackling.
Better UX will probably come after important features are done.
I didn’t mean to say that it’s (still) trash, I think it’s useable, but there are still a lot of improvements to come.
Element as a client seems to want to do everything, which is probably great for a lot of people, but it (in my experience) has led to a poor user experience (which with more time, will likely improve, they seem to have a lot of backing).
With Element completing voice/video implementation, I imagine it’ll be easier for other clients to reference their work when implementing their own support.
Once the other clients get voice support, I will definitely be trying them out again, I’m sure they will make a much simpler experience that works out the box.
The lost keys problem has luckily never happened to me, it usually boils down the user error I believe, but yeah, if it is a user error that happens often, they should figure out some way to fix that (probably a hard problem, which is sort of fixed (i believe) if you use the client on multiple devices, so if you get logged out of your account you can easily authorize your access from another logged in device, eg desktop/mobile).
Revolt hasn’t added federation because it can be a major complexity increase in the codebase, but apparently they might be allowing instance owners to integrate polyproto support (polyproto is a work-in-progress federated chat system). If you want a discord like interface for Matrix, Cinny exists. I personally prefer revolt in some ways as Matrix feels like it doesn’t fit the use case for discord as well.
Cinny hates me. Failed to load module xapp-gtk3-module and then unable to complete frame buffer.
Screenshots look nice though!
Also, revolt self hosting is broken. The web call functionality (WebRTC) is being rewritten but that effort is stale and out of the box it simply does not work. There is no real documentation about this either. It just won’t work and you need to invest a lot of effort to figure out why. The moment self hosting properly works, I’ll give it another shot. Not being able to connect without a fat client is a show stopper for me. There’s no way I can get enough traction for my groups if the barrier to switch is higher than a sheet of paper.
When self hosting all the shortcomings you mentioned are perfectly acceptable for me.
In terms of desktop applications, looks like Element and Revolt look pretty comparable these days. Mobile app Revolt looks better to me. Matrix seems way more established considering downloads of Element (there’s numerous Matrix applications) on Google Play and FlatHub
By memory there’s a community-made app for Revolt as well, but I can’t remember what its called, or the git link! When I find it again, I’ll link it here :)
Mobile app Revolt is nice, but doesn’t support servers that aren’t the main one yet last I tried.
In addition to the mentions that this isn’t encrypted, doesn’t have video chat, etc, it’s also difficult to set up with little documentation and an enormous tech stack. They also had some recent controversy about open source licensing that gives me a bit of worry. I decided to go with a self-hosted synapse server.
It would appear there is a character limit to the password that is not disclosed, nor prohibited, while creating your account.
Classic
