Best Discord Alternatives in 2026: Free, Private and Self-Hosted Options

The best Discord alternatives depend on what you use Discord for. Stoat (formerly Revolt) is the closest open-source copy for friend groups and communities, Element is the pick for encrypted chat that is not tied to one company, and Mumble is the choice when you only want low-latency voice on your own server.

Zulip, Rocket.Chat and Slack cover teams at work. Every tool below is listed on Enlisted, and the table shows which are open source and which you can self-host. The picks run from the most Discord-like apps to voice-only, privacy-first and workplace tools, with a decision guide at the end.

Why people look for Discord alternatives

Discord is free for basic use and works well for gaming groups, study groups and creator communities. These are the reasons people still go looking elsewhere.

• Closed source and hosted only. Enlisted lists Discord as proprietary with no self-hosted version. Your channels, roles and message history live on Discord's servers, under its rules.
• One company's network. Accounts, communities and bots all live inside Discord. Moving a community means rebuilding it somewhere else, which is easier when the new home is open source or federated.
• Paid perks. The core app is free, but extras such as larger uploads, custom emoji everywhere and HD streaming sit behind the Nitro subscription.
• Privacy and data control. Some groups want end-to-end encryption, no phone number or no central server at all. Matrix, SimpleX and Quiet are built around those ideas.
• A different job. Discord began with gaming. Teams that need threaded, searchable discussion, or open-source projects that want discussion to stay readable later, often do better with a tool designed for that.

How we picked

Each tool here covers at least part of what Discord does: group text chat, voice, or both. Enlisted's data decided the rest. Open-source projects had to show recent activity on GitHub, licences are quoted exactly as listed, and each pick notes whether you can self-host and whether a free plan exists. Facts come from Enlisted's listings and each project's own site, with no benchmarks of our own. You can read more about how Enlisted ranks tools.

One note on the table: its Self-host column counts open-source apps you can run on a server. TeamSpeak is closed source but, according to its site, still lets you run your own server.

1. Stoat: best open-source Discord alternative for friend groups and communities

Stoat, formerly Revolt, is an open-source group chat app for friends and communities that follows Discord's layout of servers, channels and voice chat. Its site lists apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS and the web, plus role-based permissions, moderation tools, bots, custom emoji and group DMs.

You can use the hosted service or run the backend yourself. The code behind it is written in Rust and uses MongoDB and Redis, and the project's site says it has no ads and no data mining. Enlisted's listing tracks the backend repository, which is what you would run if you self-host; the Stoat page has the details.

• Best for: friend groups, gaming clans and hobby communities that want something close to Discord without the lock-in.
• Watch out for: Discord bots do not carry over, so check that the bots your server depends on have a Stoat equivalent. Self-hosting means running several services, so it is more work than a single-binary server.

2. Element: best for encrypted, federated communities

Element is a chat client for Matrix, the open protocol for decentralized messaging, with web and desktop apps and native mobile apps. Matrix works a bit like email: people register on a homeserver of their choice and can still talk to users on other servers, and bridges connect Matrix rooms to other chat platforms, as the Matrix documentation explains.

Element's own site describes end-to-end encrypted messaging and calls, and it supports rooms and spaces for organizing a larger community. You can use a hosted server or run one yourself, for example with Tuwunel, a Rust homeserver that works as a Synapse replacement.

• Best for: communities that want privacy, encryption and no single owner of the network.
• Watch out for: the Element web client is only the client, so you also need a Matrix server, hosted or your own. The mental model of homeservers and spaces takes a little longer to learn than Discord's servers.

3. Mumble: best for low-latency voice chat on your own server

Mumble is an open-source voice chat program built for low latency and high audio quality, with a separate client and server that you can run yourself. Where Discord bundles text, voice and community features into one hosted app, Mumble does one thing: real-time voice on a server you control.

Clients are available for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and macOS, the server is called mumble-server (formerly murmur), and plugins can add features the core app leaves out. That focus has made it a long-running choice for gaming groups that care about audio delay.

• Best for: gaming groups, clans and raid teams that want reliable voice on their own server.
• Watch out for: it is voice-first, so pair it with a text chat app if you want persistent channels and emoji. The official clients Enlisted lists are desktop ones, so check mobile options for your members.

4. TeamSpeak: best for established voice-first communities

TeamSpeak is proprietary voice communication software for gaming groups, communities and businesses, where you either run your own server or use a hosted one. Its site describes the TeamSpeak 6 client as adding text chat with direct messages and group chats, community discovery and screen sharing, and it lists mobile apps for Android and iOS.

It is a different bet from Mumble. TeamSpeak is closed source, but it offers a hosted communities option for groups that do not want to manage hardware, and a developer SDK for embedding voice in other products.

• Best for: clans and communities already used to TeamSpeak who want text chat and screen sharing added to a familiar voice setup.
• Watch out for: closed source, so check the vendor's site for its current terms on hosting a server before committing a large community.

5. Zulip: best for threaded discussion and open-source project communities

Zulip is an open-source team chat app whose defining feature is topic-based threading inside channels, so several conversations can run at once and be caught up on later. It is built for both live and asynchronous discussion, which makes it a natural fit for open-source projects, remote teams and communities spread across time zones.

Enlisted lists it under Apache-2.0, with a hosted service that has a free tier and a self-hosted server you run yourself. Clients cover web, desktop and mobile.

• Best for: project communities and distributed teams that want conversations to stay readable after the fact.
• Watch out for: it is built around threaded text rather than voice rooms, and the topic model feels different if your group is used to one fast-moving channel.

6. Chatto: best self-hostable team and community chat with voice and screen sharing

Chatto is an open-source chat application for teams and communities that is designed to be easy to self-host. The repository ships the chat server, a command-line tool and a bundled web front end, and the app includes voice calls, video calls and screen sharing alongside text channels. It is released under AGPL-3.0 and describes a privacy-first, GDPR-oriented design.

Read it as a newer entry in the self-hosted category rather than an established default. Its release tags are still pre-1.0 at the time of writing, which signals an early project, so review its self-hosting documentation and roadmap before moving a community onto it.

• Best for: groups that want one self-hosted app for channels, calls and screen sharing.
• Watch out for: an early-stage project, so expect change and a smaller ecosystem than Discord's.

7. Sharkord: best lightweight self-hosted server for small groups

Sharkord is a lightweight, self-hosted chat server that brings core Discord features to your own infrastructure, shipped as a single binary and aimed at small groups. It has voice channels with video and screen sharing, text channels with threads, replies, reactions, pins and search, direct messages, roles with per-channel permission overrides, invites with usage limits and a plugin SDK.

It is MIT-licensed, and the project notes that it is in an alpha stage. Being lightweight and a single binary suits a friend group or small team hosting on one machine, though alpha status means you should expect rough edges.

• Best for: friends, small teams and hobby groups that want a private Discord-style server on a single machine.
• Watch out for: alpha software. It is not the choice for a large public community that needs mature moderation tooling.

8. Cinny: best simple Matrix client with a clean interface

Cinny is an open-source Matrix client with a simple, elegant interface, available as a web app and a desktop app. Because it only speaks Matrix, it works with any Matrix account, and you can host the client yourself from a tarball or a Docker image, with configurable default homeservers.

If you want a simpler interface than Element's, Cinny is another front end for the same network. A second option is FluffyChat, a Matrix client written in Flutter that adds video calls through Matrix RTC, spaces, custom emotes and stickers on many platforms.

• Best for: people who want Matrix's privacy model in a clean, simple interface.
• Watch out for: feature support depends on what the client implements, so check how calls work before moving a voice-heavy community. You still need a Matrix account or server.

9. Rocket.Chat: best for organizations that need control over where chat runs

Rocket.Chat is an open-source communications platform for organizations with strict data protection needs that can run self-hosted, in a managed cloud or fully air-gapped. It covers real-time channels, video conferencing built on WebRTC and identity and security controls, and it is highly customizable.

Mattermost is the closest peer: an open-core, self-hosted collaboration platform with team chat, workflow automation, voice calls and screen sharing, shipped as a single Linux binary that depends on PostgreSQL. Both are built for companies, not for a gaming server.

• Best for: companies, agencies and public bodies replacing Discord or Slack with something they host.
• Watch out for: more administration than a friend server needs, and Enlisted lists its pricing as contact sales rather than a published price list.

10. Telegram: best for very large public groups and broadcast channels

Telegram is a cloud-based messenger for phones, desktops and the browser, with large groups, broadcast channels and bots built on an open API. Chats sync across devices, and its site describes Communities that link groups, channels and bots together.

It is not a Discord replica, since it is built around groups, channels and bots rather than Discord-style servers. For announcements and large public groups it is a common destination, and it is free to use. The official clients are open source, such as Telegram Desktop, but the service itself is hosted by Telegram only.

• Best for: public communities, announcement channels and large casual groups.
• Watch out for: no self-hosting, and it is a closed service on the server side.

11. Slack: best hosted Discord alternative for workplace chat

Slack is a commercial team messaging platform built around channels, direct messages and integrations, now part of Salesforce. It adds huddles, canvases, workflow automation and Slack Connect for working with outside partners.

It has a free plan, and paid plans are priced per seat. If your Discord server is really a company workspace, Slack is the mainstream hosted option, though it is closed source with no self-hosted version. For more options, see Slack alternatives.

• Best for: companies and startups that want a hosted workplace chat tool with a large app directory.
• Watch out for: per-seat pricing adds up as a team grows, and it is a poor fit for casual gaming or hobby communities.

12. Quiet: best for private chat with no central server

Quiet is an open-source, peer-to-peer team chat app that syncs encrypted messages directly between devices over Tor, with no central server to trust or run. Each community gets its own isolated network, and message sync is built on OrbitDB and IPFS. It is released under GPL-3.0, with desktop apps and a mobile app.

Quiet positions itself as an alternative to Slack, Discord and Element, and Enlisted lists small teams that want chat without a central server as its use case. If privacy matters more than features, it is one of the more unusual options here, alongside SimpleX Chat, a private messenger that works without any user identifiers.

• Best for: small, privacy-minded groups that do not want a server anywhere.
• Watch out for: a peer-to-peer model behaves differently from Discord's always-on servers, and it is not aimed at large public communities.

Which Discord alternative should you choose?

Start from what your group actually does day to day.

For a wider view, see all open-source Discord alternatives on Enlisted, or browse the team chat category and forums and communities.

What it takes to self-host a Discord alternative

Self-hosting gives you control over data and rules, and it also makes you the administrator. The listings on Enlisted show what each project asks of you.

• Stoat: a Rust backend with MongoDB and Redis, plus file storage that uses S3.
• Matrix (Element, Cinny, FluffyChat): the clients are only front ends, so you also run a homeserver such as Tuwunel, or use a hosted one.
• Mumble: a small server, mumble-server, that runs anywhere Qt can be installed.
• Sharkord: a single binary, which is the lightest setup here.
• Mattermost: a single Linux binary plus a PostgreSQL database.
• Chatto and Zulip: a server application with documentation for self-hosting, and Zulip also offers a hosted service.

Plan for backups, updates and moderation before you invite members, because a community depends on the server staying up. If you are moving other services off big platforms at the same time, the guide to Dropbox and Google Drive alternatives covers the file-storage side.