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Discord has become a go-to tool for friend groups, fan communities and online organizations of various sizes because of how simple it makes it to host text chats, voice calls and share your screen with other people. Over the last few years it's also become a lot more annoying to use for those tasks for some of the same reasons. In an effort to pay for servers and keep members safe, Discord has adopted an approach to subscriptions, ads and age-verification that have rubbed a lot of users the wrong way.

Most social platforms of a certain size will deal with similar issues, so at least for now, the only real way to avoid Discord's problems is to switch to smaller group chats or take the big step of hosting your own server. There's a growing number of Discord alternatives out there, but open-source chat platforms where you have complete control over your data and don't have to worry about features being locked behind a subscription will likely be your best option.

Complaints about Nitro, Discord's subscription, and the venture capital-backed pressure to grow that guides the company's product decisions have existed for years. While those might play a role, the current exodus from Discord seems like it can rest squarely at the feet of the company's age-verification policies.

Discord announced a new collection of teen safety features in February 2026 to follow the United Kingdom's Online Safety Act, and a growing number of laws that require platforms to use age verification to prevent children from accessing adult content. Discord's so-called "Teen Default Experience" introduces new default settings for teenagers 13 years and older and an age verification system for any user Discord's inference model suspects could be underage.

Under the new system, users are expected to provide a video selfie and submit identity documents to one of Discord's partners to confirm their age. The company says that selfies never leave whatever device is running Discord, and its partners don't keep a copy of any uploaded identity documents, but backlash to the somewhat invasive nature of the system was swift. Discord ultimately decided to postpone its rollout to the second half of 2026 so it could adjust its approach, including adding more age-verification options. Underlining the risks of collecting identifying information, one of Discord's third-party service providers was later hacked in October 2025, possibly exposing up to 70,000 Discord users' government IDs.

With an open-source chat platform, security is still an issue, but a mass age-verification system isn't a concern when you're just hosting a server for you and your friends. Not every option offers the same familiar interface as Discord, but you can get core features like text chat and voice and video calls from most open-source chat apps.

If you actually want to easily self-host a server, the options get more limited. Apps like Stoat, Element, Fluxxer and Cinny offer Discord or Slack-like experiences that you can run on your own hardware, either using a bespoke system or the open-source Matrix protocol. Matrix-based apps in particular benefit from being based on a transparent and open standard, and are usually interoperable with one another. In terms of matching Discord's look and feel, however, Stoat and Element seem to get the closest.

Revolt

Stoat, the open-source chat app formerly known as Revolt, offers an app that looks like Discord with the numbers filed off. The app supports text, voice, and video calls, and, according to its GitHub, began rolling out a screen-sharing feature earlier this year that should make it a better tool for sharing games with friends. The app also supports things like theming, custom emoji and a roles-based moderation system that makes it relatively flexible for anyone porting their community over from Discord.

Stoat will happily host your server for you, but the chat platform can also be self-hosted with a bit of setup. Whether you opt for self-hosting or let Stoat handle the technical details for you, all servers work with the platform's web, Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and iPadOS apps.

Element

Compared to Stoat, Element is a bit more buttoned up, offering a free, self-hosted option and a paid service for enterprise and government customers. Element is end-to-end encrypted, and supports text chats, voice and video calls, screen sharing, file sharing and even location sharing when you're accessing the platform through a mobile app. Where the app differs is Discord's more playful elements. Element doesn't support custom emoji by default, but you can freely theme your Element app however you want.

Also, since Element is built on Matrix (and also run by its creators), the app benefits from the built-in qualities of the protocol. Element is decentralized and interoperable with other apps that run on the Matrix protocol by default. That doesn't mean it supports the features of every other Matrix app, but you should be able to at least talk to all of them. Element is available for Linux, Windows, macOS, iOS and Android.