9 Best Discord Alternatives of 2026

Stoat ranks first because it is the most direct swap for a Discord server. The app, which ran as Revolt until its rename, uses the same model of servers, channels and voice chat, with file sharing, markdown, role-based permissions and moderation tools. Stoat makes a point of giving away what Discord charges for: custom emojis, a 20MB upload limit, server-specific profile pictures, animated avatars and profile banners come with no subscription. Group DMs hold up to 50 members and bots work in them. The code is public, the company is based in Europe, and it says it runs no ads and sells no data. Communities that want full control can self-host for free, and developers get the same public API the official apps use. The tradeoff is scale: the bot catalog and the number of active servers are far smaller than Discord's, so expect to rebuild some moderation and music workflows.

Telegram is the strongest option for communities that care about reach. Groups hold up to 200,000 members and channels can broadcast to an unlimited number of subscribers, and Telegram itself cites uses from families to large ICO communities. Voice chats let members drop in and out of a live room inside a group, and calls can grow to 200 participants. Admin tools are detailed: you can grant specific rights to each admin, put members in read-only mode, review recent admin actions and run moderation bots through the Bot API. Public groups get short t.me links and readable history, which helps discovery. Telegram does not copy Discord's model of one server with many channels, so a large community usually ends up as a set of linked groups and a channel. The app is free, and Telegram Premium adds doubled limits, 4 GB uploads and no ads, but the price depends on country and platform, so our USD check is pending.

Element is the pick for communities that want encryption and independence from any single platform. It runs on Matrix, an open, decentralized network, so a community can use a public server, a trusted provider or its own homeserver, and still talk to people on other Matrix servers. The personal app is free forever and covers rooms, threads, voice and video calls, screen sharing, polls, voice messages and read receipts. Element rewrote its encryption in Rust for the newer Element X app and says it is much faster in large encrypted rooms. Groups that self-host can use the free Element Server Suite Community, which includes Element Call, under the AGPL license. The downsides are friction and scale: members need to understand accounts tied to a homeserver, and Element notes its community Synapse server is not meant for production, pointing larger deployments to the paid Pro edition priced through sales.

TeamSpeak is the pick for groups where voice matters more than anything else. The TeamSpeak 6 client offers low latency audio with noise suppression and echo cancellation, AES-based encryption, screen sharing at up to 4K and 60fps in beta, and a hierarchical permission system that decides who can talk, join channels, manage files or share screens. You can run your own server, with a TeamSpeak 6 server beta on GitHub, or rent an official TeamSpeak Community. Those hosted plans start at $4.99 a month for Crew with 11 slots, then $8.99 for 27 slots and $17.99 for 64, each with 1 GB of storage, custom banners and hostnames, and a 7-day trial on Crew. TeamSpeak 6 adds community discovery, group chats and direct calls, but text and social features remain lighter than Discord's. Because hosted pricing is per slot, a large open server costs far more than a free Discord or Stoat server.

Zulip suits communities where conversations are long and asynchronous rather than live. Every message sits in a named topic inside a channel, so members can catch up on one thread without scrolling through everything else, and topics can be moved, linked or marked resolved. The free cloud plan keeps 10,000 messages of search history and 5 GB of storage. Standard costs $6.67 per user a month billed annually or $8 monthly, and Plus $10, but Zulip says it sponsors over 1,500 organizations with a free Standard plan, including open source projects, academic research and most communities when the free plan is not enough. Self-hosting is free and fully open source. Zulip lists 130+ native integrations, bridges to Slack, Teams and Matrix, and calls through Zoom, Jitsi or BigBlueButton. It has no Discord-style voice channels, so it fits text-first groups better than gaming groups.

Pumble is a budget workplace chat app that also works well for clubs and volunteer groups. Its free plan allows an unlimited number of users with unlimited message history and unlimited channels, which is rare among Slack-style tools. Free members can send voice and video messages and hold 1:1 voice and video meetings, and the workspace connects to Clockify and Plaky, the developer's own time tracking and project tools. Pro, at $2.49 per seat a month billed annually or $2.99 monthly, adds group meetings, screen sharing with annotations, custom sidebar sections, workspace analytics and 10GB of storage per seat. Business at $3.99 adds permissions and unlimited integrations. The limits are clear for community use: group voice needs a paid plan, there is no public server discovery, and free storage is 10GB for the whole workspace. It is a team tool first, so it fits organized groups better than open fan communities.

Slack is the most capable chat app on this list for professional groups, but it was built for companies, not open communities. Channels, threads, canvases, lists and huddles for audio, video and screen sharing are well designed, and the App Directory lists over 2,600 apps, from Jira and Google Drive to AI assistants. Slack Connect lets a community share channels with partner organizations. The free plan is the sticking point: messages are searchable for only 90 days, workspaces are limited to 10 apps, and huddles are 1:1 only, so a free community loses its history and group voice. Paid plans are priced per user, which works for a paid membership or a company-run customer group but not for a large free server. Slack showed EUR prices from our location, so the USD check is pending. Slack ranks lower here on value, not on capability.

Mumble is the free, open source answer for groups that only need voice and are comfortable running a server. The project describes it as low latency, high quality voice chat, with encryption always on and public and private key authentication by default. Gamers get an in-game overlay that shows who is talking and positional audio that places voices where players stand in the game. Administrators get an extensive access control system, Ice protocol APIs for scripts and bots, web interfaces and authenticators that tie logins to an existing user database. The project says EVE Online groups run more than 100 simultaneous speakers on it. The weak points are polish and mobile: setup is manual, the interface looks dated next to Discord, Android use relies on third-party apps, and the official iOS app has not been updated since 2017. It is a voice tool, not a full community hub.

Rocket.Chat is a self-hosted chat platform for organizations that must keep messages on their own infrastructure. Two free editions cover small groups: Starter allows up to 50 users and includes LDAP, SAML and custom OAuth sign-in with unlimited push notifications, while Community allows up to 100 concurrent users with core messaging and up to 10,000 push notifications a month. Video calls run through Jitsi or BigBlueButton on both, and Starter adds Pexip, Google Meet and Zoom. The paid Commercial, Government and Defense plans add on-premises, sovereign cloud and air-gapped deployment, with optional Rocket.Chat AI and VoIP add-ons, priced through sales. For a hobby community it is more than you need: someone has to run and update the server, the free editions only come with community support, and there is nothing like Discord's server discovery. It belongs on the list for clubs, schools and companies that want Discord-style chat under IT control.