Departures. The one you are leaving. Checked 2026-11-03.
DISCORD
The incumbent. Ad-supported via rewarded Quests and Orbs since 2025, with global age groups rolled out in September 2026 ahead of a planned IPO.
- Open source
- No
- Hosting
- Cloud only
- Encryption
- TLS + E2EE voice
- Voice
- Yes
- Threads
- Yes
- Phone apps
- iPhone, Android
- Members pay
- Nothing
- Status
- Stable
Before you move a community here
The row everything else is measured against. Discord runs sponsored Quests, Orbs and, since Sep 2026, rewarded Video Quests plus a self-serve Ads Manager. Since Sep 22 2026 every account is sorted into Adult, Teen or Unconfirmed from account signals, with the rest confirming via credit card, app-store age range, on-device selfie or ID scan. Voice and video calls are end-to-end encrypted; text is not. Users can request a Data Package of their own messages, but there is no server-level export for admins without bots. It does everything; the argument for leaving is who holds your community.
Everything we checked
Where your members can run it
- ✓Windows
- ✓macOS
- ✓Linux
- ✓iPhone
- ✓Android
- ✓In a browser
What it does
- ✓Text channels
- ✓Voice channels
- ✓Video calls
- ✓Screen share
- ✓Threads
- ✓Roles and permissions
- ✓Bots or an API
- ✓Custom emoji
- ✓One account, many communities
- ✓Export your data
Who holds the data
- ✗Open source
- ✓Official cloud service
- ✗You can host it yourself
- Encryption: TLS in transit; voice and video calls are end-to-end encrypted, text is not.
- ✗No ads
- Architecture: centralized
Who makes it
- Statusstable
- Founded2015
- TeamDiscord Inc., San Francisco; VC-backed, 90M+ daily users (Q2 2026); confidentially filed for a US IPO in Jan 2026
- Newest release we found2026-09
- Incidents on recordOct 2025: a breach at a third-party support vendor exposed about 70,000 users' government-ID photos submitted for age appeals. Feb 2026: the global age-verification plan triggered mass backlash; Discord apologised and delayed it. Sep 22 2026: global 'age groups' rolled out.
Cost
- Members payNothing
- PricingFree; Nitro Basic $2.99/mo and Nitro $9.99/mo; server Boosts sold separately
Moving your server over
- ✗Imports a Discord server
- ?Bridges with Discord while you run both
Side by side
Sources
- https://discord.com/nitro
- https://discord.com/blog/safer-for-teens-same-discord-for-adults
- https://discord.com/press-releases/discord-opens-advertising-to-brands-of-all-sizes-with-ads-manager-and-video-quests
- https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004957991
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/24/discord-delays-global-rollout-of-age-verification-after-backlash/
- https://www.securityweek.com/discord-says-70000-users-had-ids-exposed-in-recent-data-breach/
- https://discord.com/blog/meet-dave-e2ee-for-audio-video
I build Probed, one of the destinations here. It gets the same facts as the rest.