Discord alternatives for businesses
A community for your customers has different rules from a gaming server. Your customers shouldn't have to pay to talk to you, shouldn't see someone else's ads, and shouldn't need to install anything unusual. You probably don't want to run servers either.
So the board below keeps only apps that are free for members, show no ads, are hosted for you, and have an iPhone app.
| Destination | Open source | Hosting | Encryption | Voice | Video | Threads | Members pay | Runs on | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DISCORDleaving | No | Cloud only | TLS + E2EE voice | Yes | Yes | Yes | Free | PCMACLINUXIPHONEANDROIDWEB | STABLE |
| ELEMENT | Yes | Cloud or self-hostFederated | TLS + E2EE private rooms | Yes | Yes | Yes | Free | PCMACLINUXIPHONEANDROIDWEB | STABLE |
| PROBEDmine | No | Cloud only | TLS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Free | PCMACLINUXIPHONEANDROIDWEB | STABLE |
I build Probed, one of the destinations here. It is on the board with the same facts as the rest, including the ones that count against it. If anything here is wrong, say so on r/LeavingDiscord and it gets fixed.
Why not just use Discord?
Discord shows sponsored Quests and rewards to your members, sorts accounts into age groups, and owns the space your customers gather in. For a business, that's your customers' attention on someone else's terms.
What to check before you pick
Whether members can join without learning a new kind of account. Matrix apps like Element ask people to pick a server and verify devices, which some customers find confusing.
Whether you can turn customer requests into something you act on. Probed has an ideas board where members vote on what you build next; elsewhere you'll need a separate tool.
Whether you can leave. Element is open source and can move to your own server later. Probed is closed and hosted only.
More ways to narrow it down
- Open source Discord alternatives
- Self-hosted Discord alternatives
- Encrypted Discord alternatives
- Discord's age checks, and where people are going
- How to move a Discord server
Something wrong? Tell r/LeavingDiscord.