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You were the chosen one!

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It was said that you would unite gamers all under one platform, not divide them, bring

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all services together under this one roof. Give me your face ID!

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Please! Wait, what am I saying?

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There was a world before Discord, and with Discord announcing that it will be demanding

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government photo ID from a significant number of users as a way to verify their age, whether

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that's today or in the future, you can see that by this search trend, people are wanting

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to leave. They just don't know where to go, which is why we are going to be breaking down the

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best Discord features into four different categories and identifying three solutions

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that could be a replacement for you, depending on how you use Discord with some honorable

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mentions along the way. At the end, we will see if any stand out across the board as the best all-in-one replacement,

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because, spoiler alert, you might have to compromise on a feature or two in the name

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of retaining your privacy. But you know what I'll never compromise on are these segues to our sponsor.

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The four categories that we have decided to focus on today were what we deemed were Discord's

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most important offerings for most people.

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That's voice calling, text channels, community, and usability.

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Obviously, there are other important features like forums and screen sharing, customization,

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and hey, maybe even the shop, if that's your bag.

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But these four stripped Discord down to its roots and highlight why it ended up dominating

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the market in the first place. So let's start with probably the most important one on this list, voice calling.

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Whether it's with your close friends or strangers in a community server, our three programs

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that we're going to highlight need to prioritize clear communication first with minimal drops

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or stutters. Steam Chat is a real contender here, featuring high enough bit rate for a casual conversation,

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group voice calls, and even channels for these calls if you want to set up separate chats

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for multiple teams. The biggest complaint among Steam Chat users is that it has a bit of a higher latency than

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Discord, meaning while your calls are basically in real time, there is a bit more of a delay,

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which can be awkward. Like that. For the best audio quality, you guys should check out Mumble.

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It's kind of an OG, and its UI also kind of shows it.

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Like Discord, you can join multiple friend servers if you want to hop between different

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friend groups, and it even features in-game overlays to see who is chatting.

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Unlike Discord, though, Mumble has positional audio, so if you want to hear where your friends

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are in-game, the catch?

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Hopefully one of your friends likes being a server admin, because while there are guides

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to help, the setup process requires you to get your hands dirty.

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Also, there's no text. Only voice. Not even any anemojis.

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Teamspeak can also require users to get their hands dirty, but it is a lot easier than Mumble,

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and is probably the closest looking to Discord out of these three.

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But don't think that means it'll be an easy adjustment as it behaves completely different.

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Being a voice chatting focused software, you have to, for example, be in a voice call in

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order to type text into the chat. Not to mention it's the first on a list where you might need to bust out your credit card.

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If you like being a server admin, you'll probably end up needing to buy a license before

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you can host more than 31 friends. And speaking of friends, we need to talk about one of Discord's biggest advantages.

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And that's community. While Discord is a bit confusing to start out for the first timers, there is no denying

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that having thousands of different servers and communities to easily join and be a part

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of is incredible. Whether it's a Linux community to help you troubleshoot, or even a financial advice group

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to help you plan your retirement, there is probably a Discord server for just about anyone

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these days. As for our alternatives to the community aspect, Teamspeak gets another mention here.

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If you're wanting to game with like-minded individuals and probably go hard on the role-play

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in ARMA, Teamspeak is perfect for that. Sure, it lacks persistent text chats or the forums like Discord has, but if I'm being

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honest, Discord forums suck. They often result in three people answering the same handful of questions because of how

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terrible they are to navigate, but let's get back on track.

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At the moment, Teamspeak appears to have the greatest amount of people dedicated to their

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communities. But other than Teamspeak, that's it.

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In order for an application to have a community-focused side, there needs to be community.

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And while there are multiple applications that could be great community hubs or seem

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to have potential like Stoat, Matrix and Circle, just to name a few, until they see mass adoption

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from users, they will never really have the same community momentum Discord has captured.

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But if you are looking for something that is focusing on text channels and the ability

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to send messages, organize chats and send memes with your small community or friend

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group, those options I just mentioned are incredible for that.

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Matrix is one that can be self-hosted, is open source, features end-to-end encryption

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and allows you to choose from a variety of client-side interfaces because Matrix is actually

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just the back end of this messaging service. To connect to someone's host server, you will need a separate app like Element, Fluffy Chat

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or Cine, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

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But you can mingle with users from anyone since they all run on Matrix.

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Matrix is the one that's recommended most often though and I'm gonna have more on that

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a little bit later. Stoat, formerly known as Revolt, seems to have a lot of potential.

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It is in its very early stages but features community-run servers and of course private

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DMs and group chats which they boast very proudly are secure and confidential.

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There are some people online expressing doubt and concern for Stoat, whether it's because

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of the name change or just the small user base, but I think it's a program that is

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worth trying just to see if it fits your friend group's needs.

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Our final text-focused application is Slack, which, what, uh, corporate software, right?

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But hey, if you're willing to live with some of the trade-offs that come with using the

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free tier, you can have a great organized chat experience with threaded conversations

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as well as many free users as you want. And besides, if you really need more than 90 days' worth of message history or larger

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group calls and more app integrations, their monthly plan is cheaper than what Discord

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Nitro costs, which is kind of funny, right? Because you know that if you tried to convince your Nitro using friends to pay for Slack

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that they would look at you like you're crazy while their profile badge does a little spin

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in the background. Yeah, it's kind of a touchy subject.

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Which I'm gonna go on a small tangent before I get to our final category.

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I think going a paid route is a totally valid option.

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If you or anyone in your friend group really doesn't want to be the server admin worrying

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about self-hosting or maybe even accidentally giving out your IP because of the peer-to-peer

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nature of some of these applications, I think it could be worth paying money to a service

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if everyone in your group can get behind it. What I would encourage, though, is if you and your friends are upset at Discord and the

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whole age verification change, you should cancel any paid services you are using with

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them, whether that's Nitro or server boosts. The only chance that we have at these big companies realizing that what they did doesn't

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really sit well with us, the users, we need to hit them where it hurts, man, in their

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earnings. Back onto our final category, though, I don't even think I would put Discord in the top

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three here. That's ease of use or usability.

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Sure, most of you are probably used to it by now, but when it was first introduced,

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I remember seeing a ton of guides online about how to navigate the interface.

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Heck, today I even get confused when I can't find my DMs before I remember I have to click

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on the little Discord logo in the top left, saying that if you must have the exact same

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interface as Discord because you're used to it, Fluxer, which is about two months old,

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is basically a Discord clone. It's currently in beta but is open source and even allows people to self-host their

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servers on their own hardware, which unlocks more features than the non-self-hosted free

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tier servers. A big downside is no mobile support yet.

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Their website does show a screenshot of what appears to be a mobile app, so fingers crossed

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on that one. Matrix pops up here again, but your experience will vary depending on what client interface

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you're using. For Element, it's pretty straightforward and most people will probably not have too

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much difficulty getting it to work. And there's even Comet, which looks a lot like Discord if you are wanting that again.

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This really does highlight the strengths of something like Matrix, allowing people to

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have different experiences based on preferences, but as someone who is currently going through

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the Linux challenge right now, sometimes having 30 different ways to do something can introduce

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choice paralysis and ends up doing more harm than good, whether it's guides looking different

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because you're using a different client app. The final choice for ease of use is Steam Chat.

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Hey, it's back again, which at first glance is confusing, but when you stop thinking of

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it as a Discord replacement and more of a standard messaging app, it becomes second

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nature. Having tabs for different group chats or individual messages is convenient and fast.

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And when you fully utilize the Steam integration, because you know, it's Steam, being able to

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invite and join people's games with ease is a huge plus.

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With all of that in mind, if we compare all of the applications that we looked at today,

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I personally think that the best all-in-one replacement is probably Steam Chat.

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Great chatting experience, integrated well into gaming with the biggest downside being

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the lack of a massive community outreach or a hub, but all of these apps struggle with

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that because once again, if people aren't on these applications, it makes it really

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difficult to mingle. Now, I am very aware that we probably missed an almost infinite amount of other communication

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apps, so please let us know down below what some of your favorites are, and maybe if there's

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enough, we can compile them all into a part two.

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There is some good news on the Discord side. Discord did cut ties with Persona, which was the controversial service that was going to

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be used for this face ID verification system, as well as delaying the initial rollout date

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for this. So, public pressure does work. Just remember that for when the next time they try something like this.

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Just like I will always try to do a better and better segue to our sponsor.

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If you guys enjoyed this video, go check out the time that we compared other VR headsets

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to the unreleased Steam frame. It was kind of a similar vibe where we looked at the pros and cons of each of the headsets

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on the market and compared them to what the frame has to compete with.