Whole site is full of LLM-isms (em-dashes, stilted 'X. Y. Z. <Summary>.' constructions).
It's so boring. It says "We put one prompt worth of effort into our landing page". Just like all the others.
"No ads · No tracking · No ID verification · Free forever" - why would anyone believe this for a closed source application that, presumably, you want to monetize? Servers and developers aren't free, unless it's open source and/or self hosted.
While it's great to have alternatives, I suspect a lot us are really only interested in forkable open alternatives (like Matrix / Element), as most concerns about Discord are tied with it being a private company.
As far as I can tell, Echoed is also closed the same way Discord is?
Damn this is gorgeous. That said, how can one try something if no one is there? I can sway my team to move it, but not my audience. Discord still owns the market as a medium to reach an audience.
I'm always surprised to hear people hate Discord's UI. I think it's fine.
The only thing I was probably change is adding the ability to bookmark specific channels so I can switch to them in a single click no matter what channel I'm currently looking at.
It's fine as a kind of replacement for forums, but I don't like it at all for chat and community. I find Discord admins always tend to create 5 trillion channels which each get about one message per week. And then whine when you haven't sorted your messages in to the most relevant channels.
The vast majority of chats would be be better off in a standard group chat UI with no channels.
Yeah; I get the impression that people saying this really mean "I hate the stupid upsells." Which is fine, I do too. But I guess on HN there's more clout to claiming it's the UI that's the problem?
I stand to gain nothing and I don't even think it's popular sentiment.
For a new user it's completely alien. Trying to get a coworker to try discord for the first time is a nightmare.
It tries to solve so much in such a condensed bar on the side. Why are DM listed "as" a server. I hate the notification system for transient server joins. I have no opinion of the channel system. Why can't you read discord threads of a public discord without joining the server and accepting the posting rules? They're trying to emulate forums but it's a huge PITA to just read (in a RO state, even).
Idk lots of complaints, network effect is a bitch.
Totally, I suspect a lot of people who preach discord here use it for fun and hobby, like some book club or small community.
Try using it at scale, for channeling communities, engaging with users, bots, marketing, and for work with streaming, video, rooms, voice rooms, moderation, etc.
There is an entire universe, even large businesses, built just around navigating Discord for good and for worse.
Well, I do hate the stupid upsells, but the entire Discord UI just feels... off. I can't really place a finger on it, but I just don't like it. (Maybe there is a bit of a UX nag causing these feelings as well? I'm not sure.)
Because it reduces the switching cost because users don't have to learn a new interface. Discord has shown that its UI is at least capable of being used by hundreds of millions of users so it is not a bad starting point.
That's exactly it. A lot of users are likely emotionally attached and trapped to their Nitro garbage and feel like they "invested" far into the cult by now. Giving them a way out is important if you want to acquire that market.
Man, the Nitro stuff is garbage, but it's bizarre that you're equating the ENTIRE UI to that. It's really not that obtrusive. I don't like it either but it's like 0.5% of the UI
Fair point, opinions are not truth. That said there are lots of mods out there for it with substantial (many millions) of users where their entire reason for existing is taking control of the UI.
What happens to building protocols? I am totally against being a slave to PaaS.
I have a lot of chatting applications that all demonstrated that to me. The most common way was having another party indicate the app as a communication option
Please please please someone take over discord and their use base. Their nitro and ads is the most toxic nonsense stuff I have ever had the displeasure to work with.
I am in a niche market with both new gen workers and customers and discord is a really important medium to engage and connect with them. My soul dies every time I am there dealing with all sorts of psychological traps and baits to more spending coupled with the incessant advertising.
I don't even care anymore who wins that market, just get me out of it.
There is so little advertising on discord that I find it hilarious you are so upset about a few notifications here and there about nitro and other aesthetic perks which are basically entirely optional
There are 3rd party ads in Discord now, and they are probably going to expand as an ad platform. I think this is what the parent comment was upset about.
That too, I have to be on Nitro because of work. (Managing communities, streaming resolution, etc), and the level of ads triple after being a customer. Even worse if you need to blend in like adopting some of the customization since the cult goes deep.
To be fair, I put myself there and I voluntarily work with those audiences. I am aware I don't belong to the same level they do, and I'm ok with that. I just wish I could customize it my way too. In my view, if this was a protocol rather than a PaaS locked-in system, like IRC for example, we all would be winning.
A few notifications here and there? I'm not sure I can agree with you. It's a daily persistent thing that there is no way to disable and the constant dark patterns.
I believe I am not alone with things like https://betterdiscord.app/ having more than 56M downloads (and that being just one of the custom mods)
> Please please please someone take over discord and their use base
This is one area where I can not muster the optimism to think that would improve the situation. You need someone else to somehow unseat them somehow.. they’re entrenched in this space so deeply though.
Is this P2P, or hosted on proprietary servers? How is it funded? I don't like ads and I like free things, but "no ads, free forever" doesn't make me confident in its long term stability.
Why do companies like this continue to promise "No Ads Ever"? How do they plan enough money to support their service? Video sharing is incredibly expensive, even Discord is unlikely profitable between their advertising campaigns and server boosting revenue.
It's not self-hosted, they are going to have to make money at some point to support the effort.
We have been online for more than 1.5 years. Back when we started, we didn't see Discord alternatives popping up left and right, so we created our own. Nowadays, there are like 10 of them popping up every single day, most of those are below par and completely usable. If you like to try out a new one you can give us a try no stress haha bye
Cool. I would like to try it, but it will probably take a considerable amount of time to convince my circle of friends to migrate to this platform en masse.
Is there a catalog of public, Echoed-based groups / communities that anyone can freely join? I'd like to explore the platform's full range of features before trying to persuade others to make the switch.
If it’s not open source and self-hostable, it’s a non-starter. Not switching to another closed platform just for it to die. I’m tired of switching. Whatever I switch to next must be able to last the rest of my life expectancy.
I'm just ready for something new, personally. I don't really like Discord's vibe of paying for avatar skins? Gross. And paying for custom emojis? Super gross. Yuck.
Whole site is full of LLM-isms (em-dashes, stilted 'X. Y. Z. <Summary>.' constructions).
It's so boring. It says "We put one prompt worth of effort into our landing page". Just like all the others.
"No ads · No tracking · No ID verification · Free forever" - why would anyone believe this for a closed source application that, presumably, you want to monetize? Servers and developers aren't free, unless it's open source and/or self hosted.
As far as I can tell, Echoed is also closed the same way Discord is?
0. https://github.com/chattocorp/chatto
The only thing I was probably change is adding the ability to bookmark specific channels so I can switch to them in a single click no matter what channel I'm currently looking at.
The vast majority of chats would be be better off in a standard group chat UI with no channels.
I stand to gain nothing and I don't even think it's popular sentiment.
For a new user it's completely alien. Trying to get a coworker to try discord for the first time is a nightmare.
It tries to solve so much in such a condensed bar on the side. Why are DM listed "as" a server. I hate the notification system for transient server joins. I have no opinion of the channel system. Why can't you read discord threads of a public discord without joining the server and accepting the posting rules? They're trying to emulate forums but it's a huge PITA to just read (in a RO state, even).
Idk lots of complaints, network effect is a bitch.
Try using it at scale, for channeling communities, engaging with users, bots, marketing, and for work with streaming, video, rooms, voice rooms, moderation, etc.
There is an entire universe, even large businesses, built just around navigating Discord for good and for worse.
Turn it into a protocol.
What happens to building protocols? I am totally against being a slave to PaaS.
The iOS storefront is also far behind your website in quality and attention to detail.
Edit: please accept this in the spirit of some quick feedback from one maker to another
I am in a niche market with both new gen workers and customers and discord is a really important medium to engage and connect with them. My soul dies every time I am there dealing with all sorts of psychological traps and baits to more spending coupled with the incessant advertising.
I don't even care anymore who wins that market, just get me out of it.
edit: grammar
To be fair, I put myself there and I voluntarily work with those audiences. I am aware I don't belong to the same level they do, and I'm ok with that. I just wish I could customize it my way too. In my view, if this was a protocol rather than a PaaS locked-in system, like IRC for example, we all would be winning.
I believe I am not alone with things like https://betterdiscord.app/ having more than 56M downloads (and that being just one of the custom mods)
This is all pre-IPO, it's sure to get worse; hopefully one of the Discord alternatives will have caught on by then.
The big line they've crossed is collecting identification; much thanks to HN for linking to the bypass that worked for a day.
This is one area where I can not muster the optimism to think that would improve the situation. You need someone else to somehow unseat them somehow.. they’re entrenched in this space so deeply though.
Big question is how else would they make money? Monetise hosting "servers" directly? Would they have even gotten community if they did that?
It's not self-hosted, they are going to have to make money at some point to support the effort.
Is there a catalog of public, Echoed-based groups / communities that anyone can freely join? I'd like to explore the platform's full range of features before trying to persuade others to make the switch.
Not interested
I say this as someone building a discord clone (https://flotilla.social)
2025 to 2026 full of slop signals, LLC reg number from April 2026 to the same address in multiple reports as ultra scammy:
https://malwaretips.com/blogs/30-n-gould-st-sheridan-wy-scam...
https://www.thesheridanpress.com/news/local/another-scam-rec...
https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/scammers-use-reg...
Lot of other red flags for me but those are even more vibe-based than everything about this.