The 17 best Discord alternatives in 2026, by what you use Discord for
Discord started sorting every account into an age group the week of September 22, 2026. Most people won't notice: Discord says more than 90 percent of users won't be asked to confirm anything, because it estimates age from account signals like account history and activity. Accounts it can't place as adults can still message friends and join voice calls, but they have to confirm their age before reaching age-restricted servers, channels, or settings, using a credit card check, an app store age range, an on-device face estimate, or an ID scan with a selfie (ID Tech). It's the plan Discord announced in February, weeks after a vendor breach exposed roughly 70,000 government ID images from its earlier age checks, and then delayed after the backlash (Newsweek, EFF, TechCrunch).
If that's why you're here, you have good options, and the right one depends on what you actually use Discord for. The short version: for a Discord-style server with text and voice, Stoat, the open-source app formerly called Revolt, is the closest swap; for gaming voice alone, TeamSpeak and Mumble; for private group chat, Signal and Element; for work, Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Google Chat; and for a public or branded community Google can index, Discourse, Circle, or Bettermode.
We checked every Discord alternative below live on October 19, 2026, with prices from each vendor's own pricing page. Two staples of older lists, ours included, have changed: Guilded shut down at the end of 2025, and Revolt now goes by Stoat.
First, decide what you're replacing Discord for
Most "Discord alternatives" lists rank gaming voice apps, Slack replacements, and community platforms against each other in one flat list, which is why they read so generic. People searching for a way off Discord usually want one of four things:
- A place to hang out and talk: servers, voice rooms, and friends, which is the job Discord was built for.
- Private chat: encrypted group messaging from a company whose business doesn't depend on your data.
- Work chat: a server that quietly became the company's internal tool and needs admin controls.
- A community you run: a public or branded home for customers, fans, or members that search engines can find and that you can take with you.
Pick the job first, then compare within it.
All 17 Discord alternatives compared
1. Hangouts, gaming, and voice: the closest Discord alternatives
If you use Discord to hang out with friends or run a gaming group, these are the closest swaps. Some copy Discord's server-and-channel layout; others predate it and still beat it on voice.
Stoat (formerly Revolt)
Stoat is the closest like-for-like Discord alternative: servers, text channels, roles, and voice, in an app that's free and open source. It was called Revolt until a trademark dispute led to a rename in October 2025, so you'll still see the old name in older lists and forum threads. Signups are open, there are apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and the web, and you can self-host it if you'd rather run your own server. Stoat says it passed 1 million registered users in March 2026.
It's younger and much smaller than Discord, and it had growing pains when people poured in after February's announcement. Bots, integrations, and polish are still catching up, so test it with your group before you move everyone.
Price: Free and open source.
TeamSpeak
TeamSpeak predates Discord and is still a favorite of competitive gaming groups and tournament organizers who need voice that doesn't lag. Audio is the whole point: very low latency, solid encryption, noise suppression, and fine-grained permissions over who can speak where. TeamSpeak 6, still in beta in October 2026, adds the things Discord users would miss: community discovery, group chats, end-to-end encrypted text chat, and 4K screen sharing.
The catch is that it's a voice tool first. If your server lives on memes, threads, and bots, the move will feel like a step back.
Price: Official hosted servers start at $4.99/month for 11 slots, and $8.99/month gets 27. A self-hosted TeamSpeak 3 license for non-commercial use is $55/year for 64 slots.
Mumble
Mumble is the free, open-source answer to TeamSpeak: low-latency, high-quality voice that holds up with hundreds of people in one server, and nobody's business model behind it. It's still actively maintained, with a new release out on October 11, 2026.
You'll trade polish for that. Setup takes more fiddling than Discord, the apps look their age, and there's no community layer on top of the voice.
Price: Free and open source.
Steam Chat
If your group already lives in Steam, its built-in chat removes the need for another app: a friends list sorted by what people are playing, group chats, and voice channels that route through Valve's servers.
It's useless outside Steam, though, and there's no way to grow it into a public or branded community.
Price: Free with a Steam account.
2. Private group chat
If trust is what pushed you off Discord, these apps make the opposite trade: less flash, more control over your own data.
Signal
Signal is the reference point for private messaging. It's run by a non-profit, end-to-end encryption is on for everything by default, and there's no ad business to pull its incentives the wrong way. Group chats, voice and video calls, and disappearing messages all work on phones and desktop.
What it doesn't have is community features. There are no public servers, channels, or roles, so it suits a friend group or a small team, not a 5,000-member community.
Price: Free.
Element (Matrix)
Element is the best-known app for Matrix, an open protocol for encrypted, federated chat. It's the closest thing to a Discord-style server you can host yourself: rooms and spaces, end-to-end encryption, voice and video, and federation so people on different servers can talk to each other. That data control is the reason to pick it.
The learning curve is steeper than Discord's for non-technical members, and you'll want someone comfortable running a server if you self-host.
Price: The Community edition is free to self-host for up to 100 users in non-professional use. Enterprise is priced per seat through sales.
Telegram
Telegram trades some of Signal's privacy rigor for scale. Groups hold up to 200,000 members, and file uploads go up to 2 GB free or 4 GB with Premium. Public channels are easy to find and share, which makes it popular for large announcement-style communities.
Regular chats aren't end-to-end encrypted by default (only its opt-in secret chats are), and moderation tooling for big groups is thinner than a purpose-built community platform.
Price: Free. Telegram Premium is a monthly subscription whose price varies by country and app store.
3. Team and work chat
If a Discord server quietly became your company's internal chat tool, these were built for that job, and they're the ones IT will actually approve.
Slack
Slack is still the default for business chat and where most companies land when they outgrow running on Discord (we compared the two in detail in Slack vs. Discord). Channels, threads, huddles for quick voice and video, searchable history, and a deep integration catalog. Nearly every new hire already knows it.
Per-seat costs climb fast at scale, the free plan hides older history, and it isn't built for public, searchable community content.
Price: Free with 90 days of message history. Pro is $7.25/user/month billed annually ($8.75 monthly), Business+ is $15 ($18 monthly), and Enterprise+ is custom.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is the natural pick for any company already on Microsoft 365: chat, meetings, and calls wired into Word, Excel, SharePoint, and Microsoft's identity and compliance controls. The free tier is more usable than its reputation.
It feels heavy for a small group's day-to-day messaging, and it's built for internal communication, not a public community.
Price: Free for up to 100 people, with 60-minute group calls and 5 GB of storage. Teams Essentials is $4/user/month and Microsoft 365 Business Basic starts at $7/user/month, both paid yearly. Teams Premium adds AI meeting recaps for $10/user/month.
Google Chat
Google Chat comes with Google Workspace, so for teams already living in Gmail and Drive it's the lowest-friction way off Discord. Spaces handle topic-based group chat, files come straight from Drive, and any thread can jump into a Meet call.
As a standalone pick it's thinner than Slack on integrations, and like everything in this group it's for internal teams, not public communities.
Price: Included with Google Workspace and free personal Google accounts.
Zulip
Zulip is open-source team chat organized by topic: every message lives in a named thread inside a channel, which keeps a busy conversation readable in a way Discord and Slack channels rarely are. The software is open source, and you can use Zulip's cloud or host it yourself.
The topic model takes a week or so to click, and it's a work tool first, not a place to hang out.
Price: Zulip Cloud has a free tier. Standard is $6.67/user/month billed annually or $8 monthly.
Rocket.Chat
Rocket.Chat is the open-source, self-hostable answer to Slack, popular with security-conscious and regulated teams. You get end-to-end encryption options, voice and video, and full control of the data on your own servers.
Self-managed hosting needs technical upkeep, and the interface still trails Slack and Teams on polish.
Price: The Starter plan is free for up to 50 users on your own server, and the open-source Community edition is free too. Paid plans (Commercial, Government, and Defense) are quoted by sales.
Chanty
Chanty is a lightweight Slack alternative for small teams that want chat, calls, and basic task management in one place, since any message can become a task.
It's affordable and quick to learn, but it thins out past a small team and isn't built for customer-facing communities.
Price: Free for up to 5 members. Business is $3/user/month billed annually or $4 monthly (US pricing; Chanty adjusts prices by country).
4. Communities you run in public
If you run a community for customers, fans, or members, Discord has a problem that has nothing to do with age checks: everything your members write lives inside Discord. None of it is indexed by Google, so a great answer never brings in a new member, and none of it comes with you if you leave. There's also no way to remove Discord's branding or connect a server to your CRM. These options fix that to different degrees.
Reddit isn't a Discord clone, but for public discussion at scale it's a real alternative: a subreddit takes minutes to set up and comes with discoverability Discord servers never get, including in Google. (Weighing the reverse move? We compared the Reddit alternatives too.)
You don't own the platform, the rules, or the relationship with your members, and there's no branding or way to embed it in your product.
Price: Free.
Discourse
Discourse is the open-source forum software behind thousands of public communities. Threads are search-friendly, a trust-level system spreads moderation across longtime members, and the plugin catalog is huge. You can self-host it for free or pay for managed hosting, and if you're still choosing between a forum and chat, our guide to community forums lays out the trade.
Self-hosting means someone technical keeps it running, the hosted plans climb as traffic grows, and connecting it to business tools takes work. If Discourse is already on your shortlist, see our Discourse alternatives.
Price: A free hosted plan covers 500,000 monthly page views and 2 staff members. Pro is $100/month, Business is $500/month, and Enterprise is custom. Self-hosting is free.
Circle
Circle is built for creators, coaches, and paid memberships: discussion spaces, courses, live events, paywalls, and a mobile app in one product. It's fast to launch and strong when the community is the thing you sell.
Add-ons and transaction fees push the real cost above the sticker price, and B2B integration depth is limited compared with a platform built for customer communities.
Price: Professional is $89/month billed annually ($99 monthly), Business is $199/month annually ($219 monthly), and Scale is $419/month annually. Circle Plus, with a branded app, is custom. Paid memberships carry a 0.5 to 2 percent transaction fee depending on the plan. No free plan; 14-day trial.
Bettermode
Bettermode is our product, so weigh this one accordingly. It's a community platform for companies running a customer or product community on their own domain: discussions, Q&A, ideas, events, and a knowledge base, all indexed by Google, with your branding and native HubSpot, Salesforce, Zendesk, and Intercom integrations. Teams usually arrive after a Discord server or a self-hosted forum stopped scaling.
It's built for businesses, not gaming groups, and there's no white-label mobile app yet.
Price: Starter is $149/month billed annually or $199 month to month, for up to 10,000 members. Growth is $1,500/month billed annually. Premium is custom. There's a 14-day free trial, no credit card needed.
Bettermode now includes Toggy, three AI agents that set up the community, keep conversations moving and review every post. Toggy Moderate checks each post and comment against your own rules, reading the thread around it, and explains every call, so a small team can keep up with a busy community. Watch it review your real posts in simulation mode →
How to choose
Start from why you're leaving. If it's the age checks or trust in general, Signal and Element are the strongest privacy picks, and Stoat keeps the server-and-voice feel if that's what your group will miss. For gaming voice, TeamSpeak and Mumble still beat Discord on latency. For a team that ended up on Discord by accident, Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Google Chat will feel like a relief.
For a community you run for customers or members, the bigger question is ownership: can Google find what your members write, and can you take it with you? That's where Discourse, Circle, and Bettermode earn their price. Whatever you pick, plan the move before you announce it. Discord doesn't make it easy to export what a community has built, so decide what history to bring, tell members early, and give the new home a reason to visit in week one (our guide to how to grow a successful online community covers what comes next). Ready to see a customer community built for your business rather than for gaming? Book a demo with Bettermode.
FAQ
What is the best Discord alternative in 2026?
Match it to the job: Stoat (formerly Revolt) for a Discord-style server with text and voice, TeamSpeak or Mumble for gaming voice, Signal or Element for private group chat, Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Google Chat for work, and Bettermode, Discourse, or Circle for a branded or public community that Google can index.
Why are people leaving Discord in 2026?
Mostly age verification. Discord announced in February 2026 that accounts would need age checks, weeks after a vendor breach exposed roughly 70,000 government ID images, then delayed the plan after the backlash. The global rollout began the week of September 22, 2026. Longer-running complaints add to it: nothing posted on Discord is searchable on Google, and communities can't easily export what they've built.
Do I have to verify my age on Discord?
Probably not. Discord says more than 90 percent of users won't be asked, because it places accounts into adult, teen, or unconfirmed groups from account signals. If your account isn't confirmed as adult, you can still message friends and join voice calls, but you'll be asked to confirm your age before opening age-restricted servers, channels, or settings. Options include a credit card check, an app store age range, an on-device face estimate, or an ID scan with a selfie, depending on your region and device.
Who is Discord's biggest rival?
For servers, text, and voice, Stoat is the closest like-for-like rival: open source, free, and past 1 million registered users by its own count in March 2026. TeamSpeak is the long-time rival for gaming voice and is adding community features in TeamSpeak 6. For work chat it's Slack, and for public discussion it's Reddit.
What are the best free Discord alternatives?
Stoat, Mumble, Signal, Steam Chat, and Reddit are free with no paid plan needed, and Element is free to self-host. Telegram, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zulip, Chanty, and Discourse all have free tiers, and Google Chat is free with a personal Google account. Guilded, a free favorite on older lists, shut down at the end of 2025.
Is BetterDiscord still a thing?
Yes. BetterDiscord is still maintained (version 1.14.3 shipped on October 13, 2026), but it isn't an alternative to Discord. It's a modified Discord client that adds themes and plugins, it still runs on your Discord account, and Discord's terms don't allow client modifications, so it won't help you leave and it carries some risk to your account.
What's the best Discord alternative for a business or customer community?
Bettermode is built for that job: a branded community on your own domain, content Google can index, and native HubSpot, Salesforce, Zendesk, and Intercom integrations, none of which Discord offers. Discourse suits a public, open-source forum, and Circle suits paid creator communities.
How much does Discord Nitro cost?
Discord itself is free. In the US, Nitro is $9.99/month and Nitro Basic is $2.99/month; Discord says prices vary by country, so check in the app.
TL;DR
- Discord's global age checks went live the week of September 22, 2026. Most accounts are sorted automatically; the rest must confirm their age before opening restricted servers and settings.
- "Discord alternatives" hides four different jobs: hanging out and voice, private chat, work chat, and communities you run. Pick the job first.
- Hangouts and voice: Stoat (formerly Revolt) is the closest Discord-style swap; TeamSpeak and Mumble win on voice; Steam Chat if your group already lives in Steam. Guilded shut down at the end of 2025.
- Private chat: Signal (encrypted by default), Element (self-hosted Matrix), Telegram (huge groups, weaker default privacy).
- Work: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Chat, Zulip (threaded), Rocket.Chat (self-hosted), Chanty (small teams).
- Communities you run: Reddit for reach, Discourse for open-source forums, Circle for paid memberships, Bettermode for branded customer communities Google can index.
- Every alternative and price here was checked live on October 19, 2026.
