this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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[–] L_Acacia@lemmy.ml 41 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (4 children)

I like xmpp, but it is not a discord alternative. It is a WhatsApp / Signal / iMessage alternative.

It doesn't have 80% of discord features, I use discord a lot and I don't have a single group chat.

Matrix / Element is a way better alternative feature wise.

[–] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 12 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

The ever continuing trend of foss enthusiasts having less then no fuckinf clue the FUCK normal people use computers for.

Xmpp is great but you are 100% right. It's not a discord replacement. It never will be. It is court replacement and it is not trying to be a discord replacement. People need to stop trying to force it to be one. The same thing goes with matrix though to a lesser extent.

Matrix at least is trying to be a team's replacement, which is a legitimate alternative to what discord does for the average user.

Matrix has a whole host of other problems that will make and never be a viable alternative. But none of them are technical in nature. It's mostly just the fragmentation will nature of it. And how confusing it is to navigate.

At the moment the only two legitimate replacement options are stoat and fluxer. Stoat is a dead end and unluckly to go anywhere. While fluxer is only like 2 weeks into its open beta just released its code base to the public after a long-ass time of closed development. And barely has enough funding even with their Kickstarter thing. Fluxer has passed 100,000 user Mark already and growing.

It's also the only thing that's actually trying to be an app for your average user. It's actually targeting the same demographic discord was.

Which matters a lot. Matrix xmpp all these other things aren't targeting the same demographic. They are not trying to be a replacement. I mean, I'm sure they're happy to scoop up some new users and help expand their reach a little bit who doesn't want to see their project grow after all.

But all these people trying to push matrix xmpp and what not is like going to a construction site telling a worker. Hey, your pickup truck is old and s***** you should stop using it and go use this nice moped while they look at you. Like you're a f****** retard as they have to lug around a ton and a half of materials and tools everyday in the moped. Why perfectly good means of conveyance will do the job better than the pickup truck as the purpose of a vehicle cannot fully fulfill the same role that the pickup truck fills.

This was voice dictated if the grammar is f***** up. Sorry my brain don't work too good sometimes

[–] dreugeworst@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 hours ago

which features are missing from xmpp that are necessary for most gamer groups? is it the protocol that is missing the support, or specific implementations? genuinely asking since I'd been considering setting up an xmpp server for my gaming groups

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

The main complaints about Matrix I've heard though are about behind the scenes stuff rather than features, which the video touches on:

But there are some reasons why I think XMPP is superior. In Matrix, when you join a room, your server downloads and stores the entire history of that room. If someone on a federated server posts illegal content in a room you're in, your server is now hosting it, and you are liable. Whereas in XMPP, messages are relayed in real time. Group chat, MU history stays on your server hosting that room. So your server only stores messages for your users which means that no content caching there is no content caching from other servers. This is a fundamental architectural difference which makes the XMPP protocol better in my opinion.

Personally I don't know that much about it but I briefly looked into what it would take to write a client for Matrix a few years ago and it seemed pretty daunting to work with. Maybe it would be possible to write software that implements more Discord features on top of XMPP to have something that works more smoothly.

[–] seang96@spgrn.com 5 points 13 hours ago

Funny enough there is a layer for discord like stuff adding into https://movim.eu/ which relies on the backed of an XMPP server.

[–] mybuttnolie@sopuli.xyz 8 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

i quite liked element as a replacement for whatsapp and discord when i got a few people to switch. just had too much stability issues at the time and they went back. will never get them to switch again...even with ads and age verification crap going on.

[–] Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Element is still as buggy as ever, unfortunately…

The only realistic alternative I've found so far is Fluxer, and that one is still in Beta. Very promising though.

[–] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 hours ago

It broke 100,000 users and growing. The $300,000 the dev raised with his backer Kickstarter thing really is going to get stretched thin really quick with how fast it's growing.

He's already had to roll out more servers a few times to my understandings too. Well, self-hosting is currently a thing. It's still under active development in that really needs to finish up quick to help offload some of the load.

Honestly, once the mobile app is finished and the self-hosting is more stable, it's basically going to be like the old days of TeamSpeak 3 s when everyone actually liked it.

But with all the modern conveniences and benefits of discord.

It is the only thing currently going around. That's actually trying to be a replacement for discord. Keyword replacement not alternative.

Like xmpp is an alternative, not a replacement.