the least worst alternative at the moment
posted: 2026-02-16 & updated: 2026-02-22

the incoming discord ipo and further big brotherification of the app finally got me to fully ditch it
i was writing out a whole thing about alternatives but this person kinda said almost all my thoughts already
basically, element/matrix isn’t great & isn’t being improved at a reasonable rate, but it’s the best we have right now

some additional thoughts about matrix:

• there is a really good guide/explanation/comparison to discord here
• if you use the default homeserver, that server will get (and keep) a lot of metadata as you use matrix
• element does not yet have working screensharing with sound on linux but it is being worked on (slowly)
• sometimes (fairly rarely) when switching devices, messages will show as unencryptable
• i didn’t personally struggle to move people i wanted to talk to over for the most part
• joining a call seems to turn on your camera by default unless i did something weird - i don’t love that
• the max archive size for a chat/room log is 2gb on the element app which is fine for text but easy to hit with images
• consider using [continuwuity] if you want to self host a server and it fits your usecase
  • if you self host be aware that the content of any room any of your users connects to will be copied to your server
    • this is a huge liability risk that you should fully understand before self hosting for anyone beyond yourself
    • unless you disable federation
      • (but then the accounts on your server will only be able to interact with rooms and users on your server)
    • consider using an implementation which auto deletes history from other servers at a short & regular interval
       

other thoughts:

• i am less optimistic about stoat than the author i linked to
  • it’s a project i have been following for ~a couple years
    • i hope it gets there, but it isn’t nearly there yet
  • their communication and decisions strike me as naive and inexperienced
  • the website appears possibly vibecoded which i don’t love
    • (unless the founder’s name is ‘insert’)
  • on the upside, tied with fluxer for having a ui that will be familiar to discord users
    • has a history of development, unlike fluxer
    • similar features currently (as well as similar planned features)

/tech/the-tools-i-use-and-why/