Has anyone here heard of or used the Revolt app? Now known as Stoat.
It was recently renamed to Stoat after a cease and desist letter over the name. Link here
I once tried it a year ago when known as Revolt when browsing for Discord alternatives. It wasn't great then, but it's improved somewhat since then since then. It's technically a centralised platform, albeit people can self-host it themselves if they wanted to. It's fairly well designed and closer to Discord parity than any other alternative I've seen (whilst Discord does have some cool stuff, a lot of its excess is completely slop that can be ignored). I'd personally prefer a federated Discord - but we don't seem to be anywhere close to that soon. "Roomy" for Bluesky is at the very beginning of its development.
I know some people here use Matrix, but it hasn't really taken off for general usage outside of Instance Meta chats - and I personally find it to be quite a cumbersome and sometimes buggy client that really isn't designed like Discord.
It's a bit frustrating that we have a lot of development of Reddit alternatives now via Piefed and Lemmy, but a true Discord alternative a long-way away.
Sanctus - 9hr
I really liked the customizable UI colors. I found everything to be adequate except two things:
You need something like discord roles, if you dont have that to sort people into channels its a non-starter
No video sharing
So none of my friends left discord and I had to go back to using it too.
Edit: I think this was 2 years ago by the way
9
Skavau - 9hr
Oh, it's come a long way in 2 years. It has roles.
Still no video though
8
Sanctus - 9hr
Discord has the roles or tags or whatever, and you can say "only pepple with x role can chat/post/shsre video/post images in this channel". Its the best part of discord. Stoat didn't have it back when I tried it as revolt and it made it useless for me.
6
Skavau - 9hr
Ah, it has all of that now. Just not video.
6
Sanctus - 9hr
Oh for real? Brb I have a crusade to start up again.
6
xpey - 7hr
I'm really rooting for it, it has sooo much potential. Biggest seller for me is how lightweight it is compared to Discord.
In its current stage, it's a difficult switch if you come from Discord. No screenshare is a dealbreaker for me and many.
I have my account, I sometimes use it to talk in big servers, but I've had no luck trying to bring friends in. And without friends there's no much reason to log in daily.
Maybe one day when it gets the good features.
7
kindred @lemmy.dbzer0.com - 9hr
We need bots that connect your Stoat (hate that name) to your Discord account, so you can still message the people who refuse to leave.
That's how Facebook stole users from MySpace back in the day(TM).
7
Skavau - 9hr
Well I don't think Stoat will ever have a realistic chance of usurping Discord, but this is more to people on here who presumably don't use Discord (for the reasons that they don't use Reddit) if they've heard of it.
3
kindred @lemmy.dbzer0.com - 8hr
I don't think Stoat will ever have a realistic chance of usurping Discord
Agreed. My comment is for the many users who would leave but can't because "all my friends are here".
We wouldn't have this problem if Discord and Stoat were federated (I know it's not on their roadmap).
So the next best thing is bridge bots.
3
transscribe7891 @lemmy.dbzer0.com - 7hr
yep i use it. the public servers aren't nearly as active as discord, unless you're in a server with a discord bridge. but i mostly use it for this one small server of close friends anyways.
it's definitely a work in progress, more like a beta than a finished product, but I'm willing to stick with it as it develops.
4
Apollo2323 @lemmy.dbzer0.com - 8hr
I tried using it , but most of my friends didnt stick to it. I been looking for alternatives to discord once the age verification comes.
3
mintiefresh - 6hr
I have used it. Don't really know anyone on it and haven't found any communities to join. I'm rooting for it though.
2
Skavau - 6hr
Well currently community discovery within the app is on ice due to a lack of support team managing it (whoever did it just left) so the only way communities within it will grow meaningfully would be through communities set up that source their userbases externally.
3
flamiera - 4hr
I cheer for it as an alternative, but I personally won't be using it because everything it is advertising as to having, is and has already been done.
What attracts me the most to alternatives, is having that one thing or two things that completely stand out. If its just going to market it self as the 'open source' version of something while more or less having majority of the features of the thing it aspires to separate itself from, then I'm reluctant.
2
Skavau - 4hr
This is not a feature as such, but I'd argue that their Server Discovery tools being technically open to any server (unlike Discord) make it a valuable option for people wanting to make new chat communities as compared to Discord where you're forced to rely on sites like Disboard to attain any server visibility unless you roll in with a large audience sourced from elsewhere.
But yeah, in terms of features - they are playing catchup first beyond they can innovate any little quirks that Discord doesn't and won't have.
Skavau in asklemmy @lemmy.world
Has anyone here heard of or used the Revolt app? Now known as Stoat.
It was recently renamed to Stoat after a cease and desist letter over the name. Link here
I once tried it a year ago when known as Revolt when browsing for Discord alternatives. It wasn't great then, but it's improved somewhat since then since then. It's technically a centralised platform, albeit people can self-host it themselves if they wanted to. It's fairly well designed and closer to Discord parity than any other alternative I've seen (whilst Discord does have some cool stuff, a lot of its excess is completely slop that can be ignored). I'd personally prefer a federated Discord - but we don't seem to be anywhere close to that soon. "Roomy" for Bluesky is at the very beginning of its development.
I know some people here use Matrix, but it hasn't really taken off for general usage outside of Instance Meta chats - and I personally find it to be quite a cumbersome and sometimes buggy client that really isn't designed like Discord.
It's a bit frustrating that we have a lot of development of Reddit alternatives now via Piefed and Lemmy, but a true Discord alternative a long-way away.
I really liked the customizable UI colors. I found everything to be adequate except two things:
So none of my friends left discord and I had to go back to using it too.
Edit: I think this was 2 years ago by the way
Oh, it's come a long way in 2 years. It has roles.
Still no video though
Discord has the roles or tags or whatever, and you can say "only pepple with x role can chat/post/shsre video/post images in this channel". Its the best part of discord. Stoat didn't have it back when I tried it as revolt and it made it useless for me.
Ah, it has all of that now. Just not video.
Oh for real? Brb I have a crusade to start up again.
I'm really rooting for it, it has sooo much potential. Biggest seller for me is how lightweight it is compared to Discord.
In its current stage, it's a difficult switch if you come from Discord. No screenshare is a dealbreaker for me and many.
I have my account, I sometimes use it to talk in big servers, but I've had no luck trying to bring friends in. And without friends there's no much reason to log in daily.
Maybe one day when it gets the good features.
We need bots that connect your Stoat (hate that name) to your Discord account, so you can still message the people who refuse to leave.
That's how Facebook stole users from MySpace back in the day(TM).
Well I don't think Stoat will ever have a realistic chance of usurping Discord, but this is more to people on here who presumably don't use Discord (for the reasons that they don't use Reddit) if they've heard of it.
Agreed. My comment is for the many users who would leave but can't because "all my friends are here".
We wouldn't have this problem if Discord and Stoat were federated (I know it's not on their roadmap).
So the next best thing is bridge bots.
yep i use it. the public servers aren't nearly as active as discord, unless you're in a server with a discord bridge. but i mostly use it for this one small server of close friends anyways.
it's definitely a work in progress, more like a beta than a finished product, but I'm willing to stick with it as it develops.
I tried using it , but most of my friends didnt stick to it. I been looking for alternatives to discord once the age verification comes.
I have used it. Don't really know anyone on it and haven't found any communities to join. I'm rooting for it though.
Well currently community discovery within the app is on ice due to a lack of support team managing it (whoever did it just left) so the only way communities within it will grow meaningfully would be through communities set up that source their userbases externally.
I cheer for it as an alternative, but I personally won't be using it because everything it is advertising as to having, is and has already been done.
What attracts me the most to alternatives, is having that one thing or two things that completely stand out. If its just going to market it self as the 'open source' version of something while more or less having majority of the features of the thing it aspires to separate itself from, then I'm reluctant.
This is not a feature as such, but I'd argue that their Server Discovery tools being technically open to any server (unlike Discord) make it a valuable option for people wanting to make new chat communities as compared to Discord where you're forced to rely on sites like Disboard to attain any server visibility unless you roll in with a large audience sourced from elsewhere.
But yeah, in terms of features - they are playing catchup first beyond they can innovate any little quirks that Discord doesn't and won't have.