13 Discord alternatives in 2026, for friends, gaming, communities and work

Discord is where a lot of groups live, and since 22 September 2026 it sorts every account by age, with a video selfie or an ID as one of the ways to prove you are an adult. For plenty of people that was the moment to look around. Others were already looking: for a European app, for open source, for something to run on their own server, or simply for a quieter place for one group of friends.

This is the list we would want to find ourselves. Thirteen apps, grouped by what you would use them for, each with what it does, what to keep in mind, where it runs and what it costs. mssgs is ours, so it comes first and we say so up front. Every other app is described from its maker’s own pages, which are listed at the bottom, and every app gets the same four points, ours included.

Why people look for a Discord alternative

The reasons we hear most often:

• Age checks. Discord now estimates the age of every account, and an account it cannot place gets teen settings until it confirms otherwise, if need be with a video selfie or a photo of an ID. In October 2025 Discord reported that ID photos sent in for age appeals were exposed in a breach at a support vendor. We wrote about how Discord and mssgs each handle age.
• Where the company and the data are. Discord is an American company. Some groups, clubs and schools would rather use a service that is made and hosted in Europe.
• Control. Open-source fans want to read the code, and some communities want to run the server themselves.
• Fit. A voice room for a clan, a group chat for a family and a workspace for a company are three different jobs. Discord does a bit of each, and a more focused app can suit one of them better.

The 13 alternatives at a glance

Prices as the makers showed them on 12 November 2026; Slack’s page showed us euros, Zulip’s dollars.

For friend groups, gaming groups and communities

1. mssgs: a home for your group, made in the Netherlands

mssgs is our own app, built by RUAL in the Netherlands. If you know Discord you know your way around: a community has text and voice channels in categories, roles with permissions, and voice channels you drop into with camera and screen sharing, sound included. Next to that are direct messages, group chats and stories.

What you will not find anywhere else on this list are the games. Eleven turn-based games are built into every chat, from Four in a Row and Battleship to Word Guesser, so a round starts in the channel you are already talking in. Bots need no hosting: bot messages, webhooks and /command triggers are part of the app, and an AI assistant can join over MCP from the desktop app, seeing only the channels you pick.

mssgs never asks for an ID or a face scan. It goes by the age range your phone shares or the one you choose yourself, and a community can be set to 13+, 16+ or 18+. One-to-one chats are end-to-end encrypted. There are no ads and no tracking, nothing is used to train AI, and the servers mssgs runs on are hosted in the Netherlands. A community can have several owners, so it never hangs on one account.

• Keep in mind: mssgs does forums its own way: replies and quotes in the channel, suggestions channels where members vote on ideas, and public channels anyone can read on the web. Import from Discord in the iPhone app builds your community from a Discord server template, with its channels, categories and roles; messages and members are not part of a template.
• Apps: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux and the web.
• Price: free. Premium is optional, is paid with credits and never renews by itself.

Start your group on mssgs, or read the row-by-row comparison with Discord.

2. Stoat: open source, and laid out like Discord

Stoat is the app that used to be called Revolt. It has servers with text and voice channels in a layout Discord users recognise at once, it is open source under the AGPL licence, and you can run it on your own server with Docker. Video and screen sharing arrived on the hosted service in July 2026, in voice channels and in DMs. Its makers say it is built in Europe, without ads and without selling user data.

• Keep in mind: the Android app is in early access and there is no iPhone app in the App Store yet; on an iPhone you add the web app to your home screen. Screen sharing currently runs at 720p, and end-to-end encryption is planned but not there.
• Apps: web, Windows, macOS, Linux, Android (early access).
• Price: free.

3. Element: decentralised chat on the Matrix standard

Element is a chat and calling app built on Matrix, an open standard in which separate servers talk to each other the way email servers do. You can join a public server or run your own and still reach everyone else. Messages are end-to-end encrypted by default, and voice and video calls are included. Element is open source and the company is based in the United Kingdom.

• Keep in mind: Matrix organises people in rooms and spaces rather than Discord-style servers, so it takes some getting used to. The free server suite is meant for up to 100 users and, by Element’s own description, not for commercial production use.
• Apps: web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android.
• Price: free for up to 100 users; Enterprise is priced per seat from 100 users, on request.

4. Steam Chat: for groups that already play on Steam

If your whole group has Steam open anyway, its chat may be all you need. Group chats have several text and voice channels, roles with permissions and invite links, and they work in the Steam client, in a browser and in the Steam Chat app on your phone. Signing up takes an email address, not a phone number.

• Keep in mind: group chat history is kept for up to two weeks, and sharing a screen goes through Remote Play Together, which shows the game and never your desktop.
• Apps: the Steam client on Windows, macOS, SteamOS and ChromeOS, a browser, and Steam Chat for iOS and Android.
• Price: Valve lists no paid chat plan.

Voice first

5. TeamSpeak: voice on a server you control

TeamSpeak was the voice room of many clans long before Discord existed, and it still is for groups that want their own server. You host it yourself or rent it from TeamSpeak, set encryption per server or per channel, and in the new TeamSpeak 6 you get chat and screen sharing that TeamSpeak advertises at up to 4K and 60 frames a second.

• Keep in mind: TeamSpeak 6 is in beta, for client and server alike. The free licence for your own TeamSpeak 6 server has 32 slots and larger ones are not available yet, and the phone apps belong to the older TeamSpeak 3.
• Apps: TeamSpeak 6 on Windows, macOS and Linux; TeamSpeak 3 also on iOS and Android.
• Price: a free 32-slot licence for a server you host; hosted plans start with a free trial.

6. Mumble: light, open-source voice chat

Mumble does one thing: voice with very little delay. It is free and open source, the connection is always encrypted, and its positional audio lets you hear teammates from where they stand in the game. You run the server yourself, at no licence cost, or join someone else’s.

• Keep in mind: Mumble is voice with a little text chat, not a place for channels full of messages. The official iOS app is no longer maintained, Android relies on apps by other developers, and the current stable release has no macOS build.
• Apps: Windows and Linux; macOS up to an earlier 1.5 release.
• Price: free.

Messengers you may already have

7. Signal: private chats for small groups

Signal is run by a nonprofit and is built around one promise: messages and calls are end-to-end encrypted, so Signal itself cannot read or hear them. Group calls take up to 75 people and can be shared as a link. For a family, a team or a circle of friends that wants privacy above all, it is hard to fault.

• Keep in mind: you need a phone number to sign up, and the desktop app needs Signal on your phone first. A group is one conversation: Signal has no channels, servers or roles.
• Apps: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux.
• Price: free, paid for by donations; extended backups are an optional $1.99 a month.

8. Telegram: very large groups and channels

Telegram is the messenger for scale. A group holds up to 200,000 members and can be split into topics that each work like their own chat, a channel broadcasts to an unlimited audience, and groups can keep a voice chat running. Bots are free to build and files can be 2 GB each.

• Keep in mind: you need a mobile number to sign up. Ordinary chats and groups are stored on Telegram’s servers and are not end-to-end encrypted; only Secret Chats, which you switch on yourself, and calls are. Large public channels can carry sponsored messages.
• Apps: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux and the web.
• Price: free; Telegram Premium is optional.

9. WhatsApp: for people who are on it already

The strongest argument for WhatsApp is that nobody has to install anything. A group holds around a thousand people, a Community bundles related groups under one announcement group, and calls take up to 32 people with screen sharing. Personal messages and calls are end-to-end encrypted.

• Keep in mind: WhatsApp works by phone number, and that number is visible to the admins of a community you join. There are no text channels inside a group and no voice channels to drop into. WhatsApp is part of Meta.
• Apps: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS and the web.
• Price: no paid plan.

For work and organisations

10. Slack: work chat with the most integrations

Slack is the workplace version of the idea: channels, direct messages and threads that keep replies out of the main channel, plus huddles for quick audio and video. Its app directory lists more than 2,600 integrations, which is the reason many companies choose it.

• Keep in mind: the free plan shows the last 90 days of messages, allows ten apps and limits huddles to two people. Paid plans are priced per user, which adds up quickly for a community.
• Apps: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android.
• Price: free plan; Pro from €6.75 per user a month, billed yearly.

11. Microsoft Teams: for organisations on Microsoft 365

Teams is chat, channels and video meetings in one, and it comes with most Microsoft 365 subscriptions, so many organisations have it without choosing it. Meetings take up to 300 people on business plans and up to 1,000 on enterprise plans. There is a free personal version as well, with communities and channels of its own.

• Keep in mind: the free version limits meetings to 60 minutes and 100 participants, and there is no desktop app for Linux any more; Linux users use the browser.
• Apps: Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and the web.
• Price: free personal version; otherwise part of a Microsoft 365 subscription.

12. Zulip: discussions that stay organised

In Zulip every message in a channel belongs to a named topic, a bit like the subject of an email. That keeps a busy channel readable days later, which is why open-source projects and research groups like it. Zulip is fully open source, runs in the cloud or on your own server, and sponsors many communities and non-profits with a free plan.

• Keep in mind: calls are links to an outside service such as Jitsi or Zoom, not voice rooms inside the app, and the phone app cannot start a video call yet. The free cloud plan searches the last 10,000 messages.
• Apps: web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android.
• Price: free plan; Cloud Standard from $6.67 per user a month, billed yearly.

13. Rocket.Chat: when everything has to stay in house

Rocket.Chat is an open-source team messenger that organisations install on their own servers, including networks with no connection to the internet. It has channels, teams, threads and discussions, and it is aimed mostly at government, defence and other regulated organisations these days.

• Keep in mind: voice and video run through a separate app such as Jitsi, and the paid plans have no public prices. Rocket.Chat itself says its free community edition is not meant for business-critical use.
• Apps: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android.
• Price: free Starter plan up to 50 users; paid plans on request.

How to choose

Start from what your group actually does, not from the longest feature list.

• A group of friends, a gaming group, a club or a community that wants servers, channels and voice without ads or ID checks: mssgs. If open source matters most, look at Stoat.
• Mostly talking while you play: TeamSpeak or Mumble on your own server, or a voice channel in mssgs when you want chat and games around it.
• End-to-end encrypted messages above everything else: Signal for small groups, Element when you also want rooms and your own server.
• An audience of thousands: Telegram.
• A workplace: Slack or Teams, Zulip when discussions need structure, Rocket.Chat when nothing may leave the building.

Frequently asked questions

What can I use instead of Discord?

For the same shape, a server with text and voice channels, roles and bots, mssgs and Stoat come closest. For voice only there are TeamSpeak and Mumble, for private group chats Signal, for very large groups Telegram, and for work Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zulip or Rocket.Chat.

Is there a European alternative to Discord?

Yes. mssgs is made in the Netherlands by RUAL and the servers it runs on are hosted there. Stoat says it is built in Europe, and Element is a British company.

Which Discord alternative works without an ID or a face scan?

mssgs never asks for either: it goes by the age range your phone shares or the one you choose. See age verification on mssgs and Discord for how the two differ.

Can I move my Discord server to another app?

On mssgs, yes: Import from Discord in the iPhone app builds a community from your Discord server template, with the channels, categories and roles in place, and you invite your members with a link. Messages and members are not part of a Discord template, so they stay behind. For the other apps, check their own guides before you move.

Which alternatives are free?

mssgs, Stoat, Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Steam Chat and Mumble are free to use, and TeamSpeak is free on your own server up to 32 slots. Element, Slack, Zulip, Rocket.Chat and Teams have a free plan with limits, and charge per user above it.

Looking for a new home for your group? Start it on mssgs: free on iPhone, Android, desktop and the web, with no ads and no ID check.

The other apps as described on their makers’ own websites on 12 November 2026, from the sources below. Apps change: if something here is out of date, tell us at support@mss.gs and we will correct it.