seriously, if you’re looking for a proper FOSS discord replacement i cannot stress enough how good the new Sable 2.x releases are.
to name a few things that make this really fucking cool, it has:
- an actually working mobile client available in the play store and soon the iOS app store (if it isn’t already)
- voice/video channels, forum channels, etc.
- spaces set up as a feature-complete replacement for discord guilds with roles, categorization, permission syncing, etc.
- detailed discord-like profiles with status (including per-space/channel personas)
- cool features you would have expected to see in a golden age IM like custom fonts, colors, rich text editing, etc.
- decentralization with federation via the matrix protocol
- end-to-end encryption available for both DMs and guild channels (unlike a certain slop discord clone that’s been making the rounds lately)
- awesome maintainers who actually listen to the users and aren’t chuds
- a policy against vibecoded PRs
- a cute animal mascot (including a trans flag variant)
if you’re new to matrix, try this. if you’re already using matrix, try this because it’s better than the other clients (especially element)
I havent installed it on my phone yet since it requires hooking it up to a computer, but I do use the browser sable when applicable and it’s great! I still use fluffychat otherwise.
I see a lot of people get very frustrated with matrix since it has a bit of a learning curve, everyone’s so used to discord making everything easy for us. Still gotta use discord sometimes for video chat stuff, but matrix can always improve more in the future.
Its one of those things that you gotta really want to do, put up with learning a new platform and such. Personally I love it, it makes me feel like an oldschool computer nerd 😎
iOS i assume? the developers are trying to get it approved for the app store, so be on the lookout for that when it hits.
sable has really done a lot to make matrix more palatable to discord users, but yeah the onboarding process in particular will probably always be a bit of a pain point just like it is for fediverse social media platforms.
really i’m just happy as long as it can grow to have a userbase like fediverse socials where it’s not as overcrowded as the mainstream counterpart, yet large enough that there’s still stuff to engage with. now that spaces are actually usable it should be easier to get some communities going on here.