I don’t really see how someone can position Discourse as the number one Discord alternative. Surely most people looking to ditch Discord want live chat, audio/video calls, and screen sharing… Or am I just in the minority here?
For the record, I think Discourse looks awesome and even thinking about how I might use it for a project, but I do not see it as a Discord alternative.
Sure, but that’s not an argument for replacing Discord with forums. The two serve entirely different use cases, and should be treated like two entirely separate products.
Isn’t it though? A forum wouldn’t do all the things discord does, but the argument is that trying to use discord for a forum was a mistake in the first place. So replacing discord with a forum and then a dedicated chatting app makes sense, no?
I think we’re essentially saying the same thing in different ways. Yes, I 100% agree that forums should be separate from whatever the new Discord replacement ends up being.
I was more arguing that we can’t only use forums to replace Discord, because the realtime communication aspect would be a different use case. I’ve seen lots of “lol just use forums” types of posts, which completely ignore the realtime side of things. There would still need to be some service to replace the realtime aspects that Discord does serve.
Agreed. I think the fact that discord kind of does all the things is what made it attractive. But it’s not GOOD at the forum aspect, and it has its flaws for the other use cases as well.
A lot of people don’t seem to realize that Discord has a variety of features, and each feature can be more or less useful for different types of communities. There’s almost no platform that has all of them so you have to zoom out and look at more of the general purpose. The Discord “servers” I’ve used NEVER used anything but text chat.
I understand that but even the text chat is a different experience than what Discourse offers. Even people who only used Discord for text chat and want a replacement for that would be better on IRC.
I honestly think the vast majority of people on Discord don’t know what IRC is, and therefore don’t have an opinion of it. However, I didn’t mean to suggest IRC as the best alternative anyway.
Looks like Roblox forced everyone using Guilded to suddenly have a Roblox account in 2024, and then Guilder officially shut down about 2 months ago (end of 2025).
I love that Discourse is open. I hate that it’s just horrendous from a usability perspective. Flarum is much better than that, in my opinion, while being way more flexible. Examples:
Top three are:
Discourse isnt free
And its been described as more of a forum than a chat service
This is misinformation.
You can self host it, for free.
I don’t really see how someone can position Discourse as the number one Discord alternative. Surely most people looking to ditch Discord want live chat, audio/video calls, and screen sharing… Or am I just in the minority here?
For the record, I think Discourse looks awesome and even thinking about how I might use it for a project, but I do not see it as a Discord alternative.
Lots of communities use discord as a replacement for a forum despite it not being fit for it at all
Sure, but that’s not an argument for replacing Discord with forums. The two serve entirely different use cases, and should be treated like two entirely separate products.
Isn’t it though? A forum wouldn’t do all the things discord does, but the argument is that trying to use discord for a forum was a mistake in the first place. So replacing discord with a forum and then a dedicated chatting app makes sense, no?
I think we’re essentially saying the same thing in different ways. Yes, I 100% agree that forums should be separate from whatever the new Discord replacement ends up being.
I was more arguing that we can’t only use forums to replace Discord, because the realtime communication aspect would be a different use case. I’ve seen lots of “lol just use forums” types of posts, which completely ignore the realtime side of things. There would still need to be some service to replace the realtime aspects that Discord does serve.
Agreed. I think the fact that discord kind of does all the things is what made it attractive. But it’s not GOOD at the forum aspect, and it has its flaws for the other use cases as well.
I also want this suite of things. I stream movies to friends, share games I’m playing…
These are core features to me now in a robust chat client
A lot of people don’t seem to realize that Discord has a variety of features, and each feature can be more or less useful for different types of communities. There’s almost no platform that has all of them so you have to zoom out and look at more of the general purpose. The Discord “servers” I’ve used NEVER used anything but text chat.
I understand that but even the text chat is a different experience than what Discourse offers. Even people who only used Discord for text chat and want a replacement for that would be better on IRC.
It’s not the text chat they’re referring to. An annoying amount of open so it be projects use Discord as a replacement for forums specifically.
I’m aware but I don’t think this was the issue Ulrich was speaking of. If they were, I don’t think it was well conveyed.
Yeah, clearly everyone loves IRC, that’s why no one uses Discord /s
I honestly think the vast majority of people on Discord don’t know what IRC is, and therefore don’t have an opinion of it. However, I didn’t mean to suggest IRC as the best alternative anyway.
Okay so they know what Discord is, but they don’t know what IRC is, despite it being 20 years older. What does that tell you?
I used to use to for audio calls now I use it more for a forum.
By reducing a complex topic down to one score that has “features” as only one of many factors, so that “openness” and “safety” push it to the top.
Live chat is all I ever use but you never know
I thought Discourse was bought by Roblox, merged into Roblox, and then discontinued outside of Roblox?I’m thinking of something else, I think.
You’re thinking of Guilded.
Looks like Roblox forced everyone using Guilded to suddenly have a Roblox account in 2024, and then Guilder officially shut down about 2 months ago (end of 2025).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilded
I love that Discourse is open. I hate that it’s just horrendous from a usability perspective. Flarum is much better than that, in my opinion, while being way more flexible. Examples:
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/
https://orionfeedback.org/
I find discourse perfectly usable.
Cool 👍️