chicocheco

You can self-host Matrix without federating, but it’s the best part about it. There is still work to be done about video calls, screen sharing and such in different Matrix clients but it is being work on. Try for example CommetChat as it’s the closest to Discord.

And why not to give Matrix a chance? Stoat (named Revolt before), Fluxer or anything else that is centralised is going to end up doing the same.