Discord icon
Discord icon

Discord

 1077 likes

An integrated platform for text and voice communications. Offers tailored channels for different topics, customizable moderation tools, low latency for fluency, and managed user roles for optimal community facilitation.

Discord screenshot 1

License model

  • FreemiumProprietary

Country of Origin

  • US flagUnited States

Platforms

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • Online
  • Android
  • iPhone
  • Android Tablet
  • iPad
  • Snapcraft
  • Epic Games Store
  • Flathub
  • Electron
  • Playstation
  • Xbox
3.2 / 5 Avg rating (101)
1077likes
86comments

Features

Suggest and vote on features

Properties

  1.  Gaming-focused

Features

  1.  Screen Sharing
  2.  VoiP Calls
  3.  Video Calling
  4.  Multi Channel
  5.  Text chat
  6.  Bots
  7.  Voice Chat
  8.  Multiple Servers
  9.  Push to talk
  10.  Public groups chat
  11.  Custom Smileys
  12.  Text to Speech
  13.  Stickers
  14.  Reactions
  15.  Direct Messaging
  16.  Dark Mode
  17.  Share content
  18.  Voice channels
  19.  Group Voice Chat
  20.  Two-factor Authentication
  21.  Noise Reduction
  22.  Graphical User Interface
  23.  Channel manager
  24.  Camera capturing
  25.  Interface Overlay
  26.  Rich Presence
  27.  Desktop Sharing
  28.  End-to-End Encryption
  29.  Support for MarkDown
  30.  Syntax Highlighting
  31.  Support for @mentions
  32.  No Coding Required
  33.  Custom roles
  34.  Low Latency
  35.  Community-based
  36.  Team Messaging
  37.  Encrypted Chat
  38.  Electron based
  39.  Game Chat
  40.  Role-based security access
  41.  Permission system
  42.  Low memory usage
  43.  Integrated Chat
  44.  Integrated File Sharing
  45.  Low bandwidth usage
  46.  Single Sign-On
  47.  In-app server browser
  48.  In-Game Overlay
  49. YouTube Gaming icon  Youtube Gaming Integration
  50.  Persistent Chat
  51.  Positional audio
  52.  Development API
  53.  Webcam overlays
  54.  Encrypted VoIP calls

 Tags

Discord News & Activities

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Comments and Reviews

   
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Comment summary: Discord is praised for its ease of use, modern UI, and functionality for both gamers and non-gamers. Users appreciate features like cross-platform availability, server customization, and integrations. However, there are significant privacy concerns, with allegations of data mining and lack of end-to-end encryption. Discord's handling of user data and monetization strategies, including paywalls, also face criticism. Several users remain wary due to these privacy issues, while others continue to prefer it over alternatives for its robust community features.
Top Positive Comment
Ceremonious Intelligence
Jul 7, 2021
3

Discord is a great place to make communities and grow communication with others around them, but there comes a time when a company needs to listen & get their act together in hand when things get serious. It's been one heck of 2020-2021 (in a bad way). Even though I rate this 4 stars for having everything original, I am still disappointed in their lack of support to help get a ban reissued due to a self-promotion bot "Server Scam". It was a HUGE fatal & accidental click that turned to the worst back in May. Idk why this is a thing, but something needs to get done with these advertising bots that randomly appear in my dm's and provide no information on what servers thereon. It sucks and it stinks. All of this leading to getting my phone number whitelisted & gmail whitelisted too. I still TO THIS DAY disagree with the whole blocking phone number thing, I can get from the email system, but the phone number has nothing to do with anything. This limits me from having to join specific servers that have a system level to an extreme point ((meaning to verify and phone number in order to get in)) In my opinion, it's stupid and pathetic to have a server do that. I rate the app a 4 star, but their support is a middle of 2 & 3 or just flat out 0 the way how they handle accounts. ONE screw up, and you're done for. I recommend to everyone that is just starting to use Discord to be EXTREMELY CAREFUL & AWARE of what is going on. But I'll give it this, their newest feature release regards of the Banner Profile & Stickers is extremely well done and would love to see more features adding to their $9.99 Subscription on Discord Nitro. They're even adding an Integration Feature where you can identify yourself as someone completely different on this specific server which I really love that type of concept & to see happen. I'll give it that extra star because of their newest features that there revealing out to the public and making the application extremely fast and quick, with no lag and glitch.

Top Negative Comment
LoveLain
May 17, 2018
105

The privacy policy of this service is atrocious. Not only does the company own your password, e-mail and the contents of every message you send, it also lays claim to the ownership of your sphincter. Furthermore, the Discord app demands to know EVERY program your computer is running!

Why?

So they can give a cute little status update saying "X is play Y game"? More likely they are doing analytics and datamining. They reserve the right to sell your data and the blood of your firstborn at their discretion. Even worse, your porn browsing habits and your accompanying personally identifying information they scoop up is never deleted. So if the company ever folds, they can just sell it for a mint and the next company will have more info about you than you do.

This is particularly alarming as the CEO of this company has a history of doing exactly the aforesaid.

In conclusion, if you use Discord you are a sucker and every company with an analytics contract, and therefore every employee of said company, will know you spend an unhealthy amount of time watching Japanese cartoons about little girls, waste your money on erotic VN's, and that you still don't know how to get past the sadpanda on exhentai despite trying since you were a teenager because you aren't particularly bright, which is why you're using discord after all.

coralinecastell
Jun 16, 2018

Laughed with your lovely review. What alternatives do you recommend?

CaptaPraelium
Jun 27, 2018

He's dead right. Try riot.im

shiki
Jan 7, 2019

self-hosted alternatives to Discord include Mattermost and Mumble.

Planetjunkie
Mar 30, 2021

Well you can try out guilded but you cant self host servers

Alan Maccormak
Mar 3, 2022

Well. This is the point. Discord want you to communicate with friends and play games together. It's about building communities.

You can block the status updating process and no one, except Discord CEO mb, will see your activity.

protoforma
Mar 29, 2022

Try Revolt https://revolt.chat/ It's literally open-source Discord. Has less functionality, but that's what I like about it because it doesn't feel unnecessarily cluttered like Discord often does.

I haven't explored it thoroughly though.

Fire_Leviathan
Jun 24, 2022

revolt seemed good but sadly they don't want to implement federation, meaning that you can only communicate with the people on the instance you're using. You can't self host your own instance and be able to send messages to people on other instances (https://developers.revolt.chat/faq/federation). Sadly there isn't yet a decentralized alternative to discord with the same features :(

TheEmperorArt
Oct 12, 2022

@Fire_Leviathan Yes there is a decentralized alternative to Discord, it has been around for sometime now. It's Element (on the matrix network) formerly riot.im.

carcereros
Oct 20, 2023

exhentai? wow...

wren8005
Jan 21, 2025

try matrix protocol clients? they getting better

voidchat
Apr 10, 2025

+1 for matrix

beaver73728
Mar 14, 2025
0

as time goes this app becomes more worse.

wren8005
Jan 21, 2025
5

discord used to be chill and cozy platform, but not anymore now. its rotting slowly, ads and bullshits filled it. the community is shitty now, i miss the old days. it used to be decent back in 2020, but in 2025? nah. i also dont like its paid system for important features. discord is also both privacy and security concern.

recently i switched to matrix protocol clients and feels much better. matrix.org is not perfect but its improving

Asumeh
Dec 19, 2024
2

Discord is neat from a user perspective, in that it has channels, forums, threads, and servers. The convenience I can settle with.

Two major flaws in my opinion.

  • Some time in 2022, Discord massively changed the code for the Android app to be more in-line with the iOS version, and the iOS code allows for revealing 25 new, unread messages at a time; you can't jump to the first unread message of a channel. Sometime later, I found a "bug" in which I go to a channel with unread messages, and then the "X+ new messages" doesn't show up, as though I've read all of the messages anyway. I need to now go and recall what the first unread message of a channel actually was. After Discord "revamped" the app last year (December 2023), this significantly took away the muscle memory to navigate between DMs, servers, etc. Using APKMirror icon APKMirror I switched back to version 126.21, the last version to have native Android code, for the sake of my convenience.
  • Discord is overall a privacy nightmare; the messages are not at all encrypted like the calls (as of recent), and the service has a bunch of trackers. It's best at this point that you use the web version instead of the desktop application for the best convenience.
  • Minor one, but you can't join more than 100 servers without Nitro.

Some other general issues worth mentioning:

  • You need Nitro to have an animated profile picture, server-separate profile pictures, the ability to use any stickers and emojis on any servers, and animated emojis (not animated stickers, ironically).
  • 2020: Discord started removing the occasional fun messages that would show up every now and then in the app.
  • 2021: Discord revamped the logo and changed the "blurple" color.
  • 2022: Discord updated the font to something a bit less readable, replacing Whitney.
  • 2023: Apart from the "revamped" mobile app change, Discord outright removed the discriminators, assigning usernames instead. And I believe afterward, Discord started rolling out features exclusive to Nitro users, such as super reactions (useless) and account decorations. At least it allows for use of the default stickers, that's a nice redeeming point (granted that you're using an up-to-date version of Discord).

Discord will keep getting worse and worse, and eventually, it's gonna lose users. Which sucks because it had a chance to be an actually decent platform. I will then have to turn to Revolt  icon Revolt at some point. The fact that it works for me and is not horrible in terms of convenience is why I didn't give this 1 star (despite the major privacy caveat).

kusarebaita
Dec 11, 2024
3

It lives up to its name.

wren8005
Jan 21, 2025

right the community these days, no more cozy moments

Mel
Sep 9, 2024
-2

Overall good app to communicate with friends. Larger servers meant for communities are often poorly moderated with scam bots and other unsavory characters present.

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7 of 86 comments

What is Discord?

Discord is a communication platform used by various communities. It provides a space for regular interaction and allows private discussions. Discord servers are organized into topic-focused channels for easy collaboration and conversation. It offers voice channels for effortless communication and uses low latency voice and video technology.

Discord supports text, voice, and video communication. Users can video greet, live-stream games, host group screen shares, and create custom emojis from images. Users can share a range of content and pin preferred items for easy access.

Discord suits small groups and large fandoms. It offers customizable moderation tools and permission levels for user-specific group organization. Users can assign moderator roles, grant special members access to private channels, and manage their community effectively.

Discord Videos

Official Links

Discord information

  • Developed by

    US flagDiscord Inc.
  • Licensing

    Proprietary and Freemium product.
  • Pricing

    Subscription ranging between $3 and $17 per month + free version with limited functionality.
  • Rating

    Average rating of 3.2 (101 ratings)
  • Alternatives

    188 alternatives listed
  • News

    43 news article related to Discord
  • Supported Languages

    • English
    • Ukrainian
    • Russian
    • German
    • Turkish
    • Danish
    • Spanish
    • French
    • Croatian
    • Italian
    • Lithuanian
    • Hungarian
    • Dutch
    • Norwegian
    • Polish
    • Portuguese
    • Romanian
    • Finnish
    • Swedish
    • Vietnamese
    • Czech
    • Greek
    • Bulgarian
    • Hindi
    • Thai
    • Chinese
    • Japanese
    • Korean

AlternativeTo Categories

Social & CommunicationsSecurity & PrivacyGaming SoftwareRemote Work & EducationPhotos & GraphicsOS & Utilities

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  •   4.71 avg rating
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Our users have written 86 comments and reviews about Discord, and it has gotten 1077 likes

Discord was added to AlternativeTo by RemovedUser on Aug 20, 2015 and this page was last updated Jan 11, 2025. Discord is sometimes referred to as Discord Nitro.