HN Explorer

Discord/Messenger Alternative Wishlist?

10 points by namrog84 ↗ HN
I have been interested in starting a hobby project that could one day maybe become something more.

I've been considering a Discord alternative as 1 possibility of a project and to do a few things differently.

MS Teams and Slack still seem more business oriented still. I have heard of Revolt but it feels like it's going just direct Discord Alternative, and not trying to change it up too much, at least not yet.

What features would you consider a worthwhile differentiator instead of doing 'more of the same' that discord wouldn't likely ever do?

Obviously, aside from all the standard-esque things from text to voice, etc..

The few features that could make a discord alt more compelling of a platform.

1. More public facing community features (Don't be a blackhole of information). e.g. Allow public facing announcements/channels to be viewable without an account on the web. Some game companies use Discord to share announcements/patch notes but having to 'have an account, join a server, to view patch notes'. This blackhole of information just feels challenging for no good reason.

2. Allow a few more 'advanced users' type scenarios, even if it results in inconsistent or degraded user experiences. e.g. Allow P2P video screen sharing without needing to go thru middle re-broadcast. I know this doesn't scale with multiple consumers but with 1-2 proper users it be allowable. Saves a lot of upfront server $.

3. Support Channel/Chat aggregation (mostly cosmetic). Have a single view for quickly going between channels/private messages. Without having to go to each individual server first.

# Differentation

What features would you consider a worthwhile differentiator instead of doing 'more of the same' that discord is ever likely to do?

Also, any recommendations on technologies or frameworks to help me jumpstart? I have my professional strengths, but would rather stay open minded to all suggestions.

8 comments

[ 19.1 ms ] story [ 787 ms ] thread
namrog84
I forgot to call out that Matrix(protocol) seems like a worthwhile call out in looking at useful core technologies.
the__alchemist
The official Matrix Client is a mess of bugs (Especially relating to verification) that have been there since inception. It is frustrating to see; it's as if the developers haven't attempted using it.
Arathorn
there isn’t an “official Matrix Client” any more than there’s an “official Web Browser”.

If you’re talking about Element, we just rewrote the mobile apps and fixed verification issues (although support for inbound verification will land next week): https://element.io/blog/deep-dive-into-element-x/

the__alchemist
I am indeed referring to Element: PC(Windows) and Android. I'll give the new version a shot next week.

I will note that another class of bugs (or single bug?) that put me off is related to messages and or edits to them sometimes showing up for some people, but not others, and/or on one client, but not another. (e.g., an edit will show on mobile, but the old version will show on PC)

palata
I kind of agree. I really wanted to like Matrix, but it feels like the apps have been "entirely rewritten" multiple times and stay very frustrating to use. Every update announcement from Matrix sounds like "it's magical, this time everything is perfect, we solved it all it's the year of Matrix!" and... well after years of that I just can't believe anymore.

Feels like the whole project has been rushing everything forever... don't they say it's more than a decade old? Pretty sure WhatsApp or Signal did not take 10 years to become usable for the masses.

mdaniel
I am not enough of a Discord ninja to really provide an apples-to-apples of many of those things, but I can say with the highest confidence that Zulip addresses #1 in such a stellar way it actually pains me how much the open source community ignores using it in favor of fucking Slack or fucking Discord, where, yes, information goes to die

I also believe they address the P2P video <https://zulip.com/features/#:~:text=Voice%20and%20video> but they offload that to Jitsi rather than trying to reinvent the wheel

They don't even have to host Zulip themselves, as zulip.com offers free hosting for open source communities. Just pains me

mikewarot
I think support for multidimensional ratings would be a game changer.

Instead of forcing everyone into a binary or handful of reactions to a post, imagine if you could rank something as funny, what language it's written in, the quality of the post, if it's spam, if it contains a picture of kittens, or any other thing the user cares about.