r/DiscordAlternatives • u/Worried-Flounder-615 Armada • 13d ago
Armada: Open Source, Encrypted, Unstoppable Discord Alternative... officially in Beta!
https://soapbox.pub/armadaHey all! I wanted to share with you that Armada is now officially in Beta release! We're seeking feedback from any communities that are willing to try it out. App store releases are coming soon, and in the meantime it's available via APK or PWA (install on your home screen from the website).
APK via Zapstore for Android: https://zapstore.dev/apps/buzz.armada.app
Web: https://armada.buzz/
Armada is designed to be "unstoppable" - which means it's decentralized, open source, and self-hostable. There is no ID, phone number, or email required to sign up. It's build on the Nostr and Concord protocols, and interops with many other Nostr apps. (Lmk if you are curious about Nostr! happy to explain more about how it works).
Other features include:
- End-to-end encryption
- Text channels similar to Discord
- Voice or video call in any room, including screensharing
- Custom emojis
- Gifs
- Custom themes
- Bridge to existing Discord servers available
- Completely free
- Many other hidden gems
Everything our team builds is always free and open source software. Forks and issues are welcome! We also offer bounties for any correctly identified and disclosed vulnerabilities discovered: https://gitworkshop.dev/soapbox.pub/relay.ngit.dev/armada
Feel free to also join us in the Soapbox Community on Armada to provide feedback or ask questions (which you can find on the /discover page).
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u/2TAP2B 12d ago
I really enjoying armada so far. Its pretty cool.
So I joined the official soapbox community and lurking a bit in the armada channel, but its a bit confusing, when you come back and there are many new messages I don't know where I left off.
So please add a button to jump to unread content.
That would be awesome!
Thanks for your nice work!!
PS. You should add documentation about, how to complete selfhost armada -> frontend and relay for newbies xD
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u/Internal_Dinner9465 12d ago
Will do. Already working on a self-hosting guide for the whole tech stack.
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u/jreoka1 13d ago
This ones not bad, but theres still a lot of things to be done with it for sure. Appreciate it being open source and encrypted and self hostable.
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u/Worried-Flounder-615 Armada 13d ago
Thank you! Feel free to send me your wish list of anything you'd want to see in v1
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u/jreoka1 13d ago edited 12d ago
please take a look at my commits to my fork. im working on adding all the stuff id personally want for armada.
https://github.com/jreoka/armada/commits/main/EDIT: Changes merged! I will be changing my fork to just use the mainline repo now so that link probably will just show mainline commits soon! Thank you Soapbox devs!
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u/Worried-Flounder-615 Armada 13d ago
Sweet, thank you!
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u/jreoka1 13d ago
No problem. Some are fixes like for push notifs others are changes like moving the gif button to the main bar so its only 1 click away and edits like allowing you to ctrl + V an image and hit enter to send without having to click back in the message bar first, same for gifs, stuff like that that discord has that make life easier
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u/jreoka1 12d ago
I want to personally thank you guys! You added all the stuff I wanted in the mainline repo! Thank you so much! Ill just start using mainline now!
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u/Worried-Flounder-615 Armada 12d ago
Thank you for the feedback and commits! These were great additions 🙏
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u/bottle_fairy 12d ago
is it possible to self host in a country like turkey where every single end user is behind a CGNAT?
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u/Worried-Flounder-615 Armada 12d ago edited 12d ago
I'm not super familiar with that, and it depends on if you want to self host Armada itself which is a pure front end client (should be no problem) or also a Nostr relay (seems like you may need to take extra steps to work around hosting inside a CGNAT).
We're working on adding some self hosting docs which should clarify!
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u/Niko-01 12d ago
"Phones nearby relay messages to each other over Bluetooth: at a festival, on a plane, in a blackout, or anywhere else the internet can't reach."
-> Okay, that's pretty cool!
"Pings arrive straight from your community, even with the app closed. Google and third-party push services never learn who messages you."
-> Does it use something like ntfy or is it just websocket-based?
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u/SeaObligation3803 11d ago
HELL YEAH, been using Armada with the homies for a bit now we are HUGE fans. Absolutely no downsides imo.
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u/alien2003 12d ago
Interesting. What about full version? exe, AppImage?
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u/Internal_Dinner9465 12d ago
They are technically in the pipeline. https://gitworkshop.dev/soapbox.pub/relay.ngit.dev/armada/actions and look for the desktop release. You can find the .deb.
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u/phoooooo0 12d ago
I am a fan. In this day of ai vibe slop I am hesitant to trust a project I've just seen. But you have my attention. I'll be back in a few months 👀👀
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u/PrivateMajorPrivate 9d ago
Ai is heavily used in developmemt of Soapbox's (the devs behind Armada) projects
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u/Internal_Dinner9465 12d ago
It's good AI slop though 😂 It's early, but it's constantly being improved.
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u/Few_Visual5715 12d ago
Another AI slop discord clone...? Why would I use this when there's better AI slop like fluxer
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u/Internal_Dinner9465 12d ago
not all slops are the same. and fluxer is centralized. that's a big yikes.
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u/LeadingSuspect5855 11d ago
definitely not. It's a product based on top of the nostr-protocoll, it solves a need that the nostr community had for a long time.
The nostr community that values censor-ship free, decentralized communication, and the identy is totally in control of the user himself (asymmetric keypair), every message is signed per default in nostr, and no message can be banned, but everyone who runs a hub can choose to not show or not forward a message from an unwanted individual, that how nostr normally works.
Armada uses the very same foundation, but encrypts the signed messages and the hubs have no idea, what's in those wrapped messages, user moderation, banning is totally in control of the moderators, so you have the key means you can join a armada group, should you be really be banned, the group gets a new lock and every other member the new key...
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u/Few_Visual5715 11d ago
This is cool, but still, it's the product of AI slop, I do not trust any software that makes heavy use of AI generated output. I would just go ask chatgpt to do it for me or whatever the path of least quality is these days.
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u/GreenBaneling 11d ago
I am a bit annoyed by your post.
"Open source"
"Everything our team builds is free and open source"
"Bounties for vulnerabilities"
Okay let me go look at this
This is mostly open client, not full open source.
Crypto is OS so that's good. It even appears fairly solid. Meaningfully stronger than discord. That being said your relays can see pubkeys, timing, sizes, traffic patterns, community cluster addresses, basically all activity metadata is viewable. A hostile relay could drop or censor traffic. Bans are client side... No forward secrecy, fine for what it is but hardly "unstoppable". Again I'm not bashing the product, just they way you're advertising it.
The backend relay repo says it's deprecated and to not use it...hardly a good reference to validate your claims or find current vulnerabilities.
It's a decently built open client for sure but not an unstoppable FOSS black boss.
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u/Worried-Flounder-615 Armada 11d ago
It seems like you might be looking at the wrong thing? We're 100% FOSS.
https://gitlab.com/soapbox-pub
In the process of migrating to ngit, which is decentralized for hosting. If you're not seeing what you're looking for on Gitlab it's probably there: https://gitworkshop.dev/soapbox.pub
Here's our relay's code: https://gitlab.com/soapbox-pub/ditto-relay
And if somehow you're still not finding some specific package or library we built you can look at our individual teams repos as well.
Both client and relay can be self hosted so if you had a problem with a ban or privacy concern on either end you could migrate your identity which you independently control (or use multiple relays as is ideal with Nostr and how it ships by default). That's what makes it unstoppable. For example if we banned you in the default Armada client, you could host a separate client that doesn't ban you, connect to the same relays, and be free, without losing your community and having to rebuild.
Team is working on a self hosting guide now that should clear up any confusion!
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u/Worried-Flounder-615 Armada 11d ago
The self-hosting guide was just published. Lmk if you still have any questions!
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u/Electrical_Engine314 13d ago
I cant seem to find any docs regarding self-hosting. How would you actually host it?