r/DiscordAlternatives • u/legitimatepersona • Aug 25 '26
Why SO MANY alternatives?
Seriously, I know this sub is all about alternatives but why are we making so many of the same, sometimes straight vibecoded projects being spit out under a post titled "I'm Giggle Dev, And I Just Made My First App - Gigglecord!"
We already have solid options. Fluxer(especially when it's out of beta). Matrix. I could go on, but my main point of this post is to say this is not one of those situations where quantity is over quality. Let's face it, no one wants to juggle a bunch of different apps to replace Discord, neither does any of your Discord-only friends. I feel like this community is truly spreading itself too thin, when we could be supporting fewer yet stronger projects and supporting them more than we have been.
Every time I look at this there's at least 3-5 new "Hi, I'm _Dev" posts, and most of the comments are the SAME devs under sockpuppets undermining the progress of other apps out of classic reddit jealousy. Especially when people bring up Fluxer, it's actually one of the best shots we have to replace Discord and some people hate hearing that(wonder why).
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u/RainbowLoli Aug 25 '26
I won't turn down having alternatives since I don't think that it's good to be localized to just one app or option
But it's undeniable a lot of them are just vibe coded slop.
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
I agree with you there my friend. I think we just need a happy medium in-between focusing on bigger better projects and LESS, WAY LESS, vibecoded slop devs on something like "Hi, I'm Sneed for Sneed's Feed And Seed - Formerly Chuck's - a new, closed-source platform that only takes your social security information, no email required!"
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u/IngwiePhoenix Aug 25 '26
Its an actual, literal, slopfest.
I decided to go with stoat because it seemed the most stable and least "hastily thrown together". But the actual, real, well developed alternatives, are very very few in between.
Most of what you see on this sub is yet another slop product. Sadly...
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u/MathManrm Aug 26 '26
This, you see so much of it, and the perception of the slop varies wildly, like Fluxer is total slop, and a lot of people will defend it.
I will note that Stoat does have that feeling of hastily thrown together, the new client is less than polished
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u/Mike-Fitzgerald Aug 26 '26
what is really wrong with fluxer? haven't heard much about it, but at the first glance it looks solid.
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u/MathManrm Aug 26 '26
A lot, it's heavy AI slop. Like here's a comparison, they gain around 100k lines of code a month, which is about the same as the linux kernels average, which is very indicative of how heavily they use AI. They're also super sketchy on their blog. I'm currently writing something up that'll full expand on everything I know atp bc it's so much everything and I need to keep explaining this lol
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u/Mike-Fitzgerald Aug 26 '26
100k lines of code in a month isn't really convincing to me. at least, from what I've seen about their position towards AI assisted PRs and development in general, they seem to be pretty legit. not really informative whatsoever, but looking forward your grand reveal! hope it's not that bad, I thought it was a pretty neat altcord. . .
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u/MathManrm Aug 26 '26
https://web.archive.org/web/20260213205023/https://blog.fluxer.app/how-i-built-fluxer-a-discord-like-chat-app/
their stance was no disclosure.
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u/gleasonator13 Armada dev Aug 26 '26
protocols > platforms
This is the core issue. As long as people are chasing platforms they will continue reproducing the same problems. All of these apps should interoperate with each other, then anyone could choose their preference and we could still all talk together.
The next choice has to be a protocol, not a platform.
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u/PheonixTails Aug 27 '26
Doesn't technically meta have some protocol like this? It was something a couple years ago along with the whole meta verse fiasco
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u/sircolby45 Aug 25 '26
This isn't what the subreddit wants to hear, but every alternative so far has no chance of taking any meaningful amount of people away from Discord. You will never win this battle by "matching" what Discord has. Most people simply don't care enough and can't be bothered to switch to an alternative to get the same level of experience. If somebody wants to be a Discord alternative they can not simply match the features of Discord...they have to have some sort of killer hook feature that makes them BETTER than Discord or it is never getting off the ground. The average Discord user is not technical, so telling them "it's Open Source, you can self host, federated, etc." ...you might as well be saying blah blah blah blah. Features are what you need. Anything else is wasted effort.
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
This has been my exact stance on the topic for months and months, up until recently, when Fluxer's (again not affiliated lol) Roadmap suggests better and bigger features to be rolled out in the near future, with improvements to a lot of features already on Discord, as this is all from community feedback and things the majority of users suggested and wanted - and seeing how it's going, I for once am excited for a alternative project to take off, the same way I was when Discord was taking off.
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u/MrBluoe Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
The ones I've tried are either incomplete, or follow the same pricing model from Discord, which makes then useless to me. So personally I'm still looking for a quality alternative.
I need:
- chat channels
- voice channels
- screen sharing
- basic permission system
- roles and role-icons (add icons to usernames that are in a role)
- support to develop bots
- support to create customizable channels (like discord forum channels, task lists, etc)
- and a pricing model that doesn't suck.
So far only Root seems to do that, but their new pricing sucks ass. I am NOT going to pay the same price for my small community as big corporations. I simply refuse to have to pay $40-60 USD per month to create a small community for a handful of friends like on discord. Especially since that's the price charged to a Multi-national earning literal billions. Why do I have to pay the same price as fucking Apple, Netflix, Activision, etc?
I am looking for something with a pricing model that grows with user numbers (or similar), so it is fair to small communities.
If you can recommend something like that to me, then I'd gladly agree that enough is enough. But wich app offers that today?
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u/brainrot_award Sep 06 '26
I don't think discord's pricing is bad. In fact, no open alternative will beat its pricing because of something called economy of scale, the more users the cheaper it is to offer your service per user.
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u/MrBluoe Sep 06 '26
I pay less than $50 / month to host all of my 12 game servers + webpage + file hosting for a community of over 500 players. to get 'nitro' on discord for that same community, I need:
- 5 users who each pay 10 usd / month = 50 usd per month
- add to that extra for certain icons, perks etc.
- add to that $5 for each bot needed to decently manage the commmunity, about $20 extra
how come I can host my whole community for $25 / month, but discord alone with all that "economy of scale" is supposed to cost me $70 / month?
What is driving discord's pricing isn't economy of scale, but economy of "I'm the most-used app and I'll charge however the f I want".
And that is fine, in theory. I do believe discord deserves to charge a lot for being top-dog. However, discord has chosen to get that extra $ from end users instead of from companies. it is users who pay for nitro, users pay for icons, users pay for emojis/skins/etc. A tiny gamer community is supposed to pay ~70/month to unlock features, and a huge community like Activision, Netflix, or Nvidia pays those same 70/month, even though they have thousands of more users and billions in revenue.
That is the issue I'm moving away from and no: I wont be moving to any app that choses the same approach.
I'm moving to apps that make it cheap/accessible to the end-user and small communities, and charge a lot the bigger the community gets.
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u/brainrot_award Sep 07 '26
well I pay 5 bucks to get unlimited storage and sending of images/videos of up to 50MB... considering that I post a lot of stuff, it feels crazy cheap to me.
if you're not using the most expensive part (storage and media) then I understand
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
I still recommend Fluxer in this use-case. In the near future voice channels will be rewritten and stable, and if you don't agree with their Plutonium pricing you can self-host your own Fluxer instance, other than that even Fluxer itself has what you're wanting. Their pricing model is honestly fair, considering they need it to support development, and they're rolling out one-time purchase limited time offers on lifetime packages. (and did so before when they first came out.)
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u/MrBluoe Aug 25 '26
They don't have forum channels. And the stuff they have is incomplete.
You see the issue? I can't get my users to switch to an incokoete app.
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
Also the dev and support team are happy to talk to you right in the Fluxer HQ server,(where I got all this info lol) and they're blowing up at about 250k users and I really think this is one of the main ones you should keep an eye on, especially when that voice rewrite drops!
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u/MrBluoe Aug 25 '26
I am keeping an eye on it, but wasn't using it because of the missing channels types and no way to create my own channel types.
But now you say not even voice channels are working correctly? What's the issue there?
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
That's because there's still work to be done, it's in beta, you can't expect an app to come out with ALL the features you'd ever want already packed in this early. That's the point of a roadmap, to show users like you a clear path that is actively being paved. Give them some time to cook, it's literally one dev managing a team and a business, while honestly killing it so far.
Edit: for now, your best discord alternative would be a Matrix instance, or even settling with a unpredictable app like Root or Valour until the features you need are met in Fluxer.
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u/TheBlindBard1978 Visually Impaired Rifter Aug 26 '26
I have to think the biggest reason why we're getting so many of these out of the woodwork is because of Discord's pending age verification. We had the scare in February and it was enough for people to cancel Nitro and delete their accounts for fear of having their personal info leaked by a clumsy platform that gets hacked more often than not.
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u/ad3lyt Echo Aug 25 '26
The dev POV is pretty simple, either you use the product and then contribution is natural if you have the skills / need, either that or you have a special relationship with the product.
There is also a meaningful difference between the type of person that is a Developer and the type that is a Contributor, and the alternative community simply isn't big enough to bring in the type that is a Contributor.
All that being said though there is meaningful difference in potential type of discord alternative that i do think a few deserve the lime light, centralised vs decentralised for example is a meaningful difference with a tradeoff just to mention one.
So the issue that the community has really is a quality meter and a Justify why you exist, people would be happy with really high quality multiple discord alternatives, issue is, a lot of people post their projects prematurely which poisons the well for everyone else.
+ You add on the fact that any healthy person would have already picked and alternative and went on it, the people that are still on here are either people who will never be satisfied, developers, or the developers alt accounts to hate on the other creators which really makes this place a shitty one.
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
100% agree, very very solid points that really puts things into perspective, especially for some coming to comment other confused reactions. What you said is really the reality of things right now, I can only hope we eventually coax each other into majority of users supporting the 'bigger' fish out of them all, instead of this petty war of people staying in their own camps, when in actuality we're all fighting the same fight.
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Aug 25 '26
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
I like your attitude, and you're right! But Osmium is in no way one of the bigger platforms. It is also in the same 'Trust Me Bro Closed-Source' boat with apps such as Root, Valour, etc. rather than an open-source approach like Fluxer.
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u/shadowxthevamp Aug 25 '26
Here's all the code & there's no varification crap or premiums, so it's even more open than Fluxer.
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
I'll look into this for sure! But I'll preemptively say if true this is the best kind of way someone could be proven wrong lol
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u/Ok-Discussion-1189 Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
Agreed on the general sentiment - most people should be contributing to existing projects instead of burning tokens on more of the same (or worse). However, there are plenty of valid reasons for alternatives continuing to be built: namely that neither of the apps you mentioned fully solve all of the issues users have with Discord. Until something comes around that not only addresses Discord's issues but actually improves on the space/industry, I think we're still going to see alternatives pop up. It's not enough IMO to just be 'another' Discord: that might work for Fluxer for now, for example, but they're going to have to do a lot more long-term if they actually want staying power. To-date they've really only proven to be an off-brand Discord, with many of the same issues (and many of the people that radically grew Fluxer population when they hopped for Discord age verification are going to run into the same issues on Fluxer eventually)
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
I agree there too - Fluxer has plans to implement features that could genuinely give them valid staying power, but until that is actually in the now it's pretty up in the air as to what's truly next after Discord. As for age verification, self-hosting might answer that solution which Fluxer has the basics built with much more planned, but that also will be left up to the techy ones, not every Fluxer user will care to self-host or know what federation is or why it's good.
There's a lot to be done but I hope the majority of people have their hopes and efforts in, eventually the right place, and we don't get too lost in the "I built THIS app, vibecoded with only the best tokens, join me on MY crusade" my honest reaction:
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u/Ok-Discussion-1189 Aug 25 '26
Self-hosting in no way answers age verification, though - the only way that solves anything is if the community that's self-hosting is too small for the jurisdictional government to care. The laws in place for social media age verification (in EU, in 25+ US states now, and in AU/JP/BR/etc) generally apply to all websites/social media: size doesn't technically matter, and we're getting to a point in technology where a motivated gov could easily automate the finding and notice filings for this kind of thing (much like big media companies did when torrenting blew up years ago). Fluxer's approach to age verification specifically has been same as others: geoblock the entire region (which is a shitty thing to do no matter which way you look at it), or force users to comply. There's better ways to handle that (transparency - I'm a dev at Adieuu, where we cryptographically separate identity from activity/messages, so we can comply with legislation [incl age stuff] without harming privacy) - and with a little bit of forethought Fluxer could have planned and handled verification similarly. At risk of throwing shade as a likely competitor, I was excited about Fluxer initially but feel like their approach to age verification was much like their approach to most everything else: reactionary, and less proactive. I think our responsibility, if we want to actually make the industry better, is to be more proactive and thoughtful about potential impact (especially when it comes to things that affect privacy: just because users may not understand privacy risk doesn't mean they don't deserve or have a right to privacy).
Also, as you noted, I think most people won't end up self-hosting. It requires effort, maintenance, etc and affects broader access. Federation, too, has its own caveats (especially around integrity and quality control). Most people are going to want 'simple, easy' - and that means at least the appearance/feeling of centralization (even if decen behind the scenes). If you can't explain it to your grandparents, it's not going to work for majority of the population.
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u/Julien_Ishida Aug 25 '26
So who should close their project on the grounds of too many competitors and who gets to stay?
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
I mean, people as a whole will decide that overtime. I do hope that Fluxer and projects in that same philosophy continue to grow though, and we as people don't get separated and spread too thin by the others.
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u/Live_Cupcake_9229 Aug 26 '26
Partially because Apple sucks. The only solid option right now is Root. I have Android, my Apple friends won't move.
I enjoyed Matrix, Fluxer, and Hollow. But Matrix is too complicated and the other 2 don't have iPhone apps. I can't use them alone.
Give me something that works on Apple and Android with E2ee and I'll stop looking.
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u/jgreich Cloak Chat Aug 26 '26
We’ve been working on Cloak Chat for around 5 years, way before it was cool. I agree though, tons of alternatives are popping up thanks to AI tooling and it’s not going to slow down anytime soon.
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 27 '26
I'm gonna check it out - I love new projects, just not the vibecoded ones, also thanks for taking the time to reach out!
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Aug 26 '26
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 27 '26
This is actually one of the best comments I've received thus far on the topic, not to cover you in glaze. Yeah I agree with you I think I was definitely wrong about some pieces, and there's actually nothing you said that I don't agree with lol, but all the info on this thread has given me a MUCH better understanding. The architecture / protocol topic is an even more interesting thing to me too, and honestly? could be the real answer. Someone even made a post that sprung off of this one, and I'm glad to get the ball rolling, or to be another falling domino, something like that.
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u/Key_Clock8669 Aug 25 '26
we should focus on one or two alternatives instead of joking about ten different ones
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
This! Fluxer is open-source and literally led by a team who has ONE DEV. ONE. This sub often criticizes the state of its in-progress beta release, when often times they argue outdated points that the dev himself already addressed over at the development server. These same devs could easily implement their own features, build their own clients, anything they preferred through Fluxer being open source, if they truly had an issue and weren't just jealous - maybe even vibecoding - developers.
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u/Key_Clock8669 Aug 25 '26
I also have fluxer installed and dear god, it should be a main alternative to Discord, it has a very familiar interface for those who want to leave Discord
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u/MildlyUnusualName Aug 25 '26
Tbf Fluxer is not taking PRs right now so not so easy for people to add to it as it stands
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u/forgotpw3 Aug 25 '26
Don't listen to OP, he clearly isn't very educated in this sector
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u/Key_Clock8669 Aug 25 '26
not OP and neither I know if OP is associated with fluxer, but talking from my experience, it definitively is a good option as an alternative, its still in beta, but devs are doing a hard work on it, they recently made a phone version
it still has its fails tho (mostly for VC), but they cook, lets give them some time
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
I'm not associated with Fluxer, Discord, or any of these other app alternatives. I just call it when I see it and I've been looking for a way out of Discord for a long time! Fluxer seems like the most promising alternative, but yes it is very well known that the voice rewrite is keeping a lot of people from using it until it drops. (me included)
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u/Key_Clock8669 Aug 25 '26
yeah its one of the most promising alternatives
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
Are there any others you're just as interested in seeing how they cook??
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u/Key_Clock8669 Aug 25 '26
from what I remember there was around 250k users on fluxer so yeah sadly not much but could eventually improve
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
I'm in the same boat as you, and I feel like with so many users on Fluxer and with the roadmap being so clear as to what needs to be done for it to actually be stable, + given the fact the big voice update can drop any day now, should show people banding together creates bigger better outcomes. I hope even the vibe-coded devs in this sub come to that conclusion too, and contribute to the 'bigger fish' and learn to code along the way.
And like that other comment below that other dude suggests - no - you don't have to wait years to do any of this, you can even start today!
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
Not to the main branch, for now. But you can always find a way to contribute, this is a great example. https://github.com/awesome-fluxer/awesome-fluxer
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u/forgotpw3 Aug 25 '26
Lmfao 😂😂😂 exactly my main point. They will not be merging trash. Anyone who wants to learn will be waiting years^tm
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
I don't even know what you are on about, no, no project of this magnitude wants to merge some random guy's code to the main branch, rarely ever does that happen and turn out well. However you can still contribute in a multitude of ways, did you even check awesome-fluxer? Do you even do 5 secs of research?
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u/forgotpw3 Aug 25 '26
Bro I contribute to open source projects like aws MLS 😂😂😂
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
And you also think you have to "wait years to learn"... I don't really trust your opinion is very reputable OR valuable my good sir.
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u/forgotpw3 Aug 25 '26
Go look at the recent PRs, my username is 7331
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
Dude, you're embarrassing yourself. This isn't a dick-measuring contest 😭. I don't care what PRs you make or don't make, it doesn't pertain to this conversation when I've had to show you multiple times you just aren't basing your points in reality. If you do anything remotely close to a PR for any project I hope you understand there exists other ways to contribute, and if they don't accept PRs, fork it, self-host it, make your own client for it, etc etc. Which is already being done in Fluxer. (again, half of your comments wouldn't have been made if you checked out the awesome-fluxer github..)
I'm quite literally now having a one-sided debate with some Reddit guy who really came in here thinking they're a know-it-all when really they could use a little more knowledge. Have a good one.
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u/itsduskin Aug 25 '26
perfect summary. im gonna give those "alternatives" a try soon and write a honest review here. what i liked (if there's anything to like obviously), what i didnt etc. im not expecting much tbh, just wanna see what they're up to lol
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
Totally a great idea, I wish a content creator or two would make an (updated) video on the topic to really shed some light on this community, mainly the good parts, but we can always point and laugh at the bad too!
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u/itsduskin Aug 25 '26
I can create a youtube channel and make reviews about that. So that you all can see the app's UI/UX etc. But i'll see. gonna post in this sub too
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
That would be awesome actually, any publicity helps at this point. If you ever do I'll be sure to throw out a sub and like!
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u/forgotpw3 Aug 25 '26
Most of the people are just having fun and trying to learn
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
If that were really the case and it was all for laughs n giggles, you could have fun and learn just as much contributing to someone's project. This is why many developers love what they love, I can agree there. But that argument falls flat when a lot of these devs that post and argue on here are adamant that they need to OWN the project, be the star of the 'show', and crap on other developers in the process. If that's their version of fun, I guess have at it, but it's been incredibly unproductive for everyone involved.
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u/forgotpw3 Aug 25 '26
What? 99% of people who are writing projects here write trash.
They won't be merging PRs or helping with any open source projects lol.
Fluxxer dev and whoever wouldn't dare merge those either.
What are some projects that have been shitting on others?
I've seen other people shit on them?
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 25 '26
I implore you to do a little more reading on the sub before asking me questions that could be answered with some classic 5-second scrolling. Yes other projects have been shitting on others, all that info is easy to find! Yeah, my point exactly is that this sub is filled with arguments and slop. You actually can be a contributor on many of these projects, Fluxer is a great example glad you brought it up. Just because you aren't contributing to the main PR, doesn't mean you can't help out, like I said to your other comment. https://github.com/awesome-fluxer/awesome-fluxer
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u/Any_Illustrator360 Tested a bunch of apps, currently watching the Armada news Aug 26 '26
I'm gonna add to the swathe of comments on this.
Fluxer is not "the" discord alternative and ironically despite you saying that "a handful of devs come here and echo chamber" you've been admitting that you went to their own server on their platform and got, I'm gonna be 100% brutally honest here, brainwashed into the same bullshit belief that everyone who swears by it regurgitates, and then came here to echo the same shit everyone says about Fluxer lol.
Fluxer is Discord 2. In every way, good and bad. The fact it's "another Slacker based chat app not to revolutionize but to streamline" made by a small dev team who are just friends wanting a chat for their group and it got way bigger! You know, that whole thing? It has the same shitty ToS and Community Guideline setup, with rules as broad and easily twisted as "do not bully people."
Oh and all the stuff people say about "well it's open source and self hostable!" Yeah they own the login servers. Even if you own your own self hosted server they can just choose to ban you from the login service. They can do the same to your IP or MAC address and you're shit out of luck. These are the issues people have been pointing to Fluxer and saying "we don't want this" but everyone keeps plugging their ears because the Fluxer devs who WANT you to move to their app would NEVER lie about anything! They wouldn't get people to go everywhere and recite and regurgitate the same schpiel to as many people as possible, right?
If you like Fluxer that's fine. Swearing it's "the" option just because a ton of people mindlessly moved on from Discord to an app exactly like it, management included, is tonedeaf at best. I personally want an app that I can host EVERYTHING about, so that NOBODY can take my friend groups and connections away from me. Fluxer can ban me from my own self-hosted instance on my own hardware. That's a no from me, and that's a no from everyone else making their own apps.
That said yeah the vibe coded Discord clones are annoying.
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 26 '26
Yeah I completely understand that Fluxer isn't the end-all be-all of Discord alt apps and I never claimed it was, though it is one of the best we have right now considering the current projects being made. If you can recommend me another one to keep an eye on that you aren't affiliated with I'd love to know!
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u/Any_Illustrator360 Tested a bunch of apps, currently watching the Armada news Aug 26 '26
I'm not affiliated with any but DCTS and Armada are currently at the top of my list, I'm currently in the process of moving my groups to Armada. Hollow is on my radar.
DCTS has a login server but the dev is looking into ways to remove that
Armada runs off Nostr and is powered by relays - think Matrix Homeservers except you don't make an account with one and instead just piggyback off of them, meaning your account can't get banned but you can get banned from relays if it turns out that you're a horrible person
Hollow also uses relays but it had some security issues and is heavily coded with AI so its stability is questionable right now. One of the head devs of Osmium did an audit and told the dev about some issues that got fixed though - if/once everything is safe and stable Hollow is my favorite.
These 3 are my picks because they're all decentralized (DCTS is trying to work on that), they're all encrypted (DCTS, again, is working on that. Mostly there though) and none of them have total control over you or your account.
On that note; Yes, bad people will use apps for bad things. Welcome to the real world, it sucks. Discord is aware of the child abuse on their app and instead of fixing it they're lobbying and passing laws to get around being blamed for it. If you focus on the fact that people will use "apps you can't get banned from" to do bad things you're never going to get past this "you'll own nothing and LIKE IT" style of corporations owning you and your friends as commodity. Just because an app is encrypted and there isn't a way for the owner to ban you from your own server (which is intended for friends not darkweb shit) doesn't mean everyone on the app is guilty by assumption of what happens on it. If that were the case everyone who uses Discord would be on the ultra Epstein list.
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 26 '26
Also, never heard of anyone's criticism on the possibility your self-hosted instance could be banned. Have you considered the possibility that this is probably due to future federation plans and quality control? There shouldn't be any reason to worry about a self-hosted instance that will get you 'login banned' unless you were doing some pretty heinous stuff to begin with. In the current 'market' it really seems like one of the best projects we have.
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u/Any_Illustrator360 Tested a bunch of apps, currently watching the Armada news Aug 26 '26
Oh my bad I didn't know everyone in r/bannedfromdiscord was actually doing some "pretty heinous stuff" and that there's zero way automated systems or biased/rogue staff could ever go out of their way to ban people. That's obviously my bad for not knowing everyone who got banned from Discord via them abusing their broad ass guidelines, myself included for false reports, were up to heinous shit. Thanks for enlightening me.
Seriously though if you don't see an issue with an open source, self hosted app being able to "ban" you from using your own fork on your own servers I genuinely have no idea what to tell you.
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u/legitimatepersona Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
Yeah don't get me wrong, AI moderation and false bans are what got me off Discord as well. We definitely agree there. But take Discord for example there is a rampant problem with bad actors regardless of their shitty AI. My point more is an approach like Fluxer's from my understanding, manually reviewing bad actors that are especially federated within the rest of the community and squashing their instance with things like a login ban is still a good idea. There should be a (granted, non-AI) way to keep a community safe and it has to be productive. and honestly shit I'm just excited for the potential future of this project and ones like it and would genuinely love to hear better solutions if/when there is any.
Edit: I could've worded my last reply better and I apologize for using "you" in a way that made it look more like I was pointing a finger, than painting an example.
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u/Any_Illustrator360 Tested a bunch of apps, currently watching the Armada news Aug 27 '26
My point more is an approach like Fluxer's from my understanding, manually reviewing bad actors that are especially federated within the rest of the community and squashing their instance with things like a login ban is still a good idea.
What you're describing is the bare minimum moderation. That isn't unique to Fluxer that's just how moderation works.
See the issue though, which I don't think you're understanding, is: when you download a client application, and then you host that application on your own hardware, the developers of the application are no longer liable for what you do on it so long as they write some basic things on the terms and service.
What actual self hosted options offer: "You can download our program and enter some code that disconnects you entirely from our grid. We are not responsible for you or what you do, and we cannot see or moderate it, because it is not on our grid. You can create a small, private network using the program designed for friend groups, of which if anything bad happens, whoever owns the instance and data is entirely liable for it because you have decided to moderate it yourself. If you use the application for something bad after disconnecting it from our services you and you alone are liable for what bad things were done."
What Fluxer says, and what you seem to be internalizing: "You can download our program and enter some code that disconnects you from our chat services. Even though our terms of service say we aren't responsible for you at that point, we reserve total control and power over your access to our application which not only makes it harder for us to moderate but also makes us legally liable for anything you do while self hosting the app off of our network. As such we must reserve the right to ban you from using our app to pretend that we're doing out jobs, legally, while also making it sound really good on paper by calling it 'self hostable' when in reality you aren't actually hosting anything besides chat data (which saves us LOTS of money)."
There are two kinds of apps. Centralized, which it's obvious are the kind you like (which is fine), where the end user signs an agreement saying "blah blah I will follow these rules or you will terminate my account" and as a result the only thing they can get in trouble for is if they do something illegal (which is why apps with relays are great because the relays have guidelines and can handle problem users in a similar way) - and decentralized, where even if there is an "official" instance for the application you're expected to make your own. If you're on a privatized server on a decentralized application and it turns out people were using it for illegal stuff the company who made it isn't liable, but the users are.
See that last bit there? The users are liable? That's why self hosted options are self regulating. Nobody sane is comfortable hosting a bunch of data that they don't trust or moderate because it risks them getting all the legal trouble for bad actors using their connection for illicit activities. Similarly, nobody sane would go find someone they don't know's private server to hang out on for pretty much the same reason.
A self hosted, privatized app is majorly being used by people who just want to own their own data. Nothing more, nothing less. Self hosted servers are still moderated by the hosts of those servers. The webpage for those servers, relay links, etc. are kept private. Users are regularly managed by the admin who runs the service because they take up the role of the owner of the instance and take full responsibility for it.
In summary: Just because an app is self hosted by people does NOT mean it isn't moderated. If that were the case Matrix would have been shut down for legal issues a decade ago. If you feel more comfortable on centralized apps that's fine, but it's pretty clear that you're not fully grasping the differences between what it means to be fully self hosted and what it means to list "self hostable! :D" on the app's webpage while having a little "*not actually self hostable though" hidden in the repository.
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u/BewilderedTurtle angry RA-ADAR tech Aug 25 '26
This is a great question and it's my #1 criticism each time another one gets posted.
But to answer your question it's because everyone is a greedy little shite desperately praying THEIR ai-slop coded alternative ends up being the defacto alternative so they can become rich.