this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
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The fascist noose is tightening the world over thanks to proprietary big tech. We have to escape now while we can to open-source alternatives.
Currently the best self-hostable, private (encrypted) and federated communication platform is XMPP/Jabber, which I recommend switching to as soon as possible.
Armed with an XMPP account, you will be able to log into any open Movim instance, which is an XMPP client that offers 90% of the features of Discord, including group video calls, group texts, and even screensharing with audio (must use a Chromium based browser currently to share the audio). The only feature missing is discord-style rooms, which the dev is currently working on to release as fast as possible.
For a more complete guide to swapping proprietary apps for safe open-source ones, I suggest referring to this post: https://lemmy.cafe/post/18663514
There isn't a way to have a "server" with "channels" like in Discord or Slack with XMPP/Jabber is there? I'm using Cheogram but it doesn't look like I can. It just seems like a messenging app alternative than a Discord alternative.
Edit: sorry, you addressed that in your comment.
This is a very subjective opinion. I consider XMPP to be useful for small groups that have a knowledgeable admin to offer help, but a poor fit for the unguided public if a rich feature set and long-term accounts are important. YMMV.
There isn't really any other option that is federated, has video calls and screensharing, and offers encryption besides Matrix/Element, which I've personally had a lot of usability problems with, and it's encryption has a concerning metadata issue and thus I don't really recommend it.
Not sure where a user would need admin help with Movim, it's pretty slick and user-friendly. I consider it the best working alternative that's using a proven back-end technology that we currently have available.
All other centralized alternative Discord clones on the market are generally still in an alpha or beta-stage, don't offer encryption at all, and use unproven back-ends that may not be able to scale to a large user-base. Where as the Movim client has been in development since 2010, allows for federation (like lemmy/piefed) to scale up, and is ready to use in the here and now.
Aren't you tired of spouting your nonsense?
I've already shown you how stupid you are in this thread, and you keep going!
https://lemmy.ca/comment/21700498
You're harmful to the community dude..
You should encourage people to join either ones, because in the end, both will end up using MLS.
Oh no, how did we use it for decades and were even able to talk to Google Chat users.
Your comment is rude and misleading at best.
The thing you're referring to was called Google Talk, introduced in 2005. XMPP was viable for the unguided public at that time mainly because Google Talk and Facebook Messenger were large public XMPP servers, with clients integrated as first class features in the world's largest social networking sites, supplementing the small independent servers to form a healthy ecosystem. This allowed anyone to easily discover the network, sign up to use it, and be confident that they and their contacts would remain reachable for more than a few years.
Google Talk was replaced in 2013 by Google Hangouts, bringing an end to their XMPP support. Facebook Messenger added XMPP support in 2010 and ended it in 2015. Jabber.org, which was the only significant independent host (but still relatively small), stopped offering new accounts in 2013. The healthy ecosystem vanished over a decade ago.
Also, the rich feature set being discussed here includes modern end-to-end encryption (OTR doesn't qualify), persistent message history with multi-device support, voice and video chat, and a variety of other things that were not supported by XMPP back then, if ever.
So no, you were not doing this with XMPP for decades.
You can get most of those features today if you have an XMPP server implementing a pile of specific XEPs on top of the base protocol, and if you and your contacts also use clients with the same extensions implemented just right. This might be great for a small group with a well-informed system admin, or for the tiny minority of people who might stumble into a service provider that makes it easy for them, but the vast majority of the unguided public are not going to navigate those waters successfully, and even those few who do will have no reasonable assurance that their accounts will last longer than summer vacation.
I miss Jabber's heyday, too, but to believe it can make a comeback is just wishful thinking. It doesn't have the support that would be required for that, and there's no sign that it ever will. That's why I don't recommend it outside of small groups.
Sorry about that! I didn't mean to offend you at all! The thing is, you’re spot on. So think of my comment as the rant of a bitter, nostalgic guy who lived through the days of XMPP, IRC, and all that, and saw what could be done. I just hold a bit of a grudge against the way instant messaging and chats are now. Everything’s locked into closed systems, it’s slowly turning rubbish, and decent solutions don’t catch on because they’re "too complicated", ignoring all the good stuff we'd get if we managed to get past the first hurdle.
I think we just found our common ground. :)
On the bright side: The general public (and some governments) are beginning to notice the importance of privacy and data sovereignty, more people are seeking out systems with distributed designs, and tools that address modern needs using those designs are slowly getting less complicated to use.
I hope we can keep our governments from criminalizing them.
Appreciate the comment but the problem is that the FOSS community is often preaching to the choir. We're here because we already love open source, if you want the average person to switch then there needs to be an alternative that at least decent to use. XMPP and Matrix are not that. Nobody unless tech nerds are able to use them.
Matrix I agree with, as I didn't have the best experience. But Movim makes XMPP pretty simple to use. Did you have a negative experience with Movim specifically?
I haven't used XMPP in ages but there isn't a big enough community there to warrant switching to it.
I imagine XMPP's ease of use has likely increased since the last time you used it, probably best not to judge it on such an old experience?
Currently none of the Discord alternatives have anywhere near the install base that Discord currently has, and many of the direct clones are so new they have literally none, like Fluxer. If an existing network effect is a requirement for the people trying to leave Discord, than they will be trapped for a very long time.
It's 2026. Let it go. It's not XMPP.
I only heard of and became an XMPP user within the last two years, I have no nostalgia for it. I do, however, believe it to be the best federated and encrypted communication platform due to its maturity and constantly improving feature set.
The only other federated option we have is Matrix (which I'm not a fan of for multiple reasons), and in the future Fluxer.app, which looks promising but is very much still alpha/beta software and is reliant on the developer getting enough funding.
Every other Discord-like communication platform is centralized and offers no encryption, which I don't see as a good idea to adopt in our modern political climate. Having a single point of failure is, IMO, just kicking the can down the road until we need to switch to something else again.
Matrix seems closer to me. XMPP has been ignored for 20 years. Fluxer might be good in a few months. Simplex is secure and fairly stable now but not a great discord replacement.
Personally I've had consistent problems with messages not un-encrypting in Matrix, requiring frequent re-sending of messages. I'm also not a fan of how much Metadata is shared across the Matrix network even with encryption, nor am I fan of the group who developed and funded it, or the willingness of the Matrix/Element team to sell their services to law enforcement.
Fluxer does indeed look very promising. If they can effectively pull off federation and encryption as the dev plans to do, I think that could be a great platform. Based on their more in-depth post about their background, they seem to have the talent to pull that off.
SimpleX I don't have any experience with, though as you say, it's covering a different use-case (I personally went with Deltachat for that type of app, which has been working really well).
Yeah matrix needs a refactor or fork. No good drop ins this month.
Simplex already has PQC enabled and makes metadata analysis a nightmare from a protocol level without Tor. Needs more optimization and super peers to fix a group delivery bug but surprisingly stable for something so new.
https://simplex.chat/
I wouldn't really trust a refactor if it was from the Matrix team. An outside fork I'd be okay with, but it'd probably break compatibility to fix the problems I have with it, possibly introducing fragmentation, which could get dicey.
I am 100% cool with a developer coup. The matrix devs are not serious people.
tbh, I feel like it'd be easier to just build up XMPP further at that point since the XMPP devs would welcome that with open arms, as opposed to a hostile fork with the Matrix devs.
It's going to end up decided by whoever gets something good enough for streamers to use professionally first. Maybe XMPP, ive just seen it fail at adoption so many times and matrix seems to be what has the most momentum