this post was submitted on 14 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 private (encrypted) and federated Discord alternative is Movim, which I highly recommend people switch to as soon as possible (the Dev is currently working on discord-like channels with rooms).
For a more complete guide to swapping proprietary apps for safe open-source ones, I suggest referring to this post: https://slrpnk.net/post/23012609
iirc OMEMO doesn't scale well compared to Megolm for large communities
Dude I just spent 10 mins trying to get the thing to let me make an account. It kept saying my username didn't fit the format requirements, but then didn't tell me what the format requirements were.
Try creating an account here, then use that login to log into the Movim (you can use any XMPP/Jabber account created anywhere to log into any open Movim instance, similar to how any Lemmy user can use their account to login to the Photon front-end).
That's certainly unfortunate that it isn't giving you a useful error. I'm not sure why it says that. I tried creating an account there with a similar username to yours, and it was created no problem on the main movim.eu instance.
Are you using a VPN?
That shouldn't factor in any way with web tech just as the color of my underwear doesn't.
Am I supposed to bookmark the website on Android to use Movim?
It's a PWA, so you should be able to open your browser menu and click 'add to homescreen' to make it feel more like a dedicated app.
There are also dedicated XMPP apps for Android and iOS that aren't yet as full-featured as Movim, but are still compatible with the parts that are implemented (usually all the texting and calling parts, but maybe not video or screensharing).
Alternative link for the guide, since slrpnk is currently down for a bit.
There's this open-source, but centralized, one that doesn't allow NSFW (so as to not have to deal with age verification):
https://nerimity.com/
I have an account there, but I'm not active (my producer, Neigsendoig [he goes by Sendo on there] is). It's also Free Software, like Movim is.
Hm, at least on their homepage, they don't mention the ability to do group video calls or screen sharing, do you know if it's a complete replacement for Discord's feature set? The reason I recommend Movim specifically is that the only features its missing compared to discord are the rooms, and it cannot yet share application audio when screen sharing (but should come later).
Movim is also built on the battle proven XMPP framework, which also allows for easy self hosting and access to the wider existing XMPP community.
There are some sort of group calls, both video and audio, but it's mainly a one-man project with contributions by those savvy enough in the community.
It's essentially a mixture of features from Discord, Stoat (Revolt), and Guilded, but made in their own unique way.
It seems like a cool little project, and I appreciate that it's GPL licensed, but I'm afraid without federation, it can't quite fulfill the same role that Discord does, as they would need a sudden dramatic increase of funding to be able to support a large userbase on a centralized server, and having another centralized point of failure is really inadvisable, IMO. A big reason for Lemmy/piefed's success is distributing resource useage across multiple independent servers, and that model translates quite well to a Discord like app too.
The project is also so new (11 months old) that it hasn't had adequate time to prove that the codebase could scale to a high user count. It's in a similar position to Fluxer.app, which is another GPL Discord clone, but one that is open to adding in federation at a later date.
I also think XMPP's encryption abilities are pretty essential going forward, as governments and corporations are becoming more invasive into monitoring our communications.