Still closed source proprietary software, but good for them.
this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
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Still better than Discord's age verification
Until it's just as bad. Just move to Stoat (formerly Revolt) or Fermi.chat and save yourself the headache of another centralized platform going to shit.
Neither of those have working audio channels yet right?
I've been following Stoat, their documentation states that self hosted voice channels don't work (I think their official server does though), and also you have to recompile their client software to hard code the link to your server.
That feels so much like niche coder hobbyist hurdles that I really doubt people en masse would make the switch by themselves.
Yeah I'm really hoping they just add a button in the client to connect to a custom server (like how Bitwarden works), as well as actually update the self hosting images and instructions. I've been keeping tabs on them for almost a year now, and still no progress on that front.
Oh yeesh. Sounds like it's got a good way to go before regular use becomes viable
Stoat seems to, though I've not actually tested it. But my system audio devices showed up in the browser client as inputs, so that's a good sign that something is there.
As someone else said, stoat isnt federated. It also doesnt have E2EE. Meaning in practice, you are still using a centralized service that can enshitify. You could self host, but your friends aren't going to switch to your small self hosted instance if everyone is on the central server.
I tried to set one up but a bunch of people had trouble even signing up. I'm finding Element (Matrix) is less troublesome so far.
That's good to know. I sincerely appreciate you sharing your experience
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Jesus, it's like !anythingbutmetric@discuss.tchncs.de: MFs will really do anything to avoid switching to an alternative that's actually Free Software.
Is there a free software with voice chat and screen sharing? I am searching for one.
Matrix has VC, but not sure about screen sharing.
I think Jitsi Meet can do screen sharing, but that's a separate platform from Matrix dedicated to video calls, although I think Matrix clients can integrate with it IIRC.
I will definitely check out jitsi. Thanks man!
Element call (Matrix) has screen share, Signal does as well.
Apparently it doesn't really support audio with screen sharing. I do want to share the audio as well so i can watch youtube and stremio with friends
I havent tried it myself so I can't verify but is this the same problem/situation in this github issue?
https://github.com/element-hq/element-call/issues/3142
If it is someone supposedly posted a solution.
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That looks interesting, and since it's licensed under GPL I do genuinely hope it's successful,
It'll have to prove that it can eventually scale at least as well as the battle proven XMPP protocol (apparently the main Fluxer server is already experiencing lag from the sudden growth its gotten after the discord announcement). And it'll be competing with the Movim XMPP client (which may reach feature parity with Fluxer soon). But I do wish the dev luck. They seem pretty chill, and with more contributors, I could see it taking on Discord.
This seems very promising. It's a self hosted discord. Basically exactly what I was searching for. It looks like it's a bit buggy for now but I will test it when I get home.
Looks interesting!
The new element call has both but has not been implemented in all clients yet
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Team speak? What year is it?
I remember hosting a teamspeak server for folks I played Wolfenstein: ET with. In the early 2000's.
Next week, let's bring back Ventrilo!
Vi sitter här i venten...
I'm still stuck on Mumble.
Mumble is great for VC tbh, doesn't really do anything else well though but I use it for VC
Mumble is great. I don't think there's anything with better voice quality.
I hope Element Call comes close when it's out of beta. Using a single app for both text and voice chat would be slightly more convenient than using two.
xFire, please.
I was just thinking about xFire the other day, randomly. Maybe it's a sign!
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What's next, Ventrilo?
Vi sitter här I venten och spelar lite DotA (I hear you, man)
Having tried it:
Voice chat is flawless
Video chat/streaming is arguably better than discord*
Text chat leaves a LOT to be desired. Its there, I guess.
*on linux YMMV
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good because it looked like it was designed in the 1940s
Have they released the server parts of TS6 yet? Last I checked, it wasn't available on the download page.
https://github.com/teamspeak/teamspeak6-server
Beta License: The server includes a 32-slot Beta License that will be renewed every two months throughout the beta/evaluation period, until licensing and pricing are finalized.
Additionally, it is not yet possible to obtain or upgrade to a larger license for TeamSpeak 6.
Ah, good point
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I'm looking for a self hosted chat server to build and run, but a web ui is critical to my use case, and from what I can see TS6 still won't have that. I am done trying to convince people to install a new app. Revolt (now StoatChat) seems to do what I want but setup is kind of complicated if you don't want to use the included Caddy config (I already have a reverse proxy that I'd prefer to use over Caddy, for example).
Anyone know of more mature projects similar to revolt/stoat, or is that my best bet?
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Reading their site has me a little confused. Do you have to pay to rent a server if all you want to do is make a group to voice chat with a few friends?
That’s how the internet used to work, back before investor money came in and made operating at an insane loss a valid way to run a business. To avoid it you could self-host, which usually involved some networking knowledge.
That or skype
Ah, those good old days...
My understanding is that you have to pay a software license to access the server software, then you have to figure out where and how to host that server yourself.
The client is free.
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