With Discord soon to implement universal age-verification as a requirement to interact among adult communities, many individuals are looking for alternatives with searches for such programs exploding over the past couple days.

We’ve put together a list of five potential alternatives to Discord that are relatively easy to use though don’t quite have Discord’s level of proliferation.

Why does this matter?

You might be asking yourself, “What’s the problem? Isn’t this about keeping kids safe?” and while that’s a laudable goal, information gathering like what’s required for age-verification is a potential threat to users privacy and safety.

To their credit, Discord has attempted to mitigate these issues by moving their facial verification to being client-side only, but that’s still not a guarantee of safety. Especially if the facial recognition fails and Discord asks for a government ID to continue. Last October, a third party vendor that assisted Discord in verifying ages to comply with the UK’s overly broad Online Safety Act experienced a cyberattack which allowed malicious actors to access uploaded government IDs.

Critics of these safety measures share concerns about privacy, and also point a finger at parents who either are unable or unwilling to monitor their childrens’ internet access and have important conversations with their kids.

With that said, here are five alternatives to Discord, all with varying levels of privacy and functionality.

Steam Chat

In true Valve fashion, we may be seeing another case of Valve winning because their competition shoots themselves in the foot. Steam Chat has always been there lurking beneath our glut of apps, it features group chats, game tracking, voice chat, many things that Discord offers.

We admit, that it might be a bit more difficult to join and find non-gaming related communities, but for anyone wanting to cut down on bloatware and you’re mostly gaming anyways? Go ahead and dust off the old Steam Chat.

Teamspeak

Teamspeak hasn’t been shy about dancing on Discord’s potential grave as it’s being dug (Discord can always walk back these changes).

Teamspeak offers a variety of familiar features such as voice calls, groups, but suffers from the issue of discoverability for less tight-knit communities. What it lacks in reach, it makes up for in privacy and functionality.

You can check out Teamspeak here.

Matrix

Matrix is a privacy-oriented and decentralized chat protocol that can be accessed through a variety of clients. This means that users have greater control over what they install on their machines and how the interact with others.

This also creates a higher barrier of entry than some of the other options on this list. But if you value your privacy and are a little tech savvy, Matrix might be the best place for your social circle.

You can check out Matrix here.

Signal

Signal is another privacy-oriented chat service and some users even use it to replace SMS for more security among friends. Unlike Matrix, Signal is a little easier to use and is more widely known.

However like most applications which focus on privacy, Signal also suffers from a lack of community discovery. This is a feature as much as it is a problem, less discovery means more privacy. However this amount of privacy makes Signal a great choice for existing friend groups or groups that advertise off-platform.

Signal is also unapologetic about their pro-privacy and anti-censorship stance. They released their own statement in response to the UK’s Online Safety Act back in 2023.

You can check out Signal here.

Stoat (formerly Revolt)

Stoat is a name that’s been thrown around amidst Discord’s recent controversy, and based on a quick look we can see why. Stoat offers a familiar user experience and many of the same features that Discord offers.

Despite being as user-friendly as it is, we haven’t seen any obvious security concerns which give us pause. We can’t find any obvious list of security features, but there is a promise on their store page which says the app is “privacy first” and doesn’t use external trackers.

If you want the most painless transition away from Discord, Stoat could be the answer you’re looking for.

Check out Stoat here.