Is there a #FOSS self-hosted version of discord?
What about something similar to twitch that does streaming?
One of the reasons twitch is popular is because it's easy to have your audience help support the cost of running your channel. So, systems for micropayment are also an area for possible future expansion.
Or are there technical hurdles or cost hurdles to building such things?
#OSS
This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)
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Mx. Eddie R
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •Payments are a problem because any time you touch real money you're dealing with 8000lb gorillas (Visa, MasterCard, Thiel's PayPal, Canada's 6 banks, etc) or with bogus "money" you're dealing with Nazis and other crypto grifters.
myrmepropagandist
in reply to Mx. Eddie R • • •@silvermoon82
You can do crypto transfers with python, it's very code-able, but none of the coins are stable enough to make this viable. And, of course, how do you get money into and out of the system?
I do think the payment network problem is important for the alternative web. Using patreon or paypay isn't great.
What about partnering with a credit union?
The problem with money is as soon as you make systems that do anything with money you are swarmed by grifters and need to be perfect.
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myrmepropagandist
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •DannekRose likes this.
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серафими многоꙮчитїи
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@silvermoon82 I've been trying to work out where GNU Taler sits in this zone: banks have KYC requirements which preclude some innovative stuff.
Maybe the trick would be to set up a fiscal edge node: i.e. a credit union which had the situational awareness and expertise to handle integrating and also working with free software people.
And that'd be a great hobby to do with all our free time and money! /s
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Billiglarper
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@silvermoon82
#Wero might become the next best thing?
www.wero-wallet.eu
It's kinda Paypal done by European banks (🇩🇪🇫🇷🇧🇪🇳🇱), without any fees.
Not sure if it will be available internationally.
But the two major German coop banking groups are on board, so that might be as good as it gets from a "power to the people" perspective.
Mx. Eddie R
in reply to Billiglarper • • •In Canada we have Interac email transfers. To and from any (?) Canadian bank account, low or no fee (some small banks still charge $5, I think?), but still subject to opinions of the 6 apex banks so have to be careful about sex and drugs and such.
myrmepropagandist
in reply to Mx. Eddie R • • •@silvermoon82 @billiglarper
That is so civilized. Meanwhile in the US they just eliminated the free electronic way to do your taxes.
Not to save money. So that you either have to do the form by hand OR pay one of the many "services" to do your taxes.
Why doesn't that make more people as angry as it makes me? I suppose most people still use the services. And it's just $100 bucks or so, going to whoever and NOT the government.
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myrmepropagandist
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@silvermoon82 @billiglarper
You don't have to just pay taxes. You have to pay the tax collector too.
Mx. Eddie R
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •Yeah, the tax-paying situation is ridiculous here, too. Not as bad, but bad.
Then there's the Nordic countries, where once a year you get a form from the revenue service that says "This look right? Anything to add? Sign here" and your taxes are done.
Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •"Why doesn't that make more people as angry as it makes me?"
What are you going to do, if you support the idea of a state? Once you accept a state you accept that it can do whatever it wants, in practice, because the alternative is no state and you don't want that.
In this case it's like the state wants you to pay $100 in taxes to a state crony. So yes, historically all states are corrupt. It's a better use of your taxes than funding the military.
myrmepropagandist
in reply to Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ • • •@richpuchalsky
Sometimes when the state does things people get angry about it. I don't see how this answers the question.
Are you saying it can't be changed? That isn't true. There is a great deal of inertia and other issues that compete for attention and time. But, there is a principle here:
There should not be third party fee for basic government services and interactions.
I am wondering if this value exists for many people.
Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •"Sometimes when the state does things people get angry about it."
I think that this gets absorbed into the general, and politically not fruitful, anger that people always feel about paying taxes.
I don't see any principle in this case at all. The state can do whatever it wants, like commit genocide. Since people don't care or can't do anything about the genocide why stand on principle about some corruption.
걸밴드 괴짜 GIRLBANDGEEK
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •Log 🪵
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •cuan_knaggs
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myrmepropagandist
in reply to cuan_knaggs • • •@mensrea @silvermoon82 @billiglarper
There is *no reason* why it couldn't work this way in the US. Or rather there is no rational reason other than a deliberate ongoing pressure to make all government services and interactions terrible lest the people start liking anything about the process.
And the people who say "we need to privatize* it" are often behind the poor service, and deliberate Obfuscation.
*Think of the last time you were on hold. Are private companies "better"? No.
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Patrick Lam
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@mensrea @silvermoon82 @billiglarper no reason except for lobbying. propublica.org/article/inside-…
NZ being a mostly reasonable country also has the "we'll tell you what your taxes are" approach.
Inside TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans From Filing Their Taxes for Free
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der.hans
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@mensrea @silvermoon82 @billiglarper There is one reason, Grover Norquist.
But, you're right, Norquist isn't rational.
Phosphenes
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •There should be a Federal tax boycott.
1. Fed taxes are the financial foundation of the oppression machine now.
2. Every service we pay taxes *for* is being dismantled.
3. The regime stupidly crippled the IRS and its ability to go after tax evaders, let 300 million at once.
And now they're making it harder to pay taxes anyway. So fuck 'em.
toerror
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •Diane
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@silvermoon82
I have thought GNU Taler could be interesting for payment handling.
taler.net/en/index.html
It's a system designed to provide a digital cash like protocol, in use it might actually be kind of like poker chips. It using a form of cryptography to implement it, but it's not a proof of work system like the right wing cryptocurrencies.
Customers would buy tokens from an issuer with some currency, be able to anonymously purchase items from vendors using those tokens, who then can deposit the tokens with a transaction log, and be able to redeem them for the original currency.
The developers have done some test deployments at an EU university and they've got some prototype django websites and android apps available.
I suspect the next actions are doing security review of the code, find a pool of people interested, and figure out governance and business organization issues.
I think doing modest purchases like the prices for I see for quick art commissions or donations (<$40) to a stream probably could be set up with a small business
But to really roll it out my guess would be to found a credit union, and then that could offer issuing taler tokens to it's community
Here's the NCUA documentation on founding a credit union, and they recommended figuring out your community and raising about $500,000 USD to be able to start.
ncua.gov/regulation-supervisio…
GNU Taler - Taxable Anonymous Libre Electronic Resources
www.taler.netmyrmepropagandist
in reply to Diane • • •@alienghic @silvermoon82
This is so cool! I've never even considered the concept of a local non-profit credit union ... you know not for old people. The focus should be digital payment independence.
I assume if you try to do this someone from Mastercard comes to your house and beats you up. But I just found my old bike lock and it is very heavy.
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myrmepropagandist
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@alienghic @silvermoon82
I think key to making this work would be having many limits on size of accounts and to keep it local so you know who is in it.
And never lend any money.
hmmm
Diane
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@silvermoon82
I absolutely think something like my work campus's stored value card would be a great use case for Taler.
For a while we could deposit money on our ID cards and then spend it at stuff like the coffee shop or the library photocopiers.
I think that's a good low risk situation to experiment with Taler.
Also one their, demos included issuing a fictitious currency "Kudos" which you could spend on FOSS projects.
So I bet one could also make up an ARG game that uses fake currency issued via Taler as digital playing pieces, for a really low risk way of experimenting.
Daniel Lakeland
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@alienghic @silvermoon82
>But I just found my old bike lock and it is very heavy.
LOL, your family and online friends are very lucky to have you.
myrmepropagandist
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@silvermoon82
When my mom became interested in bitcoin I decided to learn about it because the way that my mom works is if she wants to know about something she will get into it and you can do it with her... or she will do it on her own. I wanted to keep her safe.
So I learned how the whole thing works. I had some bitcoin left over from years ago and set up a wallet for her. We did transfers with my own code in terminal.
Fun mother-daughter bonding!
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myrmepropagandist
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@silvermoon82
We had to use coinbase to get the money out and that annoyed me. The alternative was going on facebook and using shady "cash for bitcoin in person" groups. *shudder*
But I can see why people had utopian ideas about the technology.
Mx. Eddie R
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •myrmepropagandist reshared this.
crazyeddie
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@silvermoon82 USDC is stable enough and Solana is maybe an OK solution.
Getting it in and out though, THAT is a huge problem in the USA. First, you have to use an exchange unless you want to find someone that'll trade money for coin (very possibly a criminal). They are all owned and run by terrible people. Then there's the KYC process, which is entirely automated by AI.
Could maybe partner to create a better USDC option for people. Something with real customer support and shit.
myrmepropagandist
in reply to crazyeddie • • •@crazyeddie @silvermoon82
Could this be a credit union service?
crazyeddie
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@silvermoon82 Probably. I'm not sure what, if any regulations are around USDC. Circle is the company that is mainly behind that one.
Theoretically anyone could take in USD and put out a token they promise can be cashed for USD. Getting people to accept it though...
I would really like an actual bank account that held USDC but the choices there are VERY limited in the US. You may need to get e-residency somewhere for that, though I did find a CU a couple hund miles away that may
Jürgen Hubert
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •I looked into streaming some months ago, and some #Peertube instances seem to allow it. There is also #Owncast , but that looked like too much effort for my purposes.
I don't know of any #Fediverse equivalent of #Discord , however.
🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •Reverend Elvis
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Lightfighter
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •Gib 🐒🌈🇺🇦
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •The problem with twitch is the enormous bandwidth and computing power needed to distribute the stream all over the world in close to real time. Chat-interaction seems to bring many people to the platform. And that gets increasingly difficult the longer the delay between streamer and viewer becomes. Open P2P platforms start with an extreme disadvantage in that regard.
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Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Gib 🐒🌈🇺🇦 • • •@Gib 🐒🌈🇺🇦 @myrmepropagandist I disagree with your initial assessment. Discord's value proposition isn't its IRC-like channel feature or built-in video/audio chat, but the seamless Single Sign-On experience once you've created your account when you want to join an additional server. Until this is possible with Revolt (and this post in the same thread suggests it isn't yet), Discord won't be easy to replace.
xyhhx
2025-08-04 12:40:23
der.hans
in reply to Gib 🐒🌈🇺🇦 • • •Benji Mauer
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •xyhhx
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •ive got experience with this. frankly, most of the other replies are not good
for discord, matrix and revolt. revolt is an attempt at a discord clone directly, but isnt federated or e2ee iirc. matrix is, and supports video calls; but it's not a 1:1 copy, is a pain to host, provides little in the way of moderation tools. for matrix, the best client is cinny for a discord-like experience
for twitch, people will suggest owncast and openstreamingplatform - theyre woefully inadequate if you want a twitch-like experience unless you're ready to make lots of changes. that said, there is a new attempt at a federated twitch alternative i saw the other day. ill try to find it again
Sven Slootweg ("still kinky and horny anyway")
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •Sensitive content
I've looked into this sort of stuff a few times, and have come to the same conclusion pretty much every time: none of the payment infrastructure (both technical and legal) is remotely built for self-hosting.
Even if you add support for a particular reasonable-API-having payment provider, or even multiple, it's always going to limit who can actually use that feature due to region-specific coverage, sanctions, and so on. And even if that somehow works out, under a lot of circumstances you take on additional tax liabilities by actually doing so because payment processors simply will not give you an account without a company registration, usually. Not to mention all the verification processes.
Specifically for micropayments there's an additional problem: platforms can make these happen because they do a single charge for multiple bundled payments (to different creators), or even just operate a prepaid balance thing (which itself also has extra tax liabilities). This is necessary because most payment methods have base per-transaction costs that are like $0.50, so anything smaller than $2 isn't even really worth processing. But when you self-host, there's nothing to bundle *with* and so that's going to eat into your revenue significantly.
So... is it *possible* to integrate payments and/or donations into FOSS software? With a lot of effort and headaches, yeah, possibly. Can it be competitive financially/administratively with the big platforms if you do? Probably not.
FoolishOwl
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •People ask about FOSS alternatives to Discord a lot, and there really isn't a viable alternative. The main things Discord has going for it are a common interface for text, voice, and video chat, and a good set of moderation tools. I can't think of anything else that does all that.
The most frequently mentioned candidate is Matrix, but Matrix has many problems. It has practically no moderation tools, and while ostensibly designed for self-hosting, has exceedingly high resource usage.
Jess👾
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@jerry supports a number of payment processors for funding infosec.exchange
I mean, every credit card processor is their own brands of bad. The "least bad" for US donations IMO is Zelle, since it's basically just a bank to bank money transfer though it requires your bank supporting it, and many of them don't allow for a recurring payment. But at least the fees are just payed for by the banks, not adding an extra payment to visa / MasterCard / random fin tech or payment platform etc.
@futurebird
Get more from Infosec.Exchange on Patreon
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DannekRose
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •As purely informational, PeerTube has optional monetization plugins, but the only one of those plugins I feel is viable currently is a premium content plugin that works with a Stripe account to accept payment for a subscription. PeerTube has live streaming but is harder to self-host than Owncast. I currently use PeerTube now but have used Owncast before.
As for Discord alternatives, I think XMPP with the Movim front end works well. It’s way more lightweight than Matrix and allows you to also blog with it if you want. There are some easy to self host XMPP servers.
Someone already mentioned webmonitization which is powered by Interledger which I agree could offer some options, but I think it needs a lot of buy-in from a LOT of financial institutions before it gets to a point that it could offer a way to survive financially for users. I don’t know too many details though.
George B
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •To the monetization question specifically: I have seen that pixelfed is planning on integrating webmonetization.org/ for monetization.
It looks like that's a draft standard but if it does start to take off, it would make a huge difference in the space.
Web Monetization
webmonetization.orgity [unit X-69] - VIOLENT FUCK
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •payment processing is essentially a no go besides pretty much just paying a company a lot of money to do it for you because payment processors do not allow sensible usage
Also there's tax issues and whatnot
That is all to say, most folks just stay away from payment things. The only thing possible to impl without paying anyone is cryptocurrency.
As for FOSS discord, there are many attempts. I wouldn't say any had success.
As for streaming, it's a pretty difficult problem. Huge amounts of bandwidth needed, depending on how many concurrent streams you want.
Nazo
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •People have already mentioned Matrix and Revolt. These are definitely the closest to Discord in the way that Discord works.
I do want to add that Discord is a modern thing that in many ways actually isn't so different from the ancient tech of IRC. IRC was text only, whereas Discord and the similar things can implement media, but otherwise the basic mechanisms weren't so dissimilar. (There were still methods of transferring files, but they're P2P, so require open ports and didn't embed.)
Revolt is probably the closest to being a viable competitor to Discord. Matrix is better in some ways, but doesn't seem to be taking off.
I'm not sure what could truly replace Twitch or Youtube or etc. The bandwidth those things use today is wild. Owncast/etc are for small scales.
Seph
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •myrmepropagandist
in reply to Seph • • •@melivia
It's to tickle those kinds of ideas that I keep bringing this kind of thing up.
estelle
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •in the mid-2000s, that would be irc and shoutcast (and if you wanted live chat you'd just run the channel name in your stream somewhere and people will join)
if you needed a bigger pipe, someone runs a relay and the audience connects to that instead
somehow, technology has gone _backwards_ from there
jeremiah
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •There's revolt.chat
Their GitHub has a repo for self hosting the server. When I used it, it felt very similar to Discord. I opted to not use it for our migration because being able to use the app with multiple services was a goal, so we went XMPP (a ton of tradeoffs with this too).
Revolt - Find Your Community
revolt.chatDale Hagglund
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •If it's been mentioned already, I apologize for the repetition, but as far as an alternative for discord, maybe check out www.discourse.org? I know little about it, at least in any detail, but it's a modern take on forum software. You can pay for hosting, but it appears to be open source and self hostable. Also, you can start with paid hosting to experiment with it and migrate to self hosting later if desired with, I believe, help from their support team, although I suspect that support isn't included in the basic plan.
One of the cofounders is Jeff Atwood, @codinghorror, who can no doubt correct any egregious errors I've made above.
Jeff Atwood
in reply to Dale Hagglund • • •Michael K Johnson
in reply to Dale Hagglund • • •@DaleHagglund @codinghorror Discourse is open source forum software to which chat functionality has been added; Discord is a chat service to which forum functionality has been added. The difference shows in the implementation.
Discourse is open source and well maintained. It's thoughtfully designed to help foster and grow a community. It's not hard to self-host, and there are multiple sources of full-service hosting. It has a Subscriptions plug-in that integrates with Stripe I think, though I haven't deployed it myself.
Unlike with WordPress, the company that builds Discourse (Civilized Discourse Construction Kit) works actively and cooperatively with multiple third parties that host and extend Discourse, including recommending their services and even sponsoring outside parties' work on the code.
It's a really shining example of how to do open source right.
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myrmepropagandist
in reply to Michael K Johnson • • •@mcdanlj @DaleHagglund @codinghorror
Can it support real-time chat with video? How good is at doing that?
Michael K Johnson
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@DaleHagglund @codinghorror Discord does not have video chat built in; the integrated chat feature is text chat. The plug-in ecosystem supports both major open source video chat platforms I'm aware of:
meta.discourse.org/t/jitsi-vid…
meta.discourse.org/t/bigbluebu…
I have not used either, so I don't have experience with deploying them, but they are available. If I were starting out from scratch today to build something like this for a community site, based only on my gist of what I remember hearing/reading from others, I'd try jitsi first.
In both cases, you need to follow the documentation for the chat platform (Jitsi or BigBlueButton) to set it up for self-hosting, then use the plug-in to integrate it into Discourse.
Jitsi Video Conference
Discourse MetaJeff Atwood
in reply to Michael K Johnson • • •Netux
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •prom™️
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •mcc
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •there are several OSS discord-likes, the one I use is Matrix/Element. The dev team for "Tusky" makes heavy use of self hosted Matrix. Everyone I know who runs Matrix servers complains about the product quality tho.
The open source Twitch alike I'm currently trying out is stream.place . I've done one successful stream there already. The one thing I don't like is it is partially built on top of Bluesky which creates awkwardness.
Stream.place
stream.place