Self-hosted alternatives to Discord

Voice/text community and chat, hosted by you. Below are 12 open source options you host on your own server — with no monthly per-user fee and full control of your data.

Mastodon

★ 50,053

Mastodon is a decentralized social network (the fediverse) where each server is independent and interconnected. By hosting your own instance, you set the community rules and no algorithm controls your feed.

Communication - Social Networks and Forums AGPL-3.0

Discourse

★ 47,306

Discourse is the modern forum and community platform, with topics, moderation and gamification. Self-hosted, it's the way to have your own discussion space without depending on social-media groups.

Communication - Social Networks and Forums GPL-2.0

Rocket.Chat

★ 45,690

Rocket.Chat is a complete communication platform (chat, voice, video) that puts data protection first. It's the self-hosted alternative to Slack for companies that need control and compliance.

Communication - Custom Communication Systems MIT

Novu

★ 39,184

Notification infrastructure for developers.

Communication - Custom Communication Systems MIT

Mattermost

★ 38,130

Mattermost is a secure team chat, similar to Slack, geared toward development and integrated with Git. Self-hosted, it keeps the company's conversations and files on your own infrastructure.

Communication - Custom Communication Systems ⊘ Proprietary

Chatwoot

★ 33,251

Chatwoot is a customer support hub (live chat, email, social media) in one place. It's the self-hosted alternative to Intercom and Zendesk, with no per-agent cost.

Communication - Custom Communication Systems ⊘ Proprietary

ntfy

★ 30,915

Push notifications to phone or desktop using HTTP PUT/POST, with Android app, CLI and web app, similar to Pushover and Gotify.

Communication - Custom Communication Systems Apache-2.0

Zulip

★ 25,389

Zulip is a powerful, open source group chat application.

Communication - Custom Communication Systems Apache-2.0

Apprise

★ 16,775

Apprise allows you to send a notification to almost all of the most popular notification services available to us today such as: Telegram, Discord, Slack, Amazon SNS, Gotify, etc.

Communication - Custom Communication Systems MIT

Flarum

★ 16,325

Delightfully simple forums. Flarum is the next-generation forum software that makes online discussion fun again.

Communication - Social Networks and Forums MIT

Answer

★ 15,562

Knowledge-based community software. You can use it to quickly build your Q&A community for product technical support, customer support, user communication, and more.

Communication - Social Networks and Forums Apache-2.0

Gotify

★ 15,165

Notification server with Android and CLI clients (alternative to PushBullet).

Communication - Custom Communication Systems MIT

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free self-hosted alternative to Discord?

Yes. We've gathered 12 self-hosted, open source alternatives to Discord — including Mastodon, Discourse, Rocket.Chat. You run all of them on your own server.

What is the best open source alternative to Discord?

Mastodon is one of the most popular (50,053 GitHub stars). The "best" depends on your case — compare the options below.

Do I need a server to replace Discord?

Yes. You can use a home server (homelab) or a cheap VPS (from ~€4/mo). See the hosting suggestions on this page.