Best Discord Alternatives in 2026

Group chat that’s all fun and games — and communities.

FreemiumFree (Nitro $9.99 / Monthly) About Discord

Discord Alternatives & Competitors

We've listed 3 alternatives to Discord. The top competitors are: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom.

What the community says

MixedUpdated July 2026

Discord is genuinely loved as a real-time hangout for voice and community, and a sizeable group finds the UI perfectly fine and the free tier sufficient. The two complaints that keep resurfacing are monetization — Nitro upsells and the newer ads — and that Discord swallowed the public forum, locking community knowledge in a silo that search engines can't reach.

“I'm always surprised to hear people hate Discord's UI. I think it's fine.”
via Hacker News →
“Let me preface this by saying I use Discord daily to keep in touch with friends. It's a great digital campfire where you can relax with people, talk with them over voice and video or just post random stuff.”
via Hacker News →
“The fact that forums got replaced by discord for "support" is a net loss for humanity, as discord is not searchable (to my knowledge).”
via Hacker News →
“Their nitro and ads is the most toxic nonsense stuff I have ever had the displeasure to work with.”
via Hacker News →

Sourced from public discussions about Discord. Excerpts are verbatim and link to the original thread. Community sentiment never affects whether a product is listed — how we work.