Initially crafted for gamers, the Discord app has evolved into a universal community hub. From casual talks to serious workplace communication it's the go-to platform for diverse groups. With its high stability and a plethora of supported platforms, it's easy to see why many people leverage Discord as their primary communication tool. Yet, there's a world beyond, with chat apps offering unique spins on group interaction, waiting to be explored.
Whether your goal is building a robust community, connecting with colleagues, finding a business-centric platform in 2024, or simply connecting to Steam chat, exploring the alternatives to Discord listed below could pave the way for better engagement and productivity.
Why consider a Discord alternative?
While Discord is a popular platform amongst the gaming community members, there are several reasons why you might want to explore other options. Here are some key points to consider:
Diverse features: Discord alternatives offer a wide range of features tailored to different needs. Whether you're part of a bigger community looking for a chat-centric productivity app, a secure communication platform with video call capabilities, or a solution with easy integration, there's an alternative out there for you.
Business-centric solutions: While Discord initially gained popularity among community builders due to its voice chat clarity, there are now many alternatives that focus on providing features specifically tailored for businesses, with additional security measures in place — such as instant messaging.
Special offerings: Each alternative has its own unique offerings and strengths, not available on Discord, such as end-to-end encryption, self-hosting options, task management capabilities, and seamless integration with other business tools.
When choosing alternatives to Discord, businesses should consider the tool's functionality, service, and overall completeness from the following perspectives:
Security: Prioritize the security measures offered by the suite, such as end-to-end encryption, two-factor authentication, and data privacy policies. Ensure the suite meets your organization's security requirements. This becomes crucial for voice call, text chat, screen sharing and instant messaging.
Scalability: Consider the suite's scalability, especially if your business is expected to grow in the future. Ensure the suite can accommodate an increasing number of users and provide additional features as your business expands.
Integration: Assess the suite's integration capabilities with other essential business tools and software. Seamless integration can enhance productivity and streamline workflows by allowing data and information to flow seamlessly between different applications.
Ease of Use: Choose a suite that is user-friendly and intuitive, as this will contribute to faster user adoption and minimize the learning curve for your team members. A straightforward interface and easy navigation are crucial for efficient collaboration.
Mobile Accessibility: If your team members work remotely or are frequently on the go, consider a suite that offers robust mobile accessibility. This ensures that users can access the chat and collaboration features from their smartphones or tablets, enabling productivity from anywhere.
Customer Support: Evaluate the suite's customer support options, such as documentation, tutorials, and responsive customer service. Reliable support can help troubleshoot issues quickly and ensure smooth operation of the collaboration suite.
Cost: Consider the pricing structure of the suite and evaluate its value for your business. Compare the offered features to the costs to determine whether they fit your budget and offer a good return on investment.
Considering these factors can help you make an informed decision when choosing a group chat application. Now, let's explore some of the top Discord alternatives and their standout features.
1. Lark as a chat-centric productivity app
Lark is a comprehensive platform designed to provide a unified solution for team collaboration and communication. It is specifically crafted for professional interactions, making it an excellent choice for businesses of any size.
Ideal for teams and companies seeking a centralized workspace to enhance productivity and collaboration, Lark places chat at the center of collaboration across desktop and mobile. This ensures that teams, whether working at a desk or in the field, can seamlessly carry out their work throughout the day without juggling different apps. As a result, Lark serves as a robust alternative to Discord, catering to an audience in search of a more business-oriented application.
Lark’s powerful chat feature feed allows teams to:
Connect with anyone: Whether it's your front office or your corner office, everyone can use Lark for work-related communication. This allows your IT team to manage both onboarding and offboarding using just one application, rather than 10 separate ones. You can easily collaborate with any colleague by simply searching for their name in Lark.
Group chat as your productivity hub: Lark's group chat feature offers a comprehensive range of customization options, such as pinned tabs, threaded conversations, emoji reactions, in-group meetings, and rich text formatting. This enables teams and their internal or external counterparts to communicate in an organized and expressive manner, while accessing important context through a complete chat history and pinned content, all within the chat feed.
Build a community using topic groups: Lark's topic groups feature allows users to create communities where they can brainstorm, give feedback on products, and share ideas. By subscribing to topics, commenting on them, and sharing them, users can engage in focused and contextual discussions, making it easier to identify and implement the best ideas.
Why Lark?
Truly all-in-one: Lark combines personal and group chat, video conferencing, online documents, project management, business workflows, approvals, business email, calendars, attendance, and more into one place. This saves businesses and teams time and money by eliminating the need to toggle between different apps while sending direct message to colleagues and allowing them to focus on what matters most. Additionally, Lark offers robust integration with existing business tools, enhancing their power even further.
Friendly for all types of workforces: Lark is designed with a mobile-first approach, ensuring that users have a consistent experience whether on desktop or mobile. With just a few taps on their phones, users can edit and comment on documents, join meetings, follow presentations, and complete frontline work such as inspections and issue submissions. Frontline teams and busy business travelers do not need to rely on laptops for productivity.
Customizable to every business: Lark offers highly customizable solutions for businesses to streamline workflows through automation and centralize business data. For instance, Lark Base automates work processes like purchase order management, creator management, and inspection tracking. Lark Approval enables businesses to create their own approval flows, simplifying the process with automatic reminders and easy approval on mobile devices.
Accelerate global collaboration: Understanding the challenges posed by time zones, languages, and cultures, Lark incorporates a range of solutions to facilitate collaboration across these barriers. Real-time translation is built into chats, documents, and meetings to ensure teams can understand each other without having to learn a new language from scratch. Time zone checkers and powerful Minutes solutions save your colleagues from red-eye meetings and allow them to catch up on what's happening during their respective working hours.
Lark Pricing
Lark is free for up to 50 users, and this offer includes a complimentary business email. Full chat histories, video conferencing, chats, project and task management, and business processes all in one place. Pro and Enterprise users have access to additional storage, watermark features, more automation runs, and other functions that enable efficient collaboration at a larger scale for teams.
2. Slack for group chats and quick huddles
Slack — known for being the go-to communication tool is a renowned player in the group chat arena, offering a plethora of features such as video calling, multiple channels, aimed at amplifying team collaboration. It's a robust platform with integration capabilities with other business tools that make it a reliable choice for many companies. Slack can be used by companies of all sizes, from startups to multinational enterprises.
A great Discord alternative, Slack provides a few key functions for users to connect, exchange, and collaborate, such as:
Flexible channel organization: Teams can create different channels to separate conversations by purpose, ensuring that collaboration is more organized.
Convenient partner connectivity: Slack Connect enables organizations to easily connect with their partners, such as agencies, suppliers, and more, and communicate in the same channel. This reduces response time and enhances collaboration.
Quick huddles to accelerate collaboration: Slack allows users to start a "huddle" from a chat, initiating a quick meeting for teams to discuss and align on work in real-time when everyone has a minute.
Slack's free version offers users access to the most recent 90 days of chat history, basic permission controls, and support for up to 10 integrations with other apps. On the other hand, the Pro, Business+, and Enterprise Grid plans provide full chat histories, enhanced external collaboration capabilities, and the ability to create workflow builders to varying extents. Great for teams that want to ramp up their project management game. See more Slack alternatives here.
3. WhatsApp for personal and customer conversations
WhatsApp, primarily known for personal messaging, has expanded into the business realm with its business app, where companies host professional communication with customers on a platform that is already familiar to people.
WhatsApp can be a good alternative to Discord when the main goal of communication is to connect with customers. The WhatsApp Business app comes with a few key solutions:
List your business for easier reach: Companies can create virtual storefronts on WhatsApp to showcase their businesses and attract new customers. They can also send automated messages to new customers when they initiate an inquiry.
Connect and interact with customers: Customers can connect with your customer support team in real-time on WhatsApp, helping you address customer feedback, concerns, or inquiries more efficiently to grow your business. Businesses can also set up quick replies for faster responses.
Automated messages: Businesses can set up greeting or away messages to ensure that customers can still receive essential assistance outside of business hours.As for pricing, WhatsApp Business is free to download with optional paid hosting services through Facebook's Hosting Services.
As for pricing, WhatsApp Business is free to download with optional paid hosting services through Facebook's Hosting Services.
4. Rocket.Chat for open source group chat
Rocket.Chat stands out as an open-source alternative to Discord, providing a secure and compliant collaboration platform for privacy-conscious individuals. It is particularly suitable for businesses with technical expertise, as they can customize the chat environment to meet their specific needs, making it a flexible alternative to Discord, maybe even beating hangouts chat.
Some key features of Rocket.Chat include:
Communication and collaboration tools: Rocket.Chat offers real-time messaging, voice, and video calls, making it easy for teams to communicate seamlessly. The platform also includes features like conversation archiving, team inbox, and customization options for internal use, making it a centralized and secure collaboration tool.
Enhanced security and customization: Rocket.Chat provides enhanced security features such as two-factor authentication (2FA), end-to-end (E2E) encryption, and Single Sign-On (SSO). It also supports self-hosting, allowing organizations to host the platform on their own servers for better control and privacy.
Rocket.Chat offers a straightforward pricing plan. The Community version is free and includes unlimited 1:1 and group messaging, full messaging history, and all basic features. For additional security options and unlimited push notifications, companies can upgrade to the Enterprise version. Companies also have the option to add enterprise add-ons for support with migration, implementation consulting, and other services.
5. Telegram for quick, speedy chats
Telegram is recognized for its speed and security, positioning itself as a commendable player in the realm of group chats. This cloud-based messenger places a strong emphasis on confidentiality, catering to both personal and professional communication needs. As a result, it stands out as a noteworthy alternative to Discord for individuals who prioritize privacy in group conversations.
Some key attributes that make Telegram a worthy choice for consideration include:
Secret chats: End-to-end encryption ensures secure conversations.
Cloud-based technology: Messages can be seamlessly accessed across different devices, enabling users to access chats from multiple devices.
Large Group Capability: Supports groups with up to 200,000 members.
Telegram is a free group chat app that promises no ads, subscription fees, or tracking, offering a budget-friendly option for secure communication.
6. Microsoft Teams for office collaboration
Microsoft Teams is widely used by corporations of all sizes to facilitate collaboration across documents, data, and more. Its strong integration with Microsoft's suite of products makes it an excellent choice for companies already using the Microsoft ecosystem. It serves as a reliable group chat app for business communication.
Highlighted features of Microsoft Teams include:
Real-time Collaboration: Work on documents simultaneously with teammates via group chats, video calls, or phone.
File sharing: Easily drop and share files with teammates in 1:1 or group chats; option to save it on the cloud and share the link instead.
Part of Microsoft 365: Connect with other products within the Microsoft 365 solutions and become more powerful when used as a whole.
Microsoft Teams pricing starts at $4 per user per month. This Essentials plan provides users with the ability to collaborate using Microsoft Teams on a daily basis. To access additional products in the Microsoft 365 suite, such as OneDrive, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, companies must subscribe to either the Business Basic or Business Standard plans.
7. Google Chat for instant communication at work
Google Chat (previously Google Hangouts) offers a straightforward platform for both individual and group conversations that you can use while managing emails in Gmail. It's a reliable choice for those familiar with Google's ecosystem, making it an easy-to-navigate alternative to Discord for casual and professional interactions.
A few reasons why Google Hangouts stands out as a Discord alternative:
Integrated with G-Suite: Smooth interaction with Google's suite of apps, such as Google Slides, Gmail, and more.
Video Conferencing: Conduct virtual meetings with ease for both internal meetings and external connections.
Google Voice: VoIP app functionalities
Google Chat is available for free with any Google account, and additional features are available with Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) subscriptions, offering a range of options for different business needs which are suitable to existing Discord users that enjoy voice chat.
8. Chanty for efficient team communication
Chanty simplifies team communication with an intuitive interface and smart features. It is designed for small to medium-sized teams, making it a viable alternative to Discord for businesses looking to foster a collaborative environment.
Key features of Chanty include:
Task Management: Keep track of tasks and deadlines.
Threaded Messages: Organize discussions for better clarity.
Voice Messages and Voice Chat: A quick way to convey information.
Chanty operates on a freemium model, offering a free version with basic features, and a paid plan for more advanced functionalities and support, catering to various business requirements.
9. Element for secure business chat, and more
Element stands as a strong contender for those prioritizing security in their group chat app. It offers end-to-end encryption and self-hosting options, making it a robust alternative to Discord for businesses with stringent security requirements.
Here’s what makes Element a noteworthy choice:
End-to-End Encryption: Ensuring secure communications.
Self-Hosted Option: Control over your data and infrastructure.
Customizable Interface: Tailor the platform to your needs.
Element operates on a freemium model. While its basic version is free, the paid plans, called Element One, offer enhanced features and professional support, providing a solid foundation for secure business communication.
Here’s a glimpse at some more alternatives, each with a unique flavor:
Skype: A veteran in video conferencing.
Viber: Known for free calling and messaging.
Tox: Prioritizes secure interactions.
Flock: Aims at seamless team communication.
Steam Chat: A haven for the gaming community.
HeySpace: Blends task management with chat.
Revolt: A new entrant focusing on privacy.
TeamSpeak: Video communication platform for the gaming community.
Troop messenger: Instant messaging app for business in terms of Data security, ease of use, IP ownership, secured & monitored entry etiquette, and many more.
Steam Chat: Made for gamers
The quest for the perfect group chat app depends on your unique needs — some might even scour for a VoIP app solution — in collaboration, communication, and productivity. Each app has its distinctive features and functionalities, some may cater to casual interactions — like a voice channel feature while others are built for professional engagement.
Among the many options available, Lark stands out as a notable mention with its all-in-one productivity suite, where chat is at the center of your workday. This platform not only facilitates communication but also fosters an environment of collaboration and productivity. Explore how Lark can redefine your digital interaction landscape, starting from its Messenger, and propel your team to new heights of success.
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