Discord vs SimpleX Chat

Discord is a communication platform organized around servers and channels, hugely popular with gaming and online communities but increasingly used by all kinds of groups. It combines text, voice, and video with rich bots and integrations.

SimpleX Chat is an open-source, end-to-end encrypted messenger built around a network design with no persistent user identifiers of any kind, not even random ones. Messages are relayed through servers that see only noise, so there is no phone number, username, or account ID for anyone, including SimpleX, to tie back to a person. The app supports one-to-one and group chats, audio and video calls, file transfer, and multiple chat profiles, and it can run on self-hosted servers for organizations that want full control over their infrastructure. Its protocol and clients are fully open source and have been independently security-audited by Trail of Bits.

• Great for communities
• Excellent voice quality
• Rich bot ecosystem
• Free and generous

• No user IDs of any kind, unlike most messengers that rely on phone numbers or usernames
• Fully open-source and independently security-audited
• Self-hostable servers for full infrastructure control
• Free to use across web, desktop, and mobile

• Can be overwhelming to moderate
• Not built for formal business
• Nitro upsells

• No central identity means account recovery works differently than typical messengers
• Smaller network effect than mainstream messaging apps
• Some features are more geared toward technical/privacy-focused users