--- title: 4 best rated Discord alternatives in 2026 description: The 4 best rated Discord alternatives, each scored out of five stars on servers, calls, cost, apps and where your data lives. mssgs gets 5/5. url: "https://rual.nl/en/products/best-rated-discord-alternatives" locale: en alternate: "https://rual.nl/products/best-rated-discord-alternatives" updated: 2026-11-13 source: "https://rual.nl" --- [Products](https://rual.nl/en/products) > Best rated Discord alternatives # The 4 best rated Discord alternatives. Four apps your group could move to, each scored out of five stars by the same five questions. One of them is mssgs, which RUAL builds, so the questions and every answer are on this page for you to check. [Try mssgs for free](https://mss.gs) [See our products](https://rual.nl/en/products) ## The ratings at a glance Every app on this page, with its score and the stars it did not get. | App | Our rating | Best for | No star for | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | mssgs | ★★★★★ 5/5 | Friends, clans, study groups and communities | — | | Fluxer | ★★★★☆ 4/5 | Groups that care about open source and self-hosting | finished apps for phone and desktop | | Root | ★★★★☆ 4/5 | Communities that want more than bots | a European company, or yours to host | | Stoat | ★★★★☆ 4/5 | Groups that want Discord, but open source | finished apps for phone and desktop | | Discord | ★★★★☆ 4/5 | For reference: the same five questions | a European company, or yours to host | ## How we rate A star rating is only worth something if you can check it. So ours is five questions about what a group leaving Discord needs, and one star for every yes. No half stars and no impressions. - A server of your own, with channels and roles - Group calls built in - Free to start, without running a server yourself - A European company, or yours to host - Finished apps for phone and desktop Finished means released: an app for iPhone, for Android and for the desktop that is not marked beta or early access by its own maker. mssgs is our own product, and it is on this list because it was built to answer all five. Discord gets the same five questions at the foot of the table. It scores four: it is an American company and you cannot host it yourself. ## The 4 alternatives, best rated first What each app does and costs was checked against its maker's own website in November 2026. These services change, so check their own terms when in doubt. ### 1. mssgs: a home for your group, made in the Netherlands **★★★★★ 5/5** mssgs is ours: RUAL builds it in Brummen, the Netherlands. Your group gets its own server with unlimited channels, roles and user groups, and voice and video calls with screen sharing. DMs are off by default, eleven games are built in and there are no ads. Bots are built in, and you choose exactly which channels they see. Everything runs on servers in the Netherlands. - **Stars for:** all five - **No star for:** nothing: all five stars - **Good to know:** Free to start, no credit card. Apps for iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows and Linux, and in the browser. ### 2. Fluxer: open source, from Sweden **★★★★☆ 4/5** Fluxer is a free, open-source chat app for friends, groups and communities, made by a Swedish company in Stockholm. A community has channels, categories, voice channels and roles with permissions, and voice, video and screen sharing are included. It has no ads and you can host it yourself. It is, however, largely the work of one developer: more than nine in ten commits in its public source code come from a single account. That makes Fluxer's future depend heavily on one person. - **Stars for:** a server of your own, with channels and roles; group calls built in; free to start, without running a server yourself; a European company, or yours to host - **No star for:** finished apps for phone and desktop - **Good to know:** The iPhone app is not out yet: Fluxer calls it beta and points iPhone users to the browser. The Android app has been stable since November 2026. The company is Swedish, but by its own privacy policy most data is stored in the United States. There is a paid plan, Plutonium, for larger uploads and sharper screen sharing. ### 3. Root: communities with apps inside the channel **★★★★☆ 4/5** Root is a platform for communities with text and voice channels, roles and permissions, video calls and screen sharing with sound. What it does differently from Discord is its built-in apps: a task tracker or a raid planner that runs as a full interface inside a channel, alongside ordinary bots. - **Stars for:** a server of your own, with channels and roles; group calls built in; free to start, without running a server yourself; finished apps for phone and desktop - **No star for:** a European company, or yours to host - **Good to know:** Root is an American company, your data is stored in the United States and you cannot host it yourself. There is no web version. In August 2025 Root started as an invite-only closed beta; its site does not say whether that has ended. The paid plan is called Sudo. ### 4. Stoat: open source, and laid out like Discord **★★★★☆ 4/5** Stoat used to be called Revolt and is, of every app here, the one that looks most like Discord: servers with channels, roles with per-channel permissions and voice channels with video and screen sharing. It is open source and made by a British company in London. - **Stars for:** a server of your own, with channels and roles; group calls built in; free to start, without running a server yourself; a European company, or yours to host - **No star for:** finished apps for phone and desktop - **Good to know:** Free. The Android app is still early access, and for iPhone and iPad the download page points to the web app. You can host it yourself, though most official apps then do not work with your own server. ## How to choose All four give your group a server with channels and roles, voice and a free start, so the choice comes down to the last two stars. If it matters to you where the company sits and where your conversations are stored, look at the fourth star and at the last line of each listing. Then look at who has to come along. An app that half the group cannot install on their phone loses people on the way over. That is what the fifth star measures. ## Questions about Discord alternatives ### What is the best rated Discord alternative? By the five questions on this page, mssgs: it is the only one of the four that answers yes to all of them. Fluxer, Root and Stoat each get four stars. Fluxer and Stoat are not finished on the phone yet, and Root is an American company that you cannot host yourself. ### Is there a European alternative to Discord? Yes. mssgs is made in the Netherlands and runs on servers in the Netherlands. Fluxer is a Swedish company, though by its own privacy policy most of its data is stored in the United States, and Stoat is made by a British company. Root is American. ### Which Discord alternatives are free? All four are free to start. mssgs needs no credit card, and Fluxer and Stoat are open source as well. Fluxer and Root each sell a paid plan for extras such as sharper screen sharing. [See pricing on mss.gs](https://mss.gs/en/faq) ### Why does your own app get five stars? Because the stars are counted, not awarded: one for each of five questions, and the page shows which ones every app answers. mssgs was built for the group those questions describe. Where another app fits better, the page says so. ### Which devices does mssgs work on? On iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows and Linux, and in your browser at mss.gs/app. ## What sits underneath - **[Our products](https://rual.nl/en/products)** — What RUAL builds for itself alongside custom work, on the same platform as the work we do for customers. - **[Hosted in Europe](https://rual.nl/en/hosting)** — All data in Europe, on our own hardware in Dutch data centres. No American cloud, no CLOUD Act. - **[Security built in](https://rual.nl/en/security)** — Security management sits inside every environment, including our own. ## Bring your group over to mssgs. Free to start, no credit card needed. One link and your group is in. [Try mssgs for free](https://mss.gs) [See our products](https://rual.nl/en/products)