Been trying to figure out a user friendly alternative that I can get my less technical friends to transition to. We all use Signal already for messaging but it just doesn’t fulfill our screenshare needs.
Most important feature it needs is the ability to screenshare with system audio, such as for streaming games or watching videos.
I’d ideally also like it to be E2EE just for the sake of privacy and security.
From what I’ve read and looked into it seems the closest thing that meets my needs would be Teamspeak 6 as you can host it yourself, and with the new update it now allows screenshare with audio (either as P2P or via server).
As far as I can tell chat messages don’t persist by default but it can be enabled (and this would be a feature my friends would really want too).
I currently have a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ but I’m aware it’s a bit old and is ARM so I’m thinking of buying a Pi 5.
Do you think I’m on the right track here or are there any other options this community would recommend?
I use self-hosted Jitsi for screen share, although this is just video conference software without the IM aspect of Discord. (Jitsi does have IM to be clear, but it’s a chat tied to a particular meeting, not like a persistent groupchat.) You could just use Signal chats as you have already been doing and send Jitsi links when you want to call. Jitsi has E2EE although I’m not up to date on the details of how it works.
I really love all my various Pis but at the moment there are so many refurbished servers available (thank Windows 11) as well as several small form factor x86 PCs that a Raspberry Pi 5 sadly is on the lower end of performance/cost.
What servers or smaller form factors are going for a good price?
Matrix with element call works well however I don’t think audio works with screensharing but you can work around that by routing desktop audio through your mic input or have a separate acc for screensharing audio it not the best but imo its the closest to discord. Hopefully soon audio will work.
There is also Peersuite which is a P2P solution and offers great audio and streaming quality. However, it is mainly a single developer behind it and it hasn’t received an update in months. It still lacks some polish and features like a server instance and persistent chats and rooms.
For me, this is the most promising one I have come across in terms of a replacement for Discord.
I’m using TeamSpeak. It is very good and feature rich, but it’s important to note that video / screen sharing works only P2P in a moment, so no server processing. It’s probably ok if you don’t have more than 3 people in a party, but still worth noting.
I also tried Matrix + Element + Jitsi. Can’t recommend.
We all use Signal already for messaging but it just doesn’t fulfill our screenshare needs.
…why not?
Most important feature it needs is the ability to screenshare with system audio, such as for streaming games or watching videos.
It has that. Have you tried their videoconferencing feature?
Other than that you can use one of a million Jitsi instances (Element has a publicly available one). Personally I use MiroTalk.
element also has their own service for that, element call. that too can be used without login, or selfhosted
Element X is just a Matrix client.
yes, I made a mistake when writing. I was hoping I edited it soon enough that nobody noticed
I currently have a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ but I’m aware it’s a bit old and is ARM so I’m thinking of buying a Pi 5.
The Pi 5 lacks a H264 hardware encoder/decoder, making it unsuitable for most streaming/transcoding purposes.
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Typically a video-chat server does no transcoding so this isn’t a major issue. But for hosting a Peertube or Owncast server it would.
Depends on what they settle on, especially for screen sharing. Many downscale content for people with weaker connections.
They took out H264 hardware support?
I use Matrix with the Jitsi plugin. I know everyone talks shit about Matrix, it’s been flawless for me.
IDK about watching videos, that’s a lot to ask of a screensharing app.
it’s been flawless for me
What kind of deal-with-the-devil black magic fuckery have you done to be able to write that? I’m happy if Matrix actually sends damn pictures and gave up completely on verifying my sessions.
I find Matrix janky but still usable. What homeserver implementation and what client are you using? I use tuwunel and nheko. tuwunel works great for me and I think it’s probably a disservice to the Matrix protocol that the “canonical” homeserver implementation is written in Python. Nheko is somewhat janky for me but I like it more than Element, and I think most of the jankiness is because of the Matrix protocol rather than the client implementation.
I’ve been using it for about 6 months, self-hosted. No problems at all after I moved from sqlite to a proper postgre server. Before that verifications often timed out.
Huh, it’s been nearly flawless for me as well. Had it randomly hang once a few months ago but I think that may have been due to a lack of resources for that lxc. Other than that it’s been flawless over multiple apps: Linux, Android (element, schildichat next, fluffy), windows, web. All synced and verified.
Meanwhile I’m just out here banging my head against a wall for hours having tried to make it work on Unraid and ended up not succeeding…
100%. Not to mention being slow as hell.
Wait there’s a jitsi plugin?
The old A/V chats in Matrix were just Jitsi-meet in disguise, but this has been largely deprechiated now with Element Calls.
Okay that makes so much sense, because I knew I had calling before in Element but they wanted me to set up all this extra stuff. Is it still a thing to do the plugin?
element call is still a separate thing, but I guess it’s better integrated now
Galéne, but it’s really only for video/voice chat. But that it does great, low resource use, and you can even have multiple media streams from the same machine without issue.
Perhaps Spacebar is a thing (the client of choice would be Fermi I think). Didn’t try it myself yet though, I do not know about how well its security protocol works. I’d assume it uses just a standard TURNS server for audio and video though.
Then of course there’s Matrix with Jitsi plugin, which will give you persistent headaches and a new appreciation of touching grass. It’s a mess, but hypothetically offers E2EE (if it works).
Discord-compatible (Use all your custom clients/bots with minimal changes)
I was excited at first, because I thought I could still chat with friends who won’t leave Discord.
This isn’t necessarily an answer, but what ever happened to Revolt?
They renamed to Stoat https://stt.gg/
I wonder how they got that name, maybe just me but it brings to mind a lot of things but none of them are a chat client.
I think it mostly reminds me of voat, anyone remember that horrible place?
Stoat is a cute little animal, and they say they chose it because it is quick and clever. Kind of like how “Lemmy” is named after an animal that shares similar properties
I like things being named after cute animals
What about cute animal killers?
I think for about 2 weeks Voat had potential. Then the Nazis moved in and it was doomed.
Element on Matrix is the only one I’m aware of - but it’s not the easiest to set up. I would try creating an account on matrix.org’s server just temporarily to try it out and see if it fits what you’re looking for. I like the decentralized nature of it, but the support is very piecemeal, and onboarding people essentially needs a class.
Ugh, I just got matrix with video working and it took way too long.
I’ve been trying to get zulip working.
Sounds like it addresses your requirements.
Seems to be a real bitch to self host - I’ve been doing this a while but the compose yaml is pretty arcane with hundreds of environment variables.
I didn’t “give up” exactly but it’s been on the back burner for a month or so now.
I’ve streamed games to friends over Signal. Why won’t that work for you?
Tried NextCloud with Talk module?
It ok, but you will need an external signaling server to make it work over NAT. Also it’s only good for a few in video chat as the load peer to peer.
