Discord
Proprietary chat platform with text channels, voice, video and community servers.
HN commenters like Discord for its high-quality voice chat123 and for hosting small, private communities of friends and hobbyists where many of the people they want to reach already are.4567 The most common complaint is that conversations are hard to search and are not indexed by search engines,891011 and many dislike open source projects moving onto a proprietary, walled-garden platform.121314
Why people recommend it
Voice chat · 3
Voice and audio quality are described as better than older tools and better than Slack.
“it works better than anything else out there for what I use it for.”
“Discord works way better and their voice chat is several leagues above.”
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“it blew the competition out of the water at the time. The audio was so much better.”
Private communities · 3
Commenters value it for small, private servers of friends and hobby groups that feel removed from the algorithmic open web.
“Its primary use for me is having small, private communities of people who aren't entirely anonymous to eachother”
“I often would rather chill in Discord than go and hang out in-person.”
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“quiet local (geographically) or private Discord servers”
Network effect · 3
Many people use it because their friends and communities are already there.
“Discord is by far my favorite communication platform across anything I used in my entire life, nothing else comes even close in terms of feature set.”
“The main reason I use Discord is the users on the platform.”
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“many FOSS projects are on discord because the people are already there.”
Just works · 3
Some commenters say it is easy to use and does what they need without hassle.
“This is why me and my friend groups are staying on Discord. Becuase it "just works".”
“overall it's a great product which i use everyday”
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“it works better than anything else out there for what I use it for.”
Free history · 1
One team says free unlimited message history and persistent voice channels made it preferable to Slack.
“we now prefer it to Slack. The pricing problem is entirely resolved by the free unlimited message history”
Caveats and dissent
Unsearchable content · 3
Knowledge gets buried because servers are not indexed and in-app search is weak.
“please, find an alternative to discord for your community.”
“unsearchable Discord servers (grr Discord)”
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“I use Discord for chat and voice calls since that is what I expect from a chat app”
Walled garden · 3
Commenters object to communities and open source projects relying on a proprietary, centralized chat service.
“the community of open source or communities in general moving to discord does feel like moving to a walled garden”
“It really bothered me that so many important projects were relying on a proprietary chat technology”
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Privacy concerns · 3
Commenters raise concerns about age verification, phone number requirements and the lack of end-to-end encryption.
“Discord, on the other hand, wants to implement global age verification, despite there being no legal requirement to do so in most jurisdictions.”
“we were expecting draconian policy which would attempt to unmask and chronicle our members identities and sentiments.”
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“nothing is encrypted in transit on their application”
Ads and nags · 3
Some commenters complain about ads, Nitro upsells and tooltips that cover the screen.
“the product is so full of ads that is insane to me”
“constant tooltips covering the screen to harass me”
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“nothing is encrypted in transit on their application”
Weak for work · 3
Some commenters say it lacks structured threads and searchable history and is seen as unprofessional for workplace use.
“the lack of structured threads and searchable history can make work discussions harder to track.”
“Discord potentially could, but it doesn't seem to built for this use case.”
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“It has the perception of being "fun" and not serious/professional.”
UI lag · 1
One commenter notes UI rendering lag when switching channels.
“When I use slack and discord, I sigh when I start seeing UI rendering lag”
Often compared with
2 moved from Discord to Matrix
2 moved from Slack to Discord
1 moved from Discord to Signal
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Ask HN: Does anyone here use Discord as their work chat tool? 6 mentions
- Discord will soon let anyone find public server messages through Google 5 mentions
- IRCv3 5 mentions
- Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month 4 mentions
- Discord Rival Gets Overwhelmed by Exodus of Players Fleeing Age-Verification 3 mentions
- AirPods 5 2 mentions
Data: discord.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 44
“if now instead of a forum you have to join five trillion discord servers just to get help with your one issue”
“It was overall terrible for everyone yet everyone still loves it.”
“it works better than anything else out there for what I use it for.”
“Its primary use for me is having small, private communities of people who aren't entirely anonymous to eachother”
“It's substantially popular with gaming communities. It's also very popular with non gaming communities”
“I use signal, whatsapp, discord, irc, google chat, email and messenger without complaint.”
“You could put a gun to my head and I still wouldn't use Discord.”
“It's just yahoo groups that requires your phone number.”
“Discord is by far my favorite communication platform across anything I used in my entire life, nothing else comes even close in terms of feature set.”
“Discord works way better and their voice chat is several leagues above.”
“Meanwhile i can now connect to a new Discord community and not only not worry about losing any messages”
“the community of open source or communities in general moving to discord does feel like moving to a walled garden”
“often on discord, sometimes on whatsapp/signal”
“quiet local (geographically) or private Discord servers”
“I often play games while on discord voice chat. The audio quality of my game suffers.”
“I actively avoid using discord to join calls on my phone- because Bluetooth absolutely destroys quality.”
“forwards it to a discord server”
“When I use slack and discord, I sigh when I start seeing UI rendering lag”
“unsearchable Discord servers (grr Discord)”
“Interesting, I almost never see any of that stuff when I use discord”
“the sum total of Electron apps I use are Teams (I guess not quite Electron now, but close enough)/Slack/Discord/Android Messages/VS Code”
“I use a passkey with discord on my phone.”
“Discord, being the imperfect text platform, limits the text and leaves most interaction limited by awkward formatting.”
“I use discord for global reach interest groups.”
“a time to meet weekly on discord and then discuss”
“I think the kids are using discord for this, but as a 40-year-old non-gamer, I'm not going to get my friends to use discord.”
“Discord, on the other hand, wants to implement global age verification, despite there being no legal requirement to do so in most jurisdictions.”
“I use telegram & discord daily.”
“constant tooltips covering the screen to harass me”
“the product is so full of ads that is insane to me”
“I have a dedicated Discord server I use to communicate with it.”
“please, find an alternative to discord for your community.”
“Discord potentially could, but it doesn't seem to built for this use case.”
“It has the perception of being "fun" and not serious/professional.”
“the lack of structured threads and searchable history can make work discussions harder to track.”
“we now prefer it to Slack. The pricing problem is entirely resolved by the free unlimited message history”
“it feels pretty good”
“I would never trust my essential comms with Discord personally”
“The main reason I use Discord is the users on the platform.”
“Every time i use discord, it won't let me use my username, wtf?”
“it blew the competition out of the water at the time. The audio was so much better.”
“It really bothered me that so many important projects were relying on a proprietary chat technology”
“I use Discord for chat and voice calls since that is what I expect from a chat app”
“This is why me and my friend groups are staying on Discord. Becuase it "just works".”