Post #2016418

2026-02-09 18:29 UTC

@Quasit @illogical_me @rootschange you shouldn’t. I was solely replying to @illogical_me‘s claim that there’s only Matrix, that is open and federated. In short, if you’re looking for a federated alternative to Discord there’s at least IRC, Jabber/XMPP and Matrix. None of those are a perfect replacement though.

Replies (3)

@Quasit@kolektiva.social 2026-02-09 18:31

@zeank @illogical_me @rootschange I remember IRC! Lord, that takes me back...

Open ##2016419
@illogical_me@mastodon.cloud 2026-02-09 20:02

@zeank @Quasit @rootschange correct me if I am wrong but AFAIK IRC and Jabber are open, you can self host etc, *but* they are not federated, every server sits on its own and you can only communicate with other people on the same server. Federated describes a completely different axis from open.

Open ##2016421
@david42@mastodon.online 2026-02-09 20:35

@Quasit @illogical_me @rootschange @zeank It would be nice to migrate to platforms supporting E2EE. Matrix supports end-to-end encryption (E2EE) including in chat rooms. XMPP itself is not encrypted, but can be configured to support E2EE, eg, with OMEMO, although this can be finicky to get right. IRC itself is not encrypted, but you can layer E2EE over IRC, eg, using E2EIRC. https://hanez.org/document/irc-vs-matrix-vs-xmpp/#e9a32a08 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMEMO https://github.com/novus0rdo/e2eirc

Open ##2016424