What are the Discord Alternatives? is Mathium05’s comparison sheet: Stoat is decaying, Matrix is not a Discord alternative, Polyphony might never finish, Fluxer is “No. Just no,” Spacebar is mismanaged, Harmony is “mostly works as intended.” Harmony is their fork. This page grades Fermi against Fermi.
| App they named | What they printed | What that is |
|---|---|---|
| Stoat / Revolt | Competent, getting worse, painful to self-host, AI policy had to be pressured. | A real product with users. The AI complaint is the Fermi house style. |
| Spacebar | First: “improving with time,” Fermi is the official client. Later: “I can no longer recommend its usage.” | The review changed after the author was banned and forked it. |
| Harmony | “Mostly works as intended,” “does not have many of the organizational issues.” | They are reviewing their own fork. The byline is the citation. |
| Fluxer | “No. Just no. It uses AI.” | The entire Fermi personality, aimed at a neighbor. |
| Matrix | Not a Discord alternative. Decrypt errors, illegal rooms, poor moderation. | A protocol with actual federation. Fermi has one displayed instance. |
| Polyphony | The dream, too slow, may never finish. | Fermi’s own feature chart was abandoned for being out of date. |
| TeamSpeak | Proprietary, not a Discord alternative. | Fine. Fermi is a Discord alternative that still uses Discord. |
| Question | Fermi copy | Fermi in the files |
|---|---|---|
| Is this a Discord alternative? | Harmony-compatible client. Join a community. | Cannot talk to Discord users. Docs send you to discord.com. Screenshot is Discord chrome. |
| Is the anti-AI rule a license requirement? | Not GPLv3 compatible. Any use banned. Legal reasons. |
LICENSE is AGPL.
package.json
was |
| Is Harmony independent of Spacebar drama? | Continuation without structural problems. | Fork after a Discord ban. Essay is the founding myth. COPYING still says fosscord-server. |
| Is the client finished? | Ever closer to being complete. Join today. | SECURITY.md: no stable release. Logging out was a 2025 headline. Feature chart abandoned. |
| Is there a community? | OG: join a community of people and start chatting. | Maintainer: main instance lacks users. One displayed instance. Weekly Reddit intros. |
| Who is “we”? | Many talented individuals. New age of success. | CoC: I’m just one person. Sole discretion. GitHub: the main dev. |
| Do they use the machines they condemn? | Any use of AI is not allowed. | GitHub, Node, SWC, Reddit ranking, Discord, Translatewiki, Copilot’s house. |
If you want a Discord alternative, look at software whose comparison page can describe a user who is not the author. If you want a cautionary tale about turning a moderation fight into a cosmology, you are already on it.