Technically, Signal, Rocket Chat, and Matrix all have multi-party voice chat built in. You probably won’t have a great time with it, and if you want video or screen sharing, you’ll have an even worse time.
Just tested out element and had no problem with screen sharing + video in a voice call. Haven’t tried out the mobile app for that (but I haven’t done that for discord either and on desktop, discord just doesn’t screenshare like half the time for me)
I’m kind of shocked if you had a decent/superior time and Element vs Discord, especially if you’re in Windows! This is a case where I hope I can be proven wrong.
Discord facilitates large audio and video calls, but if Element can manage even a handful of people at once, I would be impressed. In my experience, it hasn’t, but such things are kind of hard to test.
Steam’s built in voice chat replaced discord for my group of friends years ago. It was rough at first, but it has improved a lot and now we dont have issues anymore.
Except when steam itself craps out for a while and you can’t even tell unless you keep the group chat/voice window open on 2nd screen.
Still better than discord tho
What I really need is realtime multi-party voice chat
Do any of these support that?
I mostly use discord for light coordination and online voice chat during games or activities.
Technically, Signal, Rocket Chat, and Matrix all have multi-party voice chat built in. You probably won’t have a great time with it, and if you want video or screen sharing, you’ll have an even worse time.
Honestly just voice chat is all, I used to play SC2 with some sketchy apps that could do it… but 2026 feels like easy stuff got much harder.
Just tested out element and had no problem with screen sharing + video in a voice call. Haven’t tried out the mobile app for that (but I haven’t done that for discord either and on desktop, discord just doesn’t screenshare like half the time for me)
I’m kind of shocked if you had a decent/superior time and Element vs Discord, especially if you’re in Windows! This is a case where I hope I can be proven wrong.
Discord facilitates large audio and video calls, but if Element can manage even a handful of people at once, I would be impressed. In my experience, it hasn’t, but such things are kind of hard to test.
Isn’t that a multi-way call? Everything else is covered by forums (permanent) or IRC/Matrix/XMPP (quick)
Yeah, and for most of my friends I don’t need/want forums. I just want “Hey, anyone online?” and voice calls.
That’s what IRC/Matrix/XMPP/Signal (possibly) covers
Jitsi Meet.
I think Matrix has one as well that’s integrated nowadays.
I think that’s the one the French government is moving to, I’ll have to check it out.
Steam’s built in voice chat replaced discord for my group of friends years ago. It was rough at first, but it has improved a lot and now we dont have issues anymore.
Except when steam itself craps out for a while and you can’t even tell unless you keep the group chat/voice window open on 2nd screen.
Still better than discord tho