seriously, if you’re looking for a proper FOSS discord replacement i cannot stress enough how good the new Sable 2.x releases are.
to name a few things that make this really fucking cool, it has:
- an actually working mobile client available in the play store and soon the iOS app store (if it isn’t already)
- voice/video channels, forum channels, etc.
- spaces set up as a feature-complete replacement for discord guilds with roles, categorization, permission syncing, etc.
- detailed discord-like profiles with status (including per-space/channel personas)
- cool features you would have expected to see in a golden age IM like custom fonts, colors, rich text editing, etc.
- decentralization with federation via the matrix protocol
- end-to-end encryption available for both DMs and guild channels (unlike a certain slop discord clone that’s been making the rounds lately)
- awesome maintainers who actually listen to the users and aren’t chuds
- a policy against vibecoded PRs
- a cute animal mascot (including a trans flag variant)
if you’re new to matrix, try this. if you’re already using matrix, try this because it’s better than the other clients (especially element)
Does it have the best features of Discord? Like if I join a game’s server to ask for help, will the members start arguing and fighting with each other instead of addressing my concern?
Highly recommend Sable, I promote it everywhere I can. Not only a Discord-like client, but also hands down the best Matrix client out there, just works
best Matrix client out there, just works
I’m intrigued. Thanks.
Let me know if you have any issues, happy to help, Sable is really good :3
edit: though your homeserver matters too
Same exact color gradiant
Who wore it better?
Someone get these queens on Project Runway
whats the difference between using this and using any other matrix client? (im new to matrix)
sable has a very focused goal of being a drop-in replacement for discord, which no other client attempts to do. many of the features i listed above in my post simply aren’t present in other clients, and if they are they’re implemented in a way that doesn’t behave as one would intuitively expect them to.
Does Sable support multiple accounts simultaneously online? Every time I go looking for a feature-complete Matrix client, all the ones I’ve tried only support one account at a time.
sable lets you switch between accounts in a menu pretty much exactly the way discord does, but if you need them running simultaneously i don’t think it currently provides that.
depending on what you have multiple accounts for, personas could be a good alternative here. otherwise perhaps commet.chat would be a good option for you. it has a lot in common with sable feature-wise so it plays nice with users of that, and it supports simultaneous logged in accounts. last i used it there were annoyances though, like not being able to reposition spaces on the sidebar.
If you run sable in the browser, you can just use Firefox’s containee tabs to run multiple instances of it
sable lets you switch between accounts in a menu pretty much exactly the way discord does, but if you need them running simultaneously i don’t think it currently provides that.
I just tested this and it is worth mentioning, this works smoothly. On some other clients (like Fractal), this apparently pulls your whole session from the home server and can take an entire minute to complete. Of course, Element doesn’t even provide this at all. Still. It has been twelve fucking years.
I assume the only downside is you might not get push notifications for the inactive account.
It has been twelve fucking years
i started using element back when it was still called riot so i know the feeling. it’s completely directionless and every actually-good feature proposal would just get debated to death so nothing ever got done.
sable for the first time has made matrix actually enjoyable to use for me instead of just being something i tolerate for the sake security and freedom
I can see the manual switching being useful or a discord replacement on desktop, but I’ve been looking more for an instant messaging replacement for mobile. I want to keep accounts separate for different social groups but also be able to get timely notifications for all accounts.
How does it compare to Fluxer? Ive been holding out for the self hosted option to be up, and planned to jump in with both feet.
I guess part of the answer is “sable already has a self hosted version”
I guess part of the answer is “sable already has a self hosted version”
that, and unlike fluxer, federation and E2EE already just work™ (the latter being available outside of just DMs too) instead of being a work-in-progress
update: fluxer also makes extensive use of LLMs, sable rejects LLMs and encourages would-be vibe-coders to come learn how to contribute over in their dev channel instead
self hosting matrix is uh… let’s say non trivial
Even Synapse requires less memory and CPU than Fluxer’s minimum requirements though
The biggest problem with matrix is that its only as good as the absolute least feature complete lowest quality client
idk, i’ve never run into an issue there that couldn’t be solved by just saying “use a better client bozo”. plus if your community is already on discord and you want to move them to matrix isn’t it trivial to say “just use sable”? one would have to go out of their way to use something else at that point.
and is that really unique to matrix and not a feature of every chat protocol, including proprietary ones like discord? no matter what you use you might get the odd user using some minimalist third-party client. shit, i use a minimalist third party discord client whenever i have to go on there.
With matrix I pretty often see people complaining about others using pretty basic features like threads. I don’t think my current client supports threads either.
I don’t know a better way but this shit sucks.
Probably your homeserver, have never had issues with recovery keys
matrix dot org
yeah matrix.org is the worst one lol
I’ve hosted worse
Not even remotely comparable, the grand majority of discord users use the official client while the vast majority of matrix users use a third party client. Additionally Element is not feature complete and most clients are even worse.
i’m not telling anyone to use element or any other client. if i’m inviting my community members from discord i’m telling them to use sable, and they use sable.
what the majority of users are using right now is irrelevant with how small matrix already is since there are very few users and communities to begin with. if you want to start encouraging people to use a viable alternative so that we can finally build something new, this is the one.
edit: also even for the existing communities, the majority of users being on element (right now) isn’t horrible. element’s UX is garbage but it has all the basic functionality you’d need to communicate well with other users, such as: threads, calling, being able to render custom stickers and emojis (it can’t post them but that’s not my problem), being able to render rich text, etc.
I managed several matrix chats in the past and a lot of people in them used clients like nheko, sometimes I would come across a fluffychat user but for the most part on matrix I find if you want to go anywhere you have to appeal the lowest common denominator.
Compared to FluffyChat (the client I currently use, which is also quite nice), this seems a bit more polished. I might switch.
Is it just a client? Would it be something I could subsume an existing Matrix Space? Or do you have to host a specific server and its simply “matrix compatible” in some way?
just a client; if you have an existing account you can just log in with that
OK this already looks a lot better then everything else I’ve tried. I’ve not had a client be reliable about notifications before, hopefully this one is better.
Oh it has a theme catalog and has the Catppuccin themes? Very nice! I’ve yet to discover all its features yet but notifications is already so much better.
This is excellent, thanks for sharing!
How does it compare to something like Armada?
i’m not really familiar with armada so i’m not sure how it compares feature-wise to sable, but one benefit i can potentially see for using sable regardless is that the matrix protocol is mature, well-tested, and is trusted and used by the likes of debian, fedora, mozilla, numerous governments, etc.
I havent installed it on my phone yet since it requires hooking it up to a computer, but I do use the browser sable when applicable and it’s great! I still use fluffychat otherwise.
I see a lot of people get very frustrated with matrix since it has a bit of a learning curve, everyone’s so used to discord making everything easy for us. Still gotta use discord sometimes for video chat stuff, but matrix can always improve more in the future.
Its one of those things that you gotta really want to do, put up with learning a new platform and such. Personally I love it, it makes me feel like an oldschool computer nerd 😎
iOS i assume? the developers are trying to get it approved for the app store, so be on the lookout for that when it hits.
sable has really done a lot to make matrix more palatable to discord users, but yeah the onboarding process in particular will probably always be a bit of a pain point just like it is for fediverse social media platforms.
really i’m just happy as long as it can grow to have a userbase like fediverse socials where it’s not as overcrowded as the mainstream counterpart, yet large enough that there’s still stuff to engage with. now that spaces are actually usable it should be easier to get some communities going on here.
