this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024
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slowly moving myself to https://revolt.chat/.
Its sad since I've been with discord since almost '15.
Compared to Matrix, or any E2EE chat, this doesn't sound good:
Compared to Discord, or other established voice chat systems like Mumble, this doesn't sound great either:
The "app" on Android seems to be just the webapp running in a standalone window.
I'll concede them the OpenSource and self-hosted factors, and it does look like Discord, but it doesn't seem like a suitable replacement for average users... yet. Then again, the ads might push them over.
Guess it's worth to keep an eye on it.
Oh, this looks great. Honestly, I am very happy when closed-source apps become worse, these are all just opportunities for open source to move in and take over.
so this Revolt project is open source, which is nice, but still seems to rely on centralized servers. Does it use P2P for voice+video+fileshare so that the original devs aren't on the hook for insane bandwidth requirements? I can't see anything about their networking systems in the FAQ or info pages.
I may consider getting my friends to switch sooner or later if it's more P2P based. But I don't really want something that runs ALL traffic through central servers, because the bandwidth costs will inevitably just lead to the same situation that Discord is now in.
It's self-hostable, and they seem to be switching to webrtc-rs, not sure whether with P2P or not:
https://trello.com/c/Ay6KdiOV/1-voice-overhaul-and-video-calling
In 2022, they claimed it was using minimal resources on the server:
https://developers.revolt.chat/faq/monetisation
They also don't seem to consider federation as a priority, but then again neither does Discord.
https://developers.revolt.chat/faq/federation
What made you choose revolt chat over matrix? Just curious.
Oh cool there's an Android app, that's gonna make it so much easier to recommend!
Edit: I just read about how it's centralized and not encrypted, I'm not sure how this can become anything but Discord except open source and less popular. Matrix + Element seems to cover my use case for a project a bit better, I'll give that a try.
Just tried it... it says "Running in Chrome". Seems to be a repackaged webapp.
well that's no different than Discord already, so net zero change
running webapps in chrome or Electron containers simplifies a lot of development, i don't like their resource requirements or dependency on Chromium, but I do understand needing to streamline development so devs can work on more important backend stuff.
The difference is:
The "works offline" is not much of a bonus for a chat app, but you can access cached chats on Discord, while Revolt... just doesn't run.
There seem to be other clients for it, though. Haven't checked those out.
In theory PWAs can be configured to run offline, whether they're doing that I don't know.
The desktop app looks like it's electron though.
I know, one of the best PWAs I've seen is Draw.io, fully usable offline, with both device and browser storage.
The Revolt's one however, even though delivered as a PWA, seems to be only the login page. If already logged in, it throws a "Network error." dialog. Haven't checked the desktop one.