Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

Fosscord is an open-source, self-hostable alternative to Discord designed for developers and communities. It enables users to run their own chat and communication server rather than relying on a centralized platform.… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Fosscord – open-source and selfhostable alternative to discord launched in 2021; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1. 1
   Disco.dev▲257

   Plug-and-play open source mcp servers

   2025 · disco.dev · its alternatives →

2. 2
   Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Drift, Zendesk, FreshChat▲417

   Open-source live-chat, email support, omni-channel desk. An alternative to Intercom, Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud etc. 🔥💬 - chatwoot/chatwoot

   2019 · github.com · its alternatives →

3. 3AF
   A free, privacy preserving, archive of public Discord servers▲70

   Hey HN! I have been working on this project for a while, and I think this solves a problem that a lot of people here have: not being able to easily search Discord servers. Currently, I only scrape servers that are marked as "discoverable" on Discord. However, if there's enough interest in the project, I'm open to adding specific servers by request. I'm primarily focused on informational servers rather than casual hangout spaces, such as open source projects, Minecraft mods, and support communities for tools, services, or platforms (for example, hosting providers). I have placed restrictions…

   2025 · searchcord.io · its alternatives →

4. 4
   Hocus – self-hosted alternative to GitHub Codespaces using Firecracker▲291

   🪄 Spin up ready-to-code, disposable dev environments on your own servers. Self-hosted alternative to Gitpod and Github Codespaces. - hocus-dev/hocus

   2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

5. 5
   Comradery▲291

   Threaded discussions and real-time chat for your community!

   2020 · comradery.com · its alternatives →

6. 6FF
   Fossnode – Free Matrix server for free and open source projects▲52

   2020 · element.fossnode.net · its alternatives →

7. 7
   A new decentralized microblogging platform▲364

   A GNU Social-compatible microblogging server. Contribute to Gargron/mastodon development by creating an account on GitHub.

   2016 · github.com · its alternatives →

8. 8
   Deepcord▲335

   Discord analytics for metrics insights and audience research

   2025 · deepcord.com · its alternatives →

9. 9
   Membercord▲99

   Monetize your Discord server

   2021 · its alternatives →

10. 10
    Open-Source Discord (Dissonance)▲11

    Basic Discord Clone. Contribute to Megapixel99/dissonance development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

11. 11
    Let's Chat▲323

    Like Slack, but opensource and self-hosted.

    2015 · sdelements.github.io · its alternatives →

12. 12HD
    Hummingbard – decentralized communities built on Matrix▲412

    2021 · hummingbard.com · its alternatives →

13. 13
    Colanode, open-source and local-first Slack and Notion alternative▲147

    Hey HN, I'm Hakan, the founder of Colanode (https://github.com/colanode/colanode), an open-source, local-first collaboration app combining the best of Slack-style chats and Notion-style note-taking, fully self-hostable for complete data control. Here's a quick demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp1hoSCEArg As a heavy Notion user, I often found it tough to get my teams fully onboard since people naturally gravitate toward chat for quick interactions. Maintaining context between chat apps like Slack and documentation apps like Notion became increasingly…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

14. 14
    Mastodon▲272

    Open-source decentralized microblogging platform

    2016 · mastodon.social · its alternatives →

15. 15
    Linen – Open-source Slack for communities▲292

    Hi HN, My name is Kam. I'm the founder of Linen.dev. Linen communities is a Slack/Discord alternative that is Google-searchable and customer-support friendly. Today we are open-sourcing Linen and launching Linen communities. You can now create a community on Linen.dev without syncing it from Slack and Discord! I initially launched Linen as a tool to sync Slack and Discord conversations to a search engine-friendly website. As I talked to more community managers, I quickly realized that Slack and Discord communities don't scale well and that there needs to be a better tool, especially for…

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

16. 16
    Hoppscotch Self-Host▲237

    Open-source API development — now on-premise!

    2023 · hoppscotch.io · its alternatives →

17. 17
    Hashnode Platform▲411

    Dev community that lets you blog on your domain for free

    2020 · hashnode.com · its alternatives →

18. 18
    An open-source, self-hostable Heroku and Netlify alternative▲345

    coolLabs: Software without compromise. Free, open source, and built for you.

    2021 · coollabs.io · its alternatives →

19. 19
    Open Source alternative to services like Intercom.io and Smooch▲163

    Client library for Minimal Chat. Contribute to minimalchat/client development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

20. 20
    Buzz▲161

    Your people, your agents, your project — all in one place

    Jul 2026 · buzz.xyz · its alternatives →

21. 21
    Fosshub▲79

    An open source for free and open source tools

    2015 · fosshub.com · its alternatives →

22. 22BA
    Build a discord/Slack bot to answer questions with your docs and GPT4▲144

    It works on top of the open-source workflow engine windmill [1] that you can easily self-host on a tiny server or a large k8s cluster. You will also need pgvector (here hosted on supabase) and of course a GPT4 api key. It showcases an approval step so that you only provide answers you are confident giving to your users, which feels less robotic. All the building blocks are scripts that you can reuse outside of windmill and you could build this in any other workflow engines (although less conveniently). We use it for our own needs on discord [2] and thoughts this was a common need for any…

    2023 · windmill.dev · its alternatives →

23. 23DT
    Disco – The self-hosting platform I wish existed years ago▲12

    Hey HN, for the past 1.5 years my cofounder Antoine and I have been building Disco, an Open Source deployment platform that lets you host multiple web apps on a single server: https://disco.cloud/ After getting tired of high per-project pricing on platforms like Heroku and Render, and frustrated with Kubernetes' complexity, we created a platform with all the polish and convenience of commercial solutions, but as an Open Source project you can run anywhere. Disco gives you a streamlined experience (ie a clean CLI and web UI) with the freedom and economics of self-hosting. Key…

    2025 · its alternatives →

24. 24
    A self-hosted Twitter- and Reddit-like site written in Rust▲11

    The safest and lightest forum, powered by rust. Contribute to freedit-org/freedit development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →