Stoat vs Fluxer: which open-source Discord alternative?

Where the two overlap and differ

Stoat and Fluxer both target people leaving Discord who want to keep the familiar servers, channels and roles. Both are open source under AGPL-3.0, self-hostable and ad-free, both say they never sell data, and both offer a Vietnamese interface.

The biggest difference is age. Stoat has run since 2021 as Revolt, was renamed in October 2025 after a cease-and-desist notice, and had about 1.5 million users by late August 2026 according to vale.rocks. Fluxer, run by Fluxer Platform AB in Sweden, opened to everyone on 2 January 2026 and reports passing 500,000 accounts by 19 October 2026.

Money: fully free or freemium

Stoat publishes no paid plan. Its homepage says custom emojis, 20 MB uploads and per-server avatars need no subscription, so there is no fee to set against Fluxer's paid tier.

Fluxer is freemium. Free allows 100 communities, 25 MB uploads and 720p/30 FPS screen share. Plutonium costs $4.99/month or $49.99/year (about $4.17/month) and raises this to 200 communities, 500 MB files and 4K/60 FPS screen share, plus animated avatars and custom emoji across communities. Under the terms, Plutonium can be refunded self-service within 3 days of payment. The Operator Pass ($199 until 1 Jan 2027, then $249) is a donation that unlocks no features and does not include Plutonium.

Stability when Discord users arrived

After Discord announced age verification on 9 February 2026, both services took in a wave of new users. For Stoat, TechRadar (16 Feb 2026) reported that the status page showed degraded performance, with a team note saying there were simply too many people; the incident is recorded as confirmed, and no source found says it is ongoing. Vale.rocks adds that a US node added in August 2026 was removed two weeks later over cost.

For Fluxer, the developer says 100,000+ accounts signed up in 16 days while it still ran on a single server, alongside spam waves and DDoS attacks. That is the developer's own account; no independent performance measurements were found for either service.

Self-hosting and privacy

Both let you download the code and run your own server. Stoat has a "self-hosted" GitHub repository deployed with Docker. Fluxer says its self-hosted software has no feature paywalls or license keys, and its official apps can sign in to self-hosted instances. On licensing, per Wikipedia, Revolt's developers alleged in late 2022 that The Real World ran a modified Revolt codebase without publishing the changes, in violation of AGPLv3; it remains an allegation with no court ruling, and it concerns a third party, not the Stoat service.

On privacy, neither documents end-to-end encryption. Stoat stores data mainly in the EU, with some in the UK, and no official documentation mentions end-to-end encryption. Fluxer's policy states plainly that its systems can access message content and call media, that most data is hosted in New Jersey, US, and that the US CLOUD Act can still compel access; in return, Fluxer publishes an end-to-end encryption roadmap and offers a full data export.

Apps, features and support

Stoat has apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS/iPadOS and the web, plus a public API and theming. Video chat and screen sharing reached the main instance only in July 2026. Support is a help center, contact page and status page, with no published email or response times.

Fluxer lists more moderation tools: an audit log, threads, forum channels (early beta), filtered search, webhooks and passkeys. But its Android app reached a stable release only on 8 November 2026 and there is no iOS app on the App Store, so iPhone users must use the web version for now. Fluxer offers a support email ([email protected]), a feedback site and a status page. Outside ratings are few: 21 on Google Play (5/5) and 16 on AlternativeTo (4.1/5).