Discord vs Element-web
Discord and Element-web are both team chat software. Discord is a commercial product from Discord Inc. Element-web is open source under AGPL-3.0, with 14k GitHub stars.
Which to pick
- Pick Discord when
- You run a public or semi-public community, such as gamers, an open-source project or a creator audience.
- Pick Element-web when
- You use Matrix and want the most complete client, or want to host your own web client.
Side by side
Voice, video and text chat organised into servers and channels, built for gaming groups and online communities.
The Element web and desktop client for Matrix, with encrypted messaging, rooms, threads and calls.
Not built for business use: no proper data retention or compliance controls, and content is hard to search from outside.
Heavy for a chat client, and moved to AGPL.
Production-ready (both)
Cloud service, desktop app and mobile app
Self-hosted server and desktop app
Not published
TypeScript and React
Closed source, sold by Discord Inc.
Open source, AGPL-3.0 (network copyleft)
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
Use inside your business is unrestricted. If you change it and let customers use it over the internet, you must publish your changes.
42k Wikipedia readers a month on phones
14k GitHub stars
Not known
Established: started 11 years ago, latest release v1.12.33.
Other comparisons
More team chat apps
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.