Comment by BlueTemplar
3 years ago
Discord is surprisingly lightweight and snappy considering it's Electron.
I don't know about the voice and video features, but it's the best chat program... that I know of - also note that libre software typically doesn't have half a billion dollars in investment money nor 600 full-time jobs !
But I now have to boycott it because of all the other issues (though I got advanced warning considering it's a platform, it's still a shame...)
> considering it's Electron
It runs in a browser just in general (considering browsers have better access to ad/tracking blocking and other features to its sandbox, it likely wiser to skip the Electron bit) which helps get access to a broader range of devices (like Linux and BSD) in some cases, but there a a wealth of underpowered devices that can't run something this heavy. It seems all attempts at alternative clients for TUIs or native ETD up with cease and desists. Compare to Matrix and XMPP who both offer browser-based clients (both heavy and lightweight) as well as native clients, TUIs and you have a recipe for greater accessibility. Throw in that you can get E2EE and it's decentralized (and by proxy self-hostable) that you'd have to have literally the best UX to compete with that… and to me it's just meh (granted I only used it briefly, containerized, and for a specific client that that Discord without bridging was a good idea).
Yes, my point is that it's much more snappy than any (somewhat complex) software that I've used that uses Electron (that I know of) : Element (though it's getting better) and Atom (vs Spyder running on Qt) specifically come to mind.