Discord

Discord is the chat layer many gaming communities, hobby groups and remote teams end up using when they want fast text, voice channels, video calls and screen sharing in one place. By our assessment, its best feature is how well it handles always-on communities, with servers, channels, roles and invite links that keep conversations organized without much ceremony. The drawback is the same thing that makes it powerful: busy servers can get noisy fast, and the interface asks some attention before it feels natural. In practice it is less formal than Slack and more flexible than old-style forums, which is why it often becomes the default hangout for a community rather than a neat project tool. Discord rewards people who like threaded chaos with structure, and the desktop app can be heavy on a modest machine.