Revolt

A developer known as Insert started Revolt in 2019 to give communities an open-source alternative to Discord that respects privacy. Following a trademark dispute in late 2025, the underlying project continues development under the name Stoat while preserving the original architecture and self-hosted model. Today, it provides private servers, voice rooms, and role-based channels managed entirely on your own infrastructure.

Why Revolt instead of Discord

Discord stores communication records, telemetry, and media uploads on corporate infrastructure, gating usability features behind recurring Nitro subscriptions and moderating servers according to proprietary guidelines. Revolt replaces that centralized intermediary with self-hosted instances where teams retain full custody over user profiles, channel history, and file storage. The interface mirrors Discord's layout with nested channel categories, role hierarchies, and voice rooms, allowing team members to transition without training hurdles.

Opting for self-hosted sovereignty shifts operational work back to your team. Discord handles global media routing, multi-region voice scaling, and automatic infrastructure updates behind the scenes. Running Revolt requires deploying a Rust backend alongside MongoDB, Redis, and a WebRTC media engine such as LiveKit for calls. For technical teams and agencies handling sensitive discussions, owning the underlying server and eliminating third-party data profiling justifies that operational investment.

What it does well

• Multi-container architecture: Deploys via Docker Compose with containers for the Rust API server, WebSocket dispatcher, and file microservices, giving ops leads a standard deployment pipeline.
• Complete data sovereignty: Stores user accounts, messages, and attachments on local disks or private S3 buckets, preventing third-party telemetry harvesting.
• WebRTC voice and video: Integrates with LiveKit to supply low-latency voice channels and screen sharing directly within server spaces without per-seat fees.
• Granular permission hierarchies: Provides role-based access controls and channel overrides modeled after Discord, keeping permission management intuitive for agency staff.
• Direct bot and webhook automation: Offers REST and WebSocket APIs, enabling teams to connect deployment webhooks and incident alerts.
• Interface customization: Supports custom themes and accent colors without charging for cosmetic add-ons.