I replaced Discord with Fluxer and use it for all my gaming groups. Several hours per session weekly.

Signal mostly, my circles know I’m chronically offline and thus not on big social platforms. The folks who don’t move to signal know my number and text/call me as needed which isn’t often or super sensitive because the rest of the conversation usually happens in person ¯\(ツ)/¯

ETA: I also have a couple contacts on Simplex, at their behest not mine. Not a fan of the voice/video quality to be honest but it’s fairly secure at least

I'm on IRC some of the time, mostly Libera. I've run and used a self-hosted nextcloud chat server a little, and have fooled with Jami and Jitsi Meet. At my old work we used Slack. At another one, Hipchat. I've never used Discord.

Fluxer, Matrix, IRC and Telegram... each is used by different groups, so I'm stuck with all of them.

My college has a mandatory server that you choose your roles for every semester to enter your course chat, where you get your homework and reminders of assignments.

XMPP

Gajim for Linux and Windows, Monocles on Android. There's an iOS client that's pretty good too.

I switched to matrix some years back, but it was too much upkeep for my non-tech family and friends, so we mass switched to Signal. I never used discord, but I'll date myself by saying I've used IRC, MSN, and Skype in the before times.

I use this niche software called Lemmy, idk about you guys tho

IRC and Matrix here. Through a self hosted ZNC and a self hosted Matrix instance with bridges.

I've never really been a major chat user. I think that non-real-time forum-style systems like Usenet, Reddit, or the Threadiverse tend to lead to more interesting interaction.

The chat system that I've probably used the most has been phone group text messaging, with IRC or XMPP group chats coming in after that. One place I worked used AIM for a while, and people would use that to coordinate stuff or do water-cooler talk.

If I were going to pick one to use, it'd probably be XMPP, assuming that I could get everyone else to use it. Federated, variety of good native clients for different platforms, support for E2E encryption.

We use signal with my family and my friends. But we are not actually spending much time together chatting, we rather coordinate meetups or video calls.

I'm using Sable which is a Matrix client and so far it has been great. I haven't used discord in over a year now.

Telegram was growing the last time family/friends were looking for a change, so I have my tiny group there. It's actually pretty good for our needs.

https://mony.world/ which uses federated Harmony - essentially a federated Discord clone - has been spun up. Feel free to seek alternative instances, I only know of that one.

We use Fluxor with a bot that bridges our Discord (SFW) and Matrix (NSFW) servers. We're hoping to migrate fully to Fluxor, but for now we are bridging the gaps.

Matrix, Fluxer, Stoat

I've never used Discord at all.

I use Telegram to chat with my wife, Facebook Messenger for a select group of friends, and text for everyone else.

I only use IRC regularly -- every other day or so to chat with a few small communities I'm part of. I enjoy hexchat even though it is EOL. There is a spiritual successor called ZoiteChat, but i haven't felt the need to change.

The others i only use if necessary, not often.

I use Matrix through a couple of different apps. It works very well for the few communities I've joined there.

I'm not spazzy enough to force others onto whichever platform I have deemed to be superior.

So I use whatever other people are using, which is normally discord or telegram. In the past I used Team Speak and Messenger for a while. I just rotate through profiles and practice other forms of digital hygiene

XMPP still works great! I use it for family.

Signal and Matrix, never used Discord though

I don't talk to people. People are stupid. And seeing as I'm part of the people demographic, I admit that I, too, am stupid. So don't talk to me. /jk

I mostly just use Matrix and Teams.

I use Matrix through FluffyChat more than I use Discord.

Matrix, Signal, Nextcloud Talk

Deleted discord when they started rolling out third party AI age verification if someone reported you and round the same time they were doing other shady shit.

1. zoom, voice and always video
2. messenger, voice and 50-50 video, usually with Portal TV Unit (every day it still works is a blessing). Call hand-off between Portal , phone and desktop mid-call are really well-done, so my wife's mother can easily switch to her phone, take the call up the stairs to her office and show me the thing on the cam that is messing up (usually printer lights) and then take the call back down to the living room and portal.
3. teams as ordered, voice, and video VERY rarely
4. gChat briefly when it's important enough to suffer the UX and connection glitches, voice and accidental video
5. zello if people have it and the situation is dynamic
6. mumble if people can find it

No value in discord for me.

Skype was eventually quite usable, despite increasingly wrong-headed UI fuckery. It started and ran a call nicely, and supported cross-device chat really well. I miss it.

I'm still hoping we can re-flash the gorgeous PortalTV hardware into something more usable in today's versatile world or find something like it (easy setup, voice calling if LLM API for voice commands, rock-solid reliability, no fucking subscriptions).

Mostly Signal with friends and Matrix for various FOSS stuff. I've installed Discord recently because a potential employer hosts their communication there

People actually use discord?