# Armada

10 Hacker News commenters recommended Armada and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Open-source, encrypted Discord alternative built on Nostr. People find it similar enough to pick up, with improvements, and it runs across free public servers.

## Why people recommend it

- Decentralized, open source, self-hostable (2 comments): "Armada is designed to be "unstoppable" - which means it's decentralized, open source, and self-hostable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49100819)) "Armada is spread across free public servers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49876185))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Signal](https://hackerapproved.com/p/signal.md): 486 recommend
- [Bitchat](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bitchat.md): 56 recommend
- [Element](https://hackerapproved.com/p/element.md): 50 recommend
- [Briar](https://hackerapproved.com/p/briar.md): 50 recommend
- [Delta Chat](https://hackerapproved.com/p/delta-chat.md): 48 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Armada", https://hackerapproved.com/p/armada/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).