# Fluxer

22 Hacker News commenters recommended Fluxer and 6 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend Fluxer as a Discord alternative that feels familiar and is open source and self-hostable. Critics say it has age verification and scaling problems.

## Why people recommend it

- Feels like Discord, familiar UI (7 comments): "Fluxer is the first Discord competitor that when you show to someone they can't say "well Discord does X better"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50268877)) "tries to be the most similar alternative to discord in terms of UI/UX so it should "just work"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49974319)) "Fluxer is functionally equivalent to Discord from a users perspective." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50265428))
- Open source and self-hostable (4 comments): "Great initiative, it was about time we need something installable and lightweight" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47008960)) "Fluxer is open-source and self-hostable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50271047)) "self-hosting is ready to use already" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48834853))
- Privacy-focused, no invasive age checks (2 comments): "excellent most promising privacy focused Discord clone" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50112788)) "rather than implementing invasive age verification" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48391774))
- Promising, gaining traction quickly (5 comments): "the first one to inspire hope in me that maybe that won't always be the case" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50106845)) "Most people are moving to other alternatives like Fluxer." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49809079)) "I think Fluxer just became a more likely candidate." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47069722))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Slack](https://hackerapproved.com/p/slack.md): 248 recommend
- [Microsoft Teams](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-teams.md): 228 recommend
- [Zulip](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zulip.md): 143 recommend
- [Chatto](https://hackerapproved.com/p/chatto.md): 55 recommend
- [Mattermost](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mattermost.md): 40 recommend

## Cite as

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