# Stoat

16 Hacker News commenters recommended Stoat and 16 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Open-source chat app recommended as the closest Discord alternative, good enough for many common uses, and meeting the open-source requirement. Critics say it is barebones, lacks video calling, and has a weak iOS app.

## Why people recommend it

- Closest alternative to Discord (3 comments): "Stoat is basically the only thing here that actually competes on Discord and it's really barebones." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46959167)) "Stoat is the closest, but no video calling still" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46946942)) "the closest alternative to Discord is Stoat" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46946008))
- Open-source, meets Discord requirement (2 comments): "matches the "Opensource Discord" requirement perfectly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46949276)) "a good EU OpenSource alternative" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46950758))

## What people warn about

- Lacks video calling, barebones (2 comments): "Stoat is basically the only thing here that actually competes on Discord and it's really barebones." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46959167)) "Stoat is the closest, but no video calling still" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46946942))
- Slow or failed account verification (3 comments): "it took hours for the verification email" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46997238)) "It's taken over 24 hours to try to register a new account." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46964238)) "My verification emails never showed up from Stoat or Root." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46997280))
- Screen sharing missing or buggy (2 comments): "Screen sharing is still a work in progress. It's been a while since I tested it myself but you can still see plenty of reports of it being buggy and slow." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47038416)) "One thing most of those lack is an easy way to share screen." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46946431))
- Weak or missing iOS app (2 comments): "Strafe, Chatto, Stoat all fall apart in the native iOS app requirement" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50090951)) "infinitely more buggy and the lack of iOS apps is causing problems" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49131162))

## 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, "Stoat", https://hackerapproved.com/p/stoat/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).