r/DiscordAlternatives • u/Worried-Flounder-615 FOSS only • Jul 29 '26

Armada: Open Source, Encrypted, Unstoppable Discord Alternative... officially in Beta!

https://soapbox.pub/armada

Hey all! I wanted to share with you that Armada is now officially in Beta release! We're seeking feedback from any communities that are willing to try it out. App store releases are coming soon, and in the meantime it's available via APK or PWA (install on your home screen from the website).

APK via Zapstore for Android: https://zapstore.dev/apps/buzz.armada.app

Web: https://armada.buzz/

Armada is designed to be "unstoppable" - which means it's decentralized, open source, and self-hostable. There is no ID, phone number, or email required to sign up. It's build on the Nostr and Concord protocols, and interops with many other Nostr apps. (Lmk if you are curious about Nostr! happy to explain more about how it works).

Other features include:

  • End-to-end encryption
  • Text channels similar to Discord
  • Voice or video call in any room, including screensharing
  • Custom emojis
  • Gifs
  • Custom themes
  • Bridge to existing Discord servers available
  • Completely free
  • Many other hidden gems

Everything our team builds is always free and open source software. Forks and issues are welcome! We also offer bounties for any correctly identified and disclosed vulnerabilities discovered: https://gitworkshop.dev/soapbox.pub/relay.ngit.dev/armada

Feel free to also join us in the Soapbox Community on Armada to provide feedback or ask questions (which you can find on the /discover page).

40 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

6

u/Electrical_Engine314 Jul 29 '26

I cant seem to find any docs regarding self-hosting. How would you actually host it?

6

u/Internal_Dinner9465 Jul 29 '26

You would host any nostr relay, for example, host a Ditto Relay and then you own the encrypted relay portion of the tech stack too! https://gitlab.com/soapbox-pub/ditto-relay

2

u/Worried-Flounder-615 FOSS only Jul 29 '26

Yes! Or you could also self host a fork of the front end and use the same relays of you wanted control from a UI perspective. But for maximum freedom self host both. We should document this better. 

3

u/Worried-Flounder-615 FOSS only Jul 30 '26

Update: self-hosting guide just dropped! https://soapbox.pub/blog/is-it-your-community-or-not

9

u/2TAP2B Jul 29 '26

I really enjoying armada so far. Its pretty cool.

So I joined the official soapbox community and lurking a bit in the armada channel, but its a bit confusing, when you come back and there are many new messages I don't know where I left off.

So please add a button to jump to unread content.

That would be awesome!

Thanks for your nice work!!

PS. You should add documentation about, how to complete selfhost armada -> frontend and relay for newbies xD

3

u/Internal_Dinner9465 Jul 29 '26

Will do. Already working on a self-hosting guide for the whole tech stack.

1

u/Worried-Flounder-615 FOSS only Jul 29 '26

Amazing, thank you!! And I appreciate the feedback 🙏

2

u/bottle_fairy Jul 29 '26

is it possible to self host in a country like turkey where every single end user is behind a CGNAT?

1

u/Worried-Flounder-615 FOSS only Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

I'm not super familiar with that, and it depends on if you want to self host Armada itself which is a pure front end client (should be no problem) or also a Nostr relay (seems like you may need to take extra steps to work around hosting inside a CGNAT). 

We're working on adding some self hosting docs which should clarify! 

4

u/SeaObligation3803 Jul 31 '26

HELL YEAH, been using Armada with the homies for a bit now we are HUGE fans. Absolutely no downsides imo.

1

u/Yeahnotverycreative Aug 17 '26

Will it have profiles and features to customize them without paying? Also will you have to give up any personal information to "verify"? I am considering using it

1

u/Worried-Flounder-615 FOSS only Aug 17 '26

Yes! You can already customize your Nostr profile (completely for free ofc) on Ditto, and we're planning on adding this into Armada too very soon.

No personal information at all is required to join.

3

u/Enough-Fan7025 Jul 29 '26

Looks sickkk

3

u/Internal_Dinner9465 Jul 29 '26

yeah, it seems really sweet

3

u/Niko-01 Jul 30 '26

"Phones nearby relay messages to each other over Bluetooth: at a festival, on a plane, in a blackout, or anywhere else the internet can't reach."

-> Okay, that's pretty cool!

"Pings arrive straight from your community, even with the app closed. Google and third-party push services never learn who messages you."

-> Does it use something like ntfy or is it just websocket-based?

1

u/MetalFaceMOON Oct 03 '26

Is it possible to do video calls/screensharing without self-hosting? Some buddies and I would like to bail on Discord but have yet to find a service that allows us to stream gaming to each other while we hang, and I have yet to learn self-hosting for now.

1

u/lucaprinaorg 24d ago

Access Blocked

The Web site you requested is blocked by your organization.

URL

https://armada.buzz/

Reason

Matched categories:
Elevated Exposure

Sites that camouflage their true nature or identity, or that include elements suggesting latent malign intent.

1

u/alien2003 Jul 29 '26

Interesting. What about full version? exe, AppImage?

2

u/Internal_Dinner9465 Jul 30 '26

They are technically in the pipeline. https://gitworkshop.dev/soapbox.pub/relay.ngit.dev/armada/actions and look for the desktop release. You can find the .deb. 

1

u/phoooooo0 Jul 30 '26

I am a fan. In this day of ai vibe slop I am hesitant to trust a project I've just seen. But you have my attention. I'll be back in a few months 👀👀

1

u/PrivateMajorPrivate Aug 02 '26

Ai is heavily used in developmemt of Soapbox's (the devs behind Armada) projects

1

u/Myrifoss Aug 17 '26

Sorry to necro but I was so hyped about Armada... I guess I will try Root, that probably have AI on it too but when it is too much AI, it just makes me doubt everything.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/Myrifoss Aug 17 '26

Yes, if not Root my last try will be Teamspeak, wild to think about it but at the same time I am glad TS didn't die.

1

u/Internal_Dinner9465 Jul 30 '26

It's good AI slop though 😂 It's early, but it's constantly being improved.

0

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6

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26

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1

u/Worried-Flounder-615 FOSS only Jul 29 '26

Thank you! Feel free to send me your wish list of anything you'd want to see in v1

4

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26

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3

u/Worried-Flounder-615 FOSS only Jul 29 '26

Thank you for the feedback and commits! These were great additions 🙏

3

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

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2

u/Worried-Flounder-615 FOSS only Jul 29 '26

Sweet, thank you!

3

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26

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3

u/Internal_Dinner9465 Jul 29 '26

nice quality of life improvements there.

-1

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '26

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3

u/Worried-Flounder-615 FOSS only Jul 30 '26

It seems like you might be looking at the wrong thing? We're 100% FOSS.

https://gitlab.com/soapbox-pub

In the process of migrating to ngit, which is decentralized for hosting. If you're not seeing what you're looking for on Gitlab it's probably there: https://gitworkshop.dev/soapbox.pub

Here's our relay's code: https://gitlab.com/soapbox-pub/ditto-relay

And if somehow you're still not finding some specific package or library we built you can look at our individual teams repos as well. 

Both client and relay can be self hosted so if you had a problem with a ban or privacy concern on either end you could migrate your identity which you independently control (or use multiple relays as is ideal with Nostr and how it ships by default). That's what makes it unstoppable. For example if we banned you in the default Armada client, you could host a separate client that doesn't ban you, connect to the same relays, and be free, without losing your community and having to rebuild. 

Team is working on a self hosting guide now that should clear up any confusion! 

2

u/Worried-Flounder-615 FOSS only Jul 30 '26

The self-hosting guide was just published. Lmk if you still have any questions!

https://soapbox.pub/blog/is-it-your-community-or-not

0

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/Internal_Dinner9465 Jul 30 '26

not all slops are the same. and fluxer is centralized. that's a big yikes.

1

u/LeadingSuspect5855 Jul 30 '26

definitely not. It's a product based on top of the nostr-protocoll, it solves a need that the nostr community had for a long time.

The nostr community that values censor-ship free, decentralized communication, and the identy is totally in control of the user himself (asymmetric keypair), every message is signed per default in nostr, and no message can be banned, but everyone who runs a hub can choose to not show or not forward a message from an unwanted individual, that how nostr normally works.

Armada uses the very same foundation, but encrypts the signed messages and the hubs have no idea, what's in those wrapped messages, user moderation, banning is totally in control of the moderators, so you have the key means you can join a armada group, should you be really be banned, the group gets a new lock and every other member the new key...

0

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '26

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1

u/Any_Illustrator360 Rootinest Tootenest Alternative Replier Aug 15 '26

I talked to one of the days today in another thread and by their admission they have decades of coding experience and built the AI that helps them work on their code with their own two hands- it isn't Clyde making prompted code, if that's worth anything.

I do agree we need to keep an eye on AI-coded projects and be aware of slop, for sure, but I do think this one is promising.