Shard
A Discord alternative

A Discord alternative that is yours.

Shard gives your group its own server: text channels, voice channels, cameras and screen sharing, in the browser. It works like the Discord you know, and a first name is all anyone is asked.

Free. One of you creates it. The others join with a link and a first name.

A Shard server called Night Shift: its channels on the left, a conversation with reactions and a picture in the middle, who is online on the right.
The same conversation on a phone.

What is the same, and what is not

The same: a server with text channels and voice channels, pictures, GIFs, emoji and reactions, a camera and a shared screen with its sound in a call, roles to keep the place, on a desk and in a phone's browser.

Not the same: one server is one group. There are no public servers to browse, no direct messages, no bots and nothing to subscribe to. Messages cannot be edited yet, and there are no apps in the stores yet.

A voice channel in a call: a screen shared by one person above the faces of the four people in it.

Hop into a call

A voice channel is a room. Walk in and talk, turn a camera on, share your screen: everyone in it watches together.

An invitation as a messaging app shows it: the name of the server and how many are in.

One link brings them in

Send the invitation where your group already talks. It shows your server; they open it, type a first name, and they are in. Nothing to install.

The same conversation on a phone.

On a phone too

The same link opens the same server in a phone's browser.

It is yours

  • Its own address

    Your server lives at the name you give it, at an address of its own.

  • You run it

    Whoever creates it is its admin: you let people in, and you show them out.

  • Nothing asked

    No ID, no age check, no phone number, no ads. A first name gets your friends in.

Why now: Discord estimates the age of accounts from how they behave, and says fewer than one in ten is then asked to prove it, with a selfie, a card or an ID, to reach what is meant for adults. Discord, 22 September 2026.

Said plainly

  • It is free

    Creating a server, inviting your group and calling cost nothing. No card is asked.

  • Who hosts it

    The servers created here are hosted by Solar Beam Studio, in Finland, in the European Union.

  • What the host can read

    Your messages are kept where the server is hosted, so your group can read them back. They are not encrypted end to end: whoever hosts a server can open what is written in it.

Three steps

  1. 1Name your server.
  2. 2Send the link to your group.
  3. 3They type a first name.