Buy Canadian

Thanks all, I set up a mumble server on a local Montreal host. We're currently using a realm to play but I might switch it to a full fledged server with the same guys.

A lot of the suggestions I liked on paper, like Revolt or Matrix and might take for myself. But the fact that there were community servers access directly in the app and no way for me to regulate their visibility for my kids instantly disqualified them for this specific use case.

With Mumla they only see the server I set up for them and I can control who comes in.

Revolt is good, although I don't know where it is from.

I use Matrix daily but I would hesitate to recommend giving it to children unless you're able to set it up in such a way that they only have access to the rooms you configure--I don't think any Matrix apps have parental control settings but I've never checked.

Matrix has kind of miserable moderation options. Mods can't do basic things like disabling attachments, which makes it prone to NSFL/NSFW image spam. The official automod bot, Mjolnir, can mitigate this somewhat, but can be pretty easily gamed. e.g. It tries to prevent image spam by deleting messages that have an image if they're the first message a user sends in the channel--so spammers just send a message to highlight everybody first, then the images.

When there's nothing that needs moderating, Matrix is great. However, it is severely lacking in ways to handle abuse. If you're in a community that's being targeted by bad actors (like Jared Leto), you basically just have to deal with it; there's very little you can do proactively.

Jitsi is in browser, no app needed

Definitely Matrix. Check out the client Element.

matrix.org

element.io

Matrix is my favourite, and easy to use, you just need to pick a client that supports it https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/ (Element is the most common) and create an account. You can also self-host if you want more privacy/control.

Signal has a desktop client, but sadly, it still needs a phone to work.

I also use Steam chat for playing.

A more direct alternative would be

• Discord -> Revolt
• Teamspeak -> Mumble

There's matrix but it isn't simple and idk of there's vc

Mumble appears to be active.

Mumble

Signal did have a PC client at one point and recently added usernames do might work without phone #.

How many people do you need? I've got a VPS and might be able to start up a private chat host (been meaning to work on one anyhow)