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Discord

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This page is a major Work-In-Progress, and was last edited on 9/10/2025.

Discord is an instant messaging and VoIP social platform that allows communication through voice calls, video calls, text messaging, and media. Communication can be private or take place in virtual communities called "servers".[note 2] Such a server is a collection of persistent chat rooms and voice channels accessed by invitation links. Discord runs on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, iPadOS, and Linux, and in web browsers.

As of 2024, Discord has about 150 million monthly active users and 19 million weekly active servers.[8] It is primarily used by gamers, although the share of users interested in other topics is growing.[9] As of March 2024, Discord is the 30th most visited website in the world, and 22.98% of its traffic comes from the United States.[10][11] In March 2022, Discord employed 600 people globally.[12]

Table of Contents
  1. Usage
  2. Notes
  3. Outbound Links

Usage

Notes

Features

Discord is centered around managing communities. Communication tools such as voice and video calls, persistent chat rooms, and integrations with other gamer-focused services along with the general ability to send direct messages and create personal groups are present.[52]

Servers

Discord communities are organized into discrete collections of channels called servers. Although they are referred to as servers on the front end, they are called "guilds" in the developer documentation, to distinguish themselves from actual servers.[53] Users can create servers for free, manage their public visibility, and create voice channels, text channels, and categories to sort the channels into.[52] Most servers have a limit of 250,000 members, but this limit can be raised if the server owner contacts Discord.[54] Users can also create roles and assign them to server members. Roles can, among other things, determine which channels users have access to, change users’ colors, and designate a server's moderation team. The previously largest known Discord server was Snowsgiving 2021, an official Discord-controlled server made for the 2021 winter holiday season. This server reached 1 million members.[55] In 2023, the server for Midjourney reached over 15 million members, making it the largest server on Discord.[56]

Starting October 2017, Discord allows game developers and publishers to verify their servers. Verified servers, like verified accounts on social media sites, have badges to mark them as official communities. A verified server is moderated by its developers' or publishers' own moderation team. Verification was later extended in February 2018 to include esports teams and musical artists.[57][58][59] By the end of 2017, about 450 servers were verified.[60] In 2023, Discord paused their verification program while they performed maintenance. The program has not been reopened as of September 2024.[61][better source needed]

Channel types

Channels may be used either for voice chat and streaming or for instant messaging and file sharing, or both.

Discord launched Stage Channels in May 2021, a feature similar to Clubhouse which allows for live, moderated channels, for audio talks, discussions, and other uses, which can further be potentially gated to only invited or ticketed users. Initially, users could search for open Stage Channels relevant to their interests through a Stage Discovery tool, which was discontinued in October 2021.[62][63]

In August 2021, Discord launched Threads, which are temporary text channels that can be set to automatically disappear. This is meant to help foster more communication within servers.[64]

Forum Channels, which allow for longer and separate conversations were introduced to the platform in September 2022. These channels bring an Internet forum experience to Discord.[65]

Discord launched Media Channels in June 2023. Media Channels are restricted to videos and images only.[66]

User profiles

Users register for Discord with an email address and must create a username. Until mid-2023, to allow multiple users to use the same username, each user was assigned a four-digit number called a "discriminator" (colloquially a "Discord tag"), prefixed with "#", which was added to the end of their username.[67] Users who subscribed to Discord Nitro had the ability to change this tag to any four-digit number. This system was ultimately changed to a handle-based system in May 2023, removing the discriminator from usernames.[68] This new system mandated a change of username. Users selected their new usernames in priority based on how early they registered for Discord, Nitro status, and ownership of partner and verified servers.[69] Users criticized the possible impersonation risk that may arise if their previous username was claimed by another user.[70]

In June 2021, Discord added a feature that allows the user to add an about me section to their profile, as well as a custom colored banner at the top of their profile. Subscribers to Discord Nitro have the added ability to upload static or animated images as their banners instead of solid colors.[71]

Video calls and streaming

Video calling and screen sharing were added in October 2017, allowing users to create private video calls with up to 10 users,[72] later increased to 50 due to the increased popularity of video calling during the COVID-19 pandemic.[73]

In August 2019, this was expanded with live streaming channels in servers. A user can share their entire screen, or a specific application, and others in that channel can choose to watch the stream. While these features somewhat mimic the livestreaming capabilities of platforms like Twitch, the company does not plan to compete with these services, as these features were made for small groups.[60]

Digital distribution

In August 2018, Discord launched a games storefront beta, allowing users to purchase a curated set of games through the service.[74] This will include a "First on Discord" featured set of games that their developers attest to Discord's help in getting launched, giving these games 90 days of exclusivity on the Discord marketplace. Discord Nitro subscribers will also gain access to a rotating set of games as part of their subscription, with the price of Nitro being bumped from $4.99 to $9.99 a month.[75][76] A cheaper service called 'Nitro Classic' was also released that has the same perks as Nitro but does not include free games.

Following the launch of the Epic Games Store, which challenged Valve's Steam storefront by only taking a 12% cut of game revenue, Discord announced in December 2018 that it would reduce its own revenue cut to 10%.[77]

To further support developers, starting in March 2019 Discord gave the ability for developers and publishers that ran their own servers to offer their games through a dedicated store channel on their server, with Discord managing the payment processing and distribution. This can be used, for example, to give select users access to alpha- and beta-builds of a game in progress as an early access alternative.[78]

Also in March 2019, Discord removed the digital storefront, instead choosing to focus on the Nitro subscription and having direct sales be done through developer's own servers.[79] In September 2019, Discord announced that it was ending its free game service in October 2019 as they found too few people were playing the games offered.[80]

Developer tools and bots

In December 2016, the company introduced its GameBridge API, which allows game developers to directly integrate with Discord within games.[81]

In December 2017, Discord added a software development kit (SDK) that allows developers to integrate their games with the service, called "rich presence". This integration is commonly used to allow players to join each other's games through Discord or to display information about a player's game progression in their Discord profile.[82]

Bots are community-made tools to automate tasks. When installed by server owners, they may aid in moderation, host mini games, and perform myriad of other automated tasks. As of 2021, there are around 430,000 total bots active in estimated 30% of all servers. Discord provides official bot APIs which allow custom elements such as dropdowns and buttons. In spring 2022, Discord released an official "app directory" where server owners can add bots to their servers in-Discord. The Verge described bots as an "important part of Discord".[83]

A Social SDK was released in March 2025 which will allow games to incorporate Discord's social features into games and assist with providing in-game communications between Discord and non-Discord users.[84]

Unofficial extensions

Although Discord disallows modifications,[85] many unofficial extensions have been created. BetterDiscord, for example, is an open-source desktop modification that allows various plugins to be installed. These plugins augment existing functionality or add features that are not offered by Discord. One plugin, for example, allows its users to apply custom themes for free; another plugin allows increasing the volume of a voice-call participant beyond the default.[86][87][88] BetterDiscord has generally been well-received, though PC Gamer has said it is prone to crashes and bugs.[86] According to BetterDiscord's developers, users of the modification are not at risk of being sanctioned by Discord so long as they do not use additional modifications that violate Discord's terms of service.[89]

Outbound Links

For quirk users:

Discord Tools

Aliucord Add-ons: (All of these must be installed in Aliucord's app)

See also: Typing Quirks#Tools

Accessibility tools:

Gallery

example image
Typing quirk pride flag by blood-moon-knight-coining, without the letters and numbers.
example image
Typing quirk pride flag by blood-moon-knight-coining, without the letters and numbers or the grey bar.
example image
Typing quirk pride flag by blood-moon-knight-coining.
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Sans Typing Quirk flag by flagshitter using the template by blood-moon-knight.
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Pride flags for quirks that replace the letter A with the number 4, same details as above.