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Discord vs Skype: What are the differences?
Introduction
In today's digital world, communication platforms have become a crucial part of our lives. Two popular communication platforms are Discord and Skype. Although both serve the purpose of connecting people, there are key differences between the two. Here are six specific differences that set Discord and Skype apart.
Target Audience and Purpose: Discord primarily caters to the gaming community, providing seamless voice chat and text communication features. On the other hand, Skype is more versatile, targeting a wider range of users including individuals, businesses, and organizations for both personal and professional communication purposes.
Server Structure: Discord follows a server-based model, where users can create or join servers with specific interests or communities. This structure allows for easy organization and management, giving users more control over their conversations. Skype, however, is centered around contact lists and individual contacts, making it more suitable for one-on-one or small group conversations.
Voice Quality and Features: Discord is well-known for its superior voice quality even in crowded servers, making it ideal for gamers and those who prioritize clear communication. It offers advanced features like noise suppression and echo cancellation. On the other hand, while Skype provides reliable voice quality, it may not offer the same level of clarity and additional features as Discord.
Text Chat Features: Discord focuses on providing a more robust text chat experience. It supports channels for different topics within a server, allowing users to engage in organized conversations. It also supports markdown formatting, code blocks, and a wide range of emojis. In comparison, Skype offers a simpler chat interface with the ability to send files, images, and emojis, but lacks the organizational features of channels.
Third-Party Integrations: Discord has an extensive range of third-party integrations, allowing users to connect Discord with other platforms, such as Twitch, Spotify, and YouTube, enhancing their overall experience. On the other hand, Skype has limited third-party integrations, primarily focusing on features offered by Microsoft, its parent company, such as Office 365 and Outlook.
Pricing: Discord is free to use, offering its core features at no cost. It also provides a premium subscription called Discord Nitro, which offers additional benefits like higher quality screen sharing and animated emotes. Skype, on the other hand, offers a freemium model, with basic features available for free, but charging for premium features such as calling landlines or mobile numbers.
In summary, Discord is primarily geared towards the gaming community with a server-based structure, superior voice quality, and advanced text chat features, while Skype targets a wide range of users with its versatile contact-based model, reliable voice quality, and a simpler chat interface. Discord also offers more extensive third-party integrations and has a different pricing structure compared to Skype.
I want to host an online Jeopardy game with less than 30 participants. During each round of the game, I'll stream some videos. The point is to gather friends together to play the Jeopardy game and watch random stuff. Please let me know if there's a more suitable platform other than Discord and Zoom. Thanks, everyone!
Personally, I think that Discord works much better than anything else, even if you don't have Nitro (which is what they call their premium plan). You could seriously do this Jeopardy thing with just Discord (and maybe a bot to make it easier)
Zoom would only let you have a crappy meeting that hackers could easily join. Discord actually has DDoS protection, Zoom just has things that can easily be bypassed.
And if you do want Nitro, it's only $9/mo or $99/yr
Hi, I am helping teachers in my kid's schools to set up distance learning and wanted to see what is better between Webex, Zoom, and Skype (although only putting this one in as most parents probably have it). The children are 8-9, so they won't be using it on their own and the parents have no experience using Webex or Zoom.
The main use will be for the teacher to explain what they will be covering in the week and enable some social interaction between the kids.
I need to be easy to use for about 20-25 people.
Thanks for your advice, Lisa
I consider Skype dead. Even Microsoft strongly neglected it. Webex is more corporate-oriented. So for your use case, I recommend Zoom. It is easy to set up, and the quality is very good. Zoom became such a household name that the average person heard about it. Moreover, any person probably has friends who may have used it. So it will be easier for people to get some community help.
We've been using Zoom for about a half a year and it's stability is unbeatable. We have all-hands on Fridays with 100+ participants. The free tier can easily handle the requirements, the only limitation is that max meeting length is 40 minutes. After that you can immediately restart the meeting, but the pro option is also very affordable. It also features screen sharing and whiteboard sharing out of the box. I also appreciate that it's not mandatory to register an account to attend a meeting.
Hi, Lisa,
I haven't used Skype in a long time. I have I lot of experience with Zoom and Webex. Both for me are very good tools, especially if you have money to pay for (to unlock more features, like more people in a video conference - Zoom).
Nowadays, I've used more Webex with my undergraduate students, I'm using the free account. Cloud recording is a features very useful, especially while using the free account (thanks Cisco!). Webex has control features very useful (e.g., mute, raise hand etc).
Kind regards,
From my experiences I feel like Zoom is a pretty intuitive program to teach kids, however Skype might be more common amongst them already.
I am a big fan of Microsoft Teams.
They all do the same pretty much but Teams I find the bells and whistles are easier to find, like custom backgrounds... creating groups for topic discussions that remain there until you want to change/edit or delete. Easy to share files.
as many people say that you can only hold 30 to 10 people in one discord call if you were to make a server and add a chat or a VC you can hold up to 99 which is more than zoom and you can also use the text chat, general chat or anything else that you add and the best part you can hold pretty much infinite people I have personally seen servers with up to 100k people in it. One of the better parts is that you don't necessarily have to download it you can search it up on google and make an account it's as easy as that. Another thing is due to the original purpose of the website/app is that it's very customizable meaning that your students can customize heir profile pictures and names, but not to worry in a discord server you can have it where only you can change their nicknames so let's say things get too confusing or you want to be able to see who they really are you can just change it to their name. One last thing I will say is that you can have customizable ranks and so on so if you desire to split people into teams you can do so and with that, you can customize what they can do like give people ranks or de-rank them. Like I mentioned earlier about VC's you can also screen share and do videos so you can see their screen or their face.
Pros of Discord
- Unlimited Users65
- Unlimited Channels59
- Easy to use55
- Voice Chat51
- Fast and easy set-ups and connections49
- Clean UI46
- Mobile Friendly43
- Free43
- Android App33
- Mention system29
- Customizable notifications on per channel basis27
- Customizable ranks/permissions26
- IOS app22
- Good code embedding21
- Vast Webhook Support19
- Dark mode16
- Easy context switching between work and home14
- Roles14
- Great Communities13
- Very Resource Friendly12
- Robust12
- Easy to develop for12
- Great Customer Support12
- Bot control12
- Video Call Conference11
- Video call meeting11
- Able to hold 99 people in one call10
- Sharing screen layer10
- Easy9
- Great browser experience9
- Shares screen with other member9
- Easy Server Setup and joining system9
- Lower bandwidth requirements than competitors7
- Easy to code bots for7
- Noice6
- Easily set up custom emoji3
Pros of Skype
- Free, widespread258
- Desktop and mobile apps147
- Because i have to :(110
- Low cost international calling57
- Good for international calls56
- Best call quality anywhere, generally10
- Beautiful emojis5
- Chat bots4
- Translator2
- Skype for business integration with Outlook2
- United kingdom1
- Not the Best, but get the job done1
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Cons of Discord
- Not as many integrations as Slack10
- For gamers9
- Limited file size5
- Sends data to US Gov4
- For everyone4
- Undescriptive in global ban reasons2
- Suspected Pedophiles in few servers2
- Unsupportive Support1
- High memory and CPU footprint1
Cons of Skype
- Really high CPU utilization during video/screenshare5
- Not always reliable3
- Outdated UI3
- Birthday notifications are annoying3
- The worst indicator noises of any app ever3
- Finding/adding people isn't easy2
