Stoat - Find your community
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Take it if you want a free, open-source Discord-style chat for friends or hobby communities and accept a young, thinly-reviewed project.
Comparison
Stoat - Find your community vs Element
Stoat - Find your community and Element both land on Depends.
Element
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy if you are a government, regulated org, or team needing self-hosted E2EE and data sovereignty.
| Compare | Stoat - Find your community | Element |
|---|---|---|
| Verdict | Depends | Depends |
| Best for | Friend groups | Governments and public sector |
| Who it's not for | Businesses needing compliance, SLAs, or support contracts | Small teams wanting a simple Slack replacement |
| Privacy | No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.10 | No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.11 |
| Support quality | No support evidence in sources | No support evidence in sources |
| Public sentiment | Most buzz is forum discussion positioning Stoat as a Discord alternative; formal user reviews are very scarce.⁶ | Reviews call Element genuinely appealing for security, while coverage stresses users need education to use it well.12 |
| Biggest gotcha | 20MB per-file upload cap; media-heavy communities will hit it quickly | Pricing is not published; expect a sales conversation for hosted plans |
Pick Stoat - Find your community when
- Friend groups
- Hobbyist and gaming communities
- Users avoiding Discord's ID checks
- Self-hosting fans
When Stoat - Find your community is not a fit
- Businesses needing compliance, SLAs, or support contracts
- Large communities dependent on Discord's bot ecosystem
- Teams needing guaranteed uptime and vendor accountability
- Media-heavy servers; 20MB upload cap bites fast
Pick Element when
- Governments and public sector
- Sovereignty-focused, self-hosting orgs
- Security-conscious distributed teams
- Cross-organisation federated messaging
When Element is not a fit
- Small teams wanting a simple Slack replacement
- Buyers with no admin or dev resources
- Anyone needing zero-setup, consumer-simple messaging
- Teams needing published per-seat pricing upfront
Sources
official
- Stoat on GitHubgithub.comofficial
- Stoat - Find Your Community - Google Playplay.google.comofficial
- AppBrain listing (free app, Revolt Platforms)appbrain.comreview
- Gizmodo download pagegizmodo.comnews
- Trustpilot reviewstrustpilot.comreview
- Zcash Community Forum threadforum.zcashcommunity.comreview
- NeoGAF Discord ID-check threadneogaf.comnews
- Gridinsoft domain checkgridinsoft.comsecurity
- revolt.chat/securityrevolt.chatsecurity
official
- Element secure messenger review - TechRadartechradar.comreview
news
- Element Reviews & Ratings 2026 - TrustRadiustrustradius.comreview
- Element Software Reviews, Demo & Pricing - SoftwareAdvicesoftwareadvice.comreview
- Element bags $25.4M - SiliconCanalssiliconcanals.comnews