Stoat (formerly Revolt) — An open-source, self-hostable group chat app for communities and friends that rebranded from Revolt to Stoat in October 2025, offering servers, channels, and voice chat as a free AGPL-3.0 alternative to Discord.
By Noahlast updated
Stoat (formerly Revolt) screenshots & video
Stoat (formerly Revolt) in 20 seconds
Best for: communities and friend groups who want an open-source, self-hostable Discord-style chat app
Pricing: Free, with no confirmed paid tier; fully self-hostable at no cost under AGPL-3.0.
- Stoat was formerly named Revolt; the rebrand happened in October 2025 and revolt.chat now redirects to stoat.chat.
- Stoat's backend is licensed AGPL-3.0 and written in Rust, maintained under the stoatchat GitHub organization.
- Stoat ships native clients for web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android.
- Stoat offers custom emoji and animated avatars to all users with no subscription required.
- No paid subscription tier for Stoat was found during this research; it appears to be entirely free.
Limitations: Mid-transition rebrand from Revolt to Stoat can cause confusion with old links and search results.; Smaller third-party bot and integration ecosystem than Discord.; Self-hosting requires several supporting services (MongoDB, Redis, MinIO, RabbitMQ), not just a single binary.
Top alternatives: Discord, Element (Matrix), Rocket.Chat, Mattermost — full list
What is Stoat (formerly Revolt)?
Stoat (previously named Revolt) is an open-source, Discord-style group chat platform for communities and friends, built around servers containing text channels, voice channels, and role-based permissions. The project rebranded from Revolt to Stoat in October 2025; its website at revolt.chat now redirects to stoat.chat, and its GitHub organization moved from revoltchat to stoatchat. The backend (the "stoatchat" repo, formerly the Revolt backend) is written in Rust and licensed AGPL-3.0, with individual service crates carrying their own AGPL-3.0-or-later terms. Client apps exist for the web, native desktop (Windows, macOS, Linux), Android, and iOS, maintained as separate repositories under the same organization. Stoat markets itself on features it gives away that Discord charges for, such as custom emoji and animated avatars with no subscription required, and it can be fully self-hosted using the project's published Docker Compose configuration for teams or communities that want to run their own instance instead of using the hosted service.
Stoat, formerly called Revolt, is an open-source group chat platform built as a privacy-respecting, self-hostable alternative to Discord, with servers, text and voice channels, custom emoji with no subscription required, and animated avatars for every user. It targets communities and friend groups who want Discord-style chat without a closed-source, ad-supported backend, and it ships native clients for web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android, all under an AGPL-3.0 license via the stoatchat GitHub organization. Stoat is free to use and self-host, with no evidence found of a paid subscription tier during this research, so it is fully free rather than freemium.
Standout feature: Fully open-source and self-hostable Discord alternative (AGPL-3.0) that offers custom emoji and animated avatars to every user with no subscription required.
Biggest weakness: The 2026 rebrand from Revolt to Stoat means links, bookmarks, and search results still pointing to revolt.chat or the old revoltchat GitHub org can confuse users mid-transition, and the client apps and self-hosted community are smaller than Discord's, so third-party bots and integrations are far more limited.
Pros
- Fully open source under AGPL-3.0, including the backend and every official client.
- Self-hostable via published Docker Compose configuration for teams that want full data control.
- Custom emoji and animated avatars available to all users at no cost, unlike Discord's Nitro-gated equivalents.
- Native clients for web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android maintained in separate repos.
Cons
- Mid-2026 rebrand from Revolt to Stoat leaves old revolt.chat links and revoltchat GitHub references pointing to a superseded name.
- Far smaller bot and integration ecosystem than Discord.
- No official paid tier means no confirmed roadmap for large-scale hosted infrastructure investment beyond community/donation support.
- Self-hosting requires running MongoDB, Redis, MinIO, and RabbitMQ alongside the backend, a heavier setup than single-binary chat servers.
Stoat (formerly Revolt) pricing
Free
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Full chat platform: servers, text and voice channels, custom emoji, and animated avatars, with no subscription tier found during this research. Self-hostable at no cost. |
What reviewers say
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