One of the main problems in suggesting Discord alternatives is that Discord itself is an amalgamation of several apps.

For some a Discord alternative needs to be a voicecall, for others it‘s game streaming, and for others it‘s just a chat, a bulletinboard or newsgroup, while they never used the Voice features.

> We are also currently working on a privacy-focused alternative called Kloak, which is in its very early alpha stage. We would greatly appreciate your feedback on areas for improvement and any expectations you may have for the platform.

Doesn't Matrix essentially satisfy all of them?

Although the bulletinboard/newsgroup feature is something that I don't know but I feel as if that can be on matrix as well.

Yes, I know Matrix is hard to host but I don't imagine discord if they release their source code to be easy either.

So for a discord-like experience, I really prefer matrix.