Serein[0] recently got on my radar, being exactly that (A Rust Discord client). Been using it for the last few weeks, and boy is it snappy! I rather like this trend of stuff being rewritten in Rust (usually via LLMs). Spotifast[1] being another great example.

Perhaps Discord caught wind that this is now possible, and don’t want to be left behind?

[0]: https://github.com/ViceVerse-cz/Serein

[1]: https://github.com/crmne/spotifast

Yeah a few of those projects have existed for a while, but certainly things have picked up steam with the emergence of better LLMs. The issue with third-party clients is that Discord doesn't like them, and you're in violation of their ToS, meaning they can ban your account at any time. A bit risky, if you're networked into a bunch of communities (unfortunately so, but the effect is rather strong).