Why Guilded Might Be the Discord Alternative You've Been Looking For

Welcome back to another episode of the Independent Creator Podcast. Tonight we're diving into a platform I've covered before but think deserves another look: Guilded. In my humble opinion, Guilded beats Discord in pretty much everything that matters. Let me walk you through why.

What Exactly Is Guilded?

If you haven't already guessed, Guilded is very similar to Discord. It's a chat app that provides channels and categories where people can talk amongst themselves within servers they've joined. But here's where it gets interesting: Guilded offers a lot of different options that are, in my opinion, much better than what Discord is offering.

When you sign up at Guilded.gg, you can download the desktop app for whatever platform you're on. Right now I'm on Mac, but they've got Windows covered too. The nice thing is you don't even need to download anything. You can visit any servers you want via the web browser, which is pretty convenient.

The Setup: What You Get Right Out of the Gate

Let me show you what I mean. I started up a Guilded server a couple days ago called the 2TonWaffle Community, got everything set up with groups, which I'll talk about in a bit. What you'll notice immediately is the main look when you visit any Guilded server.

At the top, if the server owner has decided to create a server avatar, that'll be displayed prominently. There's also the banner surrounding it that you can upload or create yourself. This brings me to one of the biggest differences: Guilded gives you way more options as a server owner than you'd normally get in a Discord server.

Here's the kicker: pretty much all the options, all the perks, everything you get within Guilded is completely free. You don't have to pay anything. There's no Guilded Nitro or anything like that. Everything is given to you right off the bat.

You don't need to have a certain number of people in your server. You don't need to worry about activity levels or getting seven boosters to reach level two. It's very interesting how they've changed the script, saying "we give you everything you need to create a community, and you don't have to worry about the business side of things."

Room Types: Where Guilded Really Shines

This is where things get really interesting. Guilded gives you ten different channel types, and you don't have to use them all. You can stick with normal chat channels if that's your thing, but look at what's available:

You've got your standard chat channels for conversations and discussions with threads. There are dedicated announcement channels and forums, which is a nice touch because we've seen over the past year how Discord has "miraculously decided to gift us" with these particular options. Well, Guilded has had these types of channels for years. Discord only recently decided, "Oh yeah, that looks cool, let's copy that."

You also get streaming pages, voice channels, listing channels for to-do lists, documents, calendars (an actual built-in calendar that you don't need a third-party bot for), scheduling, and media channels.

Groups: Better Organization Made Simple

Groups are fantastic because they provide a better way to organize things instead of having a long listing of categories that would require some serious scrolling if you have a lot going on in your server.

Let's say you're running a gaming server and you have categories for Fortnite, Minecraft, and Overwatch. Normally, you'd have three different channels in each category, so that's nine channels people would have to scroll through, click out of, mute, or request access to with particular roles.

With Guilded, you can create groups that keep everything much more organized and appealing. I've set up a podcast section where I have a media channel for Independent Creator content. I can upload content by simply copying and pasting a YouTube link into Guilded, and it automatically sets everything up. You get a place for comments, tags, reactions, and you can link directly to YouTube if you want.

The Built-In Bot Situation

This is where Guilded really shows its value. They have built-in bots that you'd normally have to pay for elsewhere. You get a welcome bot, Twitch live notifications, YouTube new video notifications, and an XP bot for those who love getting levels and that dopamine hit of progression.

Let me show you how easy the Twitch bot setup is. Guilded has what's called "flows," which work like "if this, then that" scenarios. The Twitch bot comes with flows already set up: when someone subscribes to your channel, follows, unfollows, or when you go live or offline, you get notifications in your chosen channel.

Setting it up takes literally minutes. You can customize the wording however you want. For example, instead of the default "stream offline" message, you could change it to "check out the VOD later on my dudes!" You can send without notifications, as private messages, or however you prefer.

The best part? You don't have to invite a bot to your server or pay for premium services. It's all right there, built into the platform.

The Reality Check: Discord's Advantage

Now, I should clarify that Discord does provide a lot of great things. The biggest advantage Discord has is public mindshare. It's probably easier to get someone to join your Discord server than a Guilded server. That's just the nature of the beast when Discord has been around for almost eight or nine years while Guilded has been around for four to five.

The problem is how some people perceive Guilded. Since Roblox acquired Guilded a couple years ago, people see it as just some plaything attached to Roblox. They don't take it seriously or even bother looking at it because they think it's garbage.

People come into the Guilded official server and immediately dismiss it as a ripoff. For years since the acquisition, people have been saying, "Oh, it's just Roblox, it's absolute garbage, you shouldn't even bother, it's not gonna be around much longer, just go back to Discord."

The thing is, people get set in their ways. They don't really think about alternatives other than what they've been used to. With Guilded, you have so many options available to you, and again, they're all free. I don't know why it's such a hard sell sometimes.

The Bot Ecosystem Challenge

Here's where I need to be honest about Guilded's limitations. They recently released their public API about a year ago, which means bot developers can now create bots for Guilded. Unfortunately, the number of bot developers is still relatively low compared to Discord.

This is partly because Discord has been around longer, so there's more established infrastructure. You might have a bot you use on Discord that you or your community can't live without. You could try setting up a flow bot to get comparable functionality within Guilded, but you'd have to put in more work. It's just not a one-to-one comparison.

The bot developer ecosystem is tiny compared to Discord's, and we haven't seen much growth in recent months. In fact, a great developer who had a bot called Parrot decided not to continue development on their Guilded bot. They've gone into maintenance mode, which is unfortunate but understandable from a business perspective.

Making the Move: Community Considerations

Starting a new community on Guilded is one thing, but bringing an established community from Discord to Guilded might become a complete roadblock. In the end, it's your community that has to make the decision.

If you put it out there and say, "Hey, I'm interested in seeing if you guys want to move to Guilded because they offer us so much more for zero dollars," and your community flat-out refuses and says "Discord or death," well, your community has spoken. You're gonna stay on Discord.

That's the case for almost 90% of communities out there. They have to make that choice, and when the community says no, you can't force them. If you do force them, they'll hate you and find someplace else, and your community dies.

You can't force people to learn, download, or create new accounts on a completely different system. It's your community, you can't force them, and if you don't listen to your community, you're done as a community leader.

The Partner Programs

One thing Guilded does well is their partner programs. While Discord has dropped their partner program (there's no way to become a Discord partner anymore), Guilded maintains both a partner level and something called the Guilded Gang.

I'm part of the Guilded Gang, where I serve as a trusted ambassador. We help answer questions in the official Guilded server and try to maintain a positive outlook on the platform. We invite people to try it out, and if they don't like it, that's fine. We're not going to force anyone to stay.

It's a great program that helps with community outreach, and there are people constantly asking about it. Sometimes we have a little fun with it, but it's all in good fun, and we direct them to the application if they're interested.

My Recommendation

Definitely check out Guilded and give it a chance, especially if you're starting or wanting to start a community. What can go wrong? If no one joins after a couple months or up to a year, and you've tried different things, then pivot and try something new. If that doesn't help, try Discord. You might have better luck there.

There's no magic formula that says if you follow steps one, two, and three but skip four, you'll have problems. Give it some time. It's a completely different animal for people who are in the Discord lifestyle, and they might immediately reject it because "it's just a ripoff."

But that's intentional design to make the transition from Discord to Guilded easier for people who have been in the Discord life for quite a long time. It's not like we're going from Discord to Matrix, which would be a completely different system.

You really can't get angry at people who outright dismiss it because they don't know any better. It's up to you as someone who appreciates what Guilded offers to say, "Hey, just give it a chance."

If you love giving a big corporation ten dollars a month for features that you can find on another platform for free, that's on you. I can lead you to water, but I can't make you drink.

For content creators looking for a platform that gives you professional-level features without the subscription fees, Guilded deserves serious consideration. The built-in functionality, unlimited emotes, better organization tools, and zero cost make it a compelling alternative that's worth exploring.

Remember, whether you choose Discord, Guilded, or any other platform, what matters most is building a community that serves your audience and helps you grow as a creator. The platform is just a tool. The real magic happens in the connections you make and the value you provide to your community.

The Independent Creator