Benefits over Discord compared to TeamSpeak

[MariaVallgona]

Trying to find a good reason not to go over to discord?....

I've used teamspeak for years, an to me its the best, but users keep suggesting we go over to it...

Haven't found anything on TS site or forums?

I still using TeamSpeak. And always will DO.
Thanks for everything Teamspeak!

[Operativ]

While I personally won't have issues with my community, as we have been using TeamSpeak for years, I understand all the other community managers who have issues to keep/migrate their users from Discord to TeamSpeak.

What concerns me here is how many people do not value their privacy at all.
That's a very major benefit of TeamSpeak over Discord. Besides that, Discord is a badly optimised, bloated Electron-based application that is very CPU and memory hungry. On the other hand, TeamSpeak does not produce a hazard to its users, and by hazard I mean sudden PC freezing/crashing with the gaming session being endangered and a potential loss of items due to said freeze or crash.

[Dimos]

While I personally won't have issues with my community, as we have been using TeamSpeak for years, I understand all the other community managers who have issues to keep/migrate their users from Discord to TeamSpeak.

What concerns me here is how many people do not value their privacy at all.
That's a very major benefit of TeamSpeak over Discord. Besides that, Discord is a badly optimised, bloated Electron-based application that is very CPU and memory hungry. On the other hand, TeamSpeak does not produce a hazard to its users, and by hazard I mean sudden PC freezing/crashing with the gaming session being endangered and a potential loss of items due to said freeze or crash.

Why should your PC crash/freeze? If that is really the case then the PC can't handle the game anyways and a small background program isn't the real cause of it.

But since we like to cherry pick our "examples", here a "hazardous TeamSpeak" example: https://forum.teamspeak.com/threads/...-load-on-Linux

33% CPU usage. That is ridiculous, TeamSpeak should be ashamed of their "endangerment" towards the users.

And here my crazy load:

Sure, 4-5 times the RAM usage, but in times where every game has a minimum of 8gb System RAM, and chrome eats like 2 GB with 5 tabs that is really no concern anymore. At least not for the function value that the average user gets with discord.

[Whittle]

We're providing an open-source Netfilter module to help fight certain types of (D)DoS attacks for some time now:

https://github.com/TeamSpeak-Systems...tfilter_module

I'd be interested in getting this installed, but would prefer to use something considered stable.

Is the netfilter plugin still under development and will there be a "production" release, as the blurb on the site suggests it's version 0.1 and is experimental?

[EDIT] I've since tried the netfilter module on my server. No issues to report.

[Operativ]

The reason of "why should it freeze" is purely technical when we have a purely desktop-developed app such as TeamSpeak, and an Electron-based web app such as Discord.

Linux as an example is not really going to impact any of the major communities, because this is a huge niche in the gaming, due to lack of native .exe support, suboptimal performance using WINE to emulate any Windows-exclusive game and so on. Almost every company has a miniscule support for these OS types, so it is expected that such shenanigans can happen to almost any application or game working on Linux systems. We can only hope for Linux support to be better over time.

Meanwhile on Windows, in pretty much every situation Discord will use more memory than TeamSpeak. Their sound quality is also not as good as the old TeamSpeak (who knows how much of a change will TeamSpeak 5 be), and it will only be similar if you're a verified Discord partner (only these groups can access to Discord's "premium opus codec quality", meanwhile it is free of charge in your very own TeamSpeak server).

Now we should take the data collecting task schedule (no, not the Windows task scheduler) that Discord has in its core. Every now and then Discord runs a sweep throughout your games, your hardware, your installed applications and who-knows-what-else (their Terms of Service do not limit them from what kind of data they can scan from your PC). This is a behaviour similar to any kind of scanner, and even if brief, a quick scan in the wrong moment (in a crucial, high usage moment of a game) can cause your memory usage to be over the top and we cannot bet on which PC can handle it and which cannot.

We can quote Discord's TOS right now:

By uploading, distributing, transmitting or otherwise using Your Data with the Services, you grant to us a nonexclusive, transferable, royalty-free, sublicensable, and worldwide license to use Your Data, subject to the Company’s Privacy Policy.

Discord, and its creator company Hammer & Chisel have had various records of creating and selling their products over and over, and pointing out at how much money they owe to their investors (it was around 50 million dollars in the beginning of Discord) the service does not look stable - the introduction of Discord Nitro and Discord Store are merely means to not disappoint their investors, otherwise things would turn very dire for the company. Discord lives on borrowed time, in short, meanwhile TeamSpeak has made its own foundations long ago and is not endangered to be sold off or go bankrupt in the brink of a day.

Aside from that, we all should value our privacy, as it is our right. Protect your rights, so that we may keep them intact and not being ripped from us piece by piece.

[Dimos]

Still, I had no discord crashes in the last year and but one Teamspeak crash and a Teamspeak update problem (wasn't able to finish the update) so that I needed to manually reinstall Teamspeak.

And the voice quality is pretty much the same on both. At least I'm not really able to hear a difference between them. Especially since most of the times my friend use crappy "gaming headset" with crap mics like Razer. So the input is already crappy.

So in the end I'm okay with that privacy argument, even tho is kinda irrelevant, since most of the internet user hand their data to Facebook, Google, Apple or every other random company anyways...

And as long as TeamSpeak is not able to either give us any information about anything they are working on, or aren't able to hold their public deadlines then I, and most of our community, will stay on Discord.
Since its just more convenient to leave offline messages/informations, be able to share a spotify playlist with the click of a button, be able to show images/gifs inside the app, be able to do polls, join other ingame via the discord game integration, etc.

TeamSpeak just didn't cared to do any kind of innovation in the last years and now need to catch up to still hold their market share. But I heavily doubt that the will pull out anything from their hat. That "Q4 beta" showed us how "far and nearly done" they are with TS5.

Hell, even Steam has a good enough voice chat + modern chat now. In times where games + most if not all game platforms have a okish voice chat + more features like video calling or even screen sharing I don't really see the value of TeamSpeak anymore. Especially if I look at the license costs I have right now with it.

[ANR Daemon]

The only benefit of TS3 is a server control. Discord could do anything to the servers without your consent. Could inject any adware in your chats etc.

[ZerefGG]

The only benefit of TS3 is a server control.

That's the ONLY reason I use TeamSpeak.

[GronkhouORG]

So, I see many people here cry about them not giving Info.

but for f*** sake. stop the crying about switching to Discord.

First of all, I don't think Teamspeak Cares about you threatening them to switch to Discord.
Second of all. Why are you crying? you used Teamspeak 3 for years. and you used it. why complaining about it now.

let them take their time to again release a PERFECT product instead of them releasing some software that doesn't work properly and is bug-filled to death

I personally use Discord and Teamspeak at it works just fine. we Provide 2 Servers and users pick. Problem solved.

(and for the crybabies that scream *OH NO DISCORD SELLS MY DATA CRY CRY* So many others do that too. so don't blame discord. they have to manage costs.

[deyneko]

Hi,
The topic TeamSpeak vs Discord is really actual now...
We used Discord in our small community and recently I decided to refuse Discord. Why? I will try to explain...

I see that a lot of people try to convince others that Discord is "below" TS due to some tech questions (CPU loading, clear of voice etc) but it is not true. By this you cannot convince others because Discord works normally. Usually such "convincing" has reverse effect....

But Discord has 2 HUGE DISADVANTAGES:
1. "False presentation" and not a lot of people talk about it. For example you have your Discord server/group and see that 150 your members are online now. WOW! That great! But Discord shows that a person just online. It means a person can chat at present time with his/her friend and the system shows that he/she presents on your server. This effect at the first confuses people. For example our group used discord to find a wingman for flight in DCS/Il-2 Sturmovik. Just image you can see 25 members online and nobody can fly with you... This situation is really annoying and this is reason #1 for refusing to use Discord.

2. Discord diminishes value of squads or groups. You can add a lot of groups in Discord and it is "supereasy" to switch from one group to another. Then from different groups you will receive a lot of notices about messages etc. In this situation a person usually muted "not important" groups but as you know from #1 they are still "online" there. It is difficult to explain but Discord virtually converts squads to Discord's channels. Probably you know how is difficult to invite people you your squad/group and more difficult to keep it alive... Then Discord will diminishes a value of your group bc it will kind of its another channel. I really surprised that a lot of people can not understand it...

Discord is bad for me... but in the same time, unfortunately, I think that TS is losing a competition with it step by step. When our group refused to use Discord, we lost some people. So, there is kind of dependence to Discord. It means that Discord is really comphortable program to use and if TS staff will not make a lot of changes - I sure that TS will abs lost the competition soon.

For exampe what our group REALLY need additionally:
- Chat that you can read even you wasn't on the TS server and that can be seen long time.
- Free android app but TS can incl price in the server

[Dimos]

It has limited functionality/permissions for large gaming communities. Voice quality is inferior, there is no encryption and it hinders PC performance by default settings.

I like how you blatantly lie about the competitor, just to let TS look better.

Of course Discord uses encryption. HTTPs/TLS is used for text messages and xsalsa 20 together with poly1305 for voice chat. This is also enabled by default and can, afaik, not be deactivated. Not like the default TeamSpeak server settings, where encryption is unchecked by default. At least my last installation had this unchecked by default.

Voice quality is on pair with teamspeak, since they use the same codec. Also the default teamspeak codec quality of 8 should be about the same that Discord is using as default. So yes, you can set it higher in Teamspeak, but to be honest. I personally don't hear a difference there. At least not with all the super awesome "gaming mics"... because when the input doesn't sound good, a good codec/higher bandwidth wont improve that.

The PC performance might depend. On my PC both clients take around the same CPU usage. 0.5%. Discord uses 2 or 3 times the ram (150 - 200 mb) but that is it. Nothing a modern "gamer" should have to worry about in times where most gaming rigs have 8GB and even the latest games requiring 8GB of ram now. But yeah, if you run an old PC that could be a problem, maybe.

Can't say much to the community managing stuff, because I haven't done that yet on Discord. But I'm part of multiple bigger Discord communities and everything there works just fine. People can join their rooms and have only access to certain channels, dunno what problems big community are facing there. It also improved communication/information flow for us, because the admins/leader just need to ping everybody with @everybody and I get a notification on the Desktop client or my phone. Way better than any Forum or TeamSpeak server solution.

[boehseronkel]

Voice quality is on pair with teamspeak, since they use the same codec. Also the default teamspeak codec quality of 8 should be about the same that Discord is using as default. So yes, you can set it higher in Teamspeak, but to be honest. I personally don't hear a difference there. At least not with all the super awesome "gaming mics"... because when the input doesn't sound good, a good codec/higher bandwidth wont improve that.

You sure?

I did some A/B Comparison about half a year ago and could immediately tell the difference in sound between TS and Discord.

My first experience with Discord was, that our TS Server lost network connection while we we`re in a meeting, talking over Teamspeak. We then immediately connected to Discord to finish our meeting and everyone instantly noticed the big difference in sound.
I have to say that most people in my community have pretty decent Headphones / Headsets / Microphones. But the difference in Sound was quite shocking to me and i can really not understand, how people compare TS to Discord soundwise and even say it`s on the same level...

[Patrick1164]

You sure?

I did some A/B Comparison about half a year ago and could immediately tell the difference in sound between TS and Discord.

My first experience with Discord was, that our TS Server lost network connection while we we`re in a meeting, talking over Teamspeak. We then immediately connected to Discord to finish our meeting and everyone instantly noticed the big difference in sound.
I have to say that most people in my community have pretty decent Headphones / Headsets / Microphones. But the difference in Sound was quite shocking to me and i can really not understand, how people compare TS to Discord soundwise and even say it`s on the same level...

I have to agree with you Discord just sounds like ass compared to TeamSpeak at a higher bitrate.

[floprott]

You sure?

I did some A/B Comparison about half a year ago and could immediately tell the difference in sound between TS and Discord.

My first experience with Discord was, that our TS Server lost network connection while we we`re in a meeting, talking over Teamspeak. We then immediately connected to Discord to finish our meeting and everyone instantly noticed the big difference in sound.
I have to say that most people in my community have pretty decent Headphones / Headsets / Microphones. But the difference in Sound was quite shocking to me and i can really not understand, how people compare TS to Discord soundwise and even say it`s on the same level...

LinusTechTips made a video where he did equal recordings for both discord and teamspeak. They sound exactly the same. It' an illusion.

[Fubister]

LinusTechTips made a video where he did equal recordings for both discord and teamspeak. They sound exactly the same. It' an illusion.

You're wrong, he said they sound similar but if he had to chose, he would would lean towards teamspeak more