fermi.exposed
Table stakes
They graded the class. They used their own homework.
What are the Discord Alternatives? is Mathium05’s comparison sheet: Stoat is decaying, Matrix is not a Discord alternative, Polyphony might never finish, Fluxer is “No. Just no,” Spacebar is mismanaged, Harmony is “mostly works as intended.” Harmony is their fork. This page grades Fermi against Fermi.
Their roundup, in English
Swipe the table sideways
| App they named | What they printed | What that is |
|---|---|---|
| Stoat / Revolt | Competent, getting worse, painful to self-host, AI policy had to be pressured. | A real product with users. The AI complaint is the Fermi house style. |
| Spacebar | First: “improving with time,” Fermi is the official client. Later: “I can no longer recommend its usage.” | The review changed after the author was banned and forked it. |
| Harmony | “Mostly works as intended,” “does not have many of the organizational issues.” | They are reviewing their own fork. The byline is the citation. |
| Fluxer | “No. Just no. It uses AI.” | The entire Fermi personality, aimed at a neighbor. |
| Matrix | Not a Discord alternative. Decrypt errors, illegal rooms, poor moderation. | A protocol with actual federation. Fermi has one displayed instance. |
| Polyphony | The dream, too slow, may never finish. | Fermi’s own feature chart was abandoned for being out of date. |
| TeamSpeak | Proprietary, not a Discord alternative. | Fine. Fermi is a Discord alternative that still uses Discord. |
A table that can survive a click
Swipe the table sideways
| Question | Fermi copy | Fermi in the files |
|---|---|---|
| Is this a Discord alternative? | Harmony-compatible client. Join a community. | Cannot talk to Discord users. Docs send you to discord.com. Screenshot is Discord chrome. |
| Is the anti-AI rule a license requirement? | Not GPLv3 compatible. Any use banned. Legal reasons. | LICENSE is AGPL. package.json is GPL-3.0. README misspells compatible. Harmony bans “AI-assisted.” |
| Is Harmony independent of Spacebar drama? | Continuation without structural problems. | Fork after a Discord ban. Essay is the founding myth. COPYING still says fosscord-server. |
| Is the client finished? | Ever closer to being complete. Join today. | 0.0.1. No stable release. Logging out was a 2025 headline. Feature chart abandoned. |
| Is there a community? | OG: join a community of people and start chatting. | Maintainer: main instance lacks users. One displayed instance. Weekly Reddit intros. |
| Who is “we”? | Many talented individuals. New age of success. | CoC: I’m just one person. Sole discretion. GitHub: the main dev. |
| Do they use the machines they condemn? | Any use of AI is not allowed. | GitHub, Node, SWC, Reddit ranking, Discord, Translatewiki, Copilot’s house. |
If you want a Discord alternative, look at software whose comparison page can describe a user who is not the author. If you want a cautionary tale about turning a moderation fight into a cosmology, you are already on it.