Discord
Discord
Discord is an instant messaging and VoIP social platform that allows communication through voice calls, video calls, text messaging, and media. Communication can be private or in virtual communities called “servers”.[note 2] A server is a collection of persistent chat rooms and voice channels accessed by invitation links. Discord runs on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, iPadOS, Linux, and in web browsers.
Discord is an instant messaging and VoIP social platform that allows communication through voice calls, video calls, text messaging, and media. Communication can be private or in virtual communities called “servers”.[note 2] A server is a collection of persistent chat rooms and voice channels accessed by invitation links. Discord runs on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, iPadOS, Linux, and in web browsers.
History
Discord was conceived by Jason Citron, who founded OpenFeint, a social gaming platform for mobile games,and Stanislav Vishnevskiy, who founded Guildwork, another social gaming platform. Citron sold OpenFeint to GREE in 2011 for US$104 million,which he used to found Hammer & Chisel, a game development studio, in 2012.Their first product was Fates Forever, released in 2014, which Citron anticipated to be the first multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game on mobile platforms, but it was not commercially successful.[18]
| Founded | May 2015; 10 years ago |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States[8] |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Founder(s) | Jason CitronStanislav Vishnevskiy |
| CEO | Humam Sakhnini |
| Industry | Software |
| Employees | 501 (2025)[9] |
| URL | discord.com |
According to Citron, during the development process, he noticed how difficult it was for his team to work out tactics in games like Final Fantasy XIV and League of Legends using available voice over IP (VoIP) software. This led to the development of a chat service with a focus on user friendliness with minimal impact on performance. The name Discord was chosen because it “sounds cool and has to do with talking”, was easy to say, spell, remember, and was available for trademark and website. In addition, “Discord in the gaming community” was the problem they wished to solve.
To develop Discord, Hammer & Chisel gained additional funding from YouWeb’s 9+ incubator, which had also funded the startup of Hammer & Chisel, and from Benchmark capital and Tencent.
Discord was publicly released in May 2015 under the domain name discordapp.com.According to Citron, they made no specific moves to target any specific audience, but some gaming-related subreddits quickly began to replace their IRC links with Discord links.Discord became widely used by esports and LAN tournament gamers. The company benefited from relationships with Twitch streamers and subreddit communities for Diablo and World of Warcraft.
In January 2016, raised an additional $20 million in funding, including an investment from WarnerMedia (then TimeWarner).WarnerMedia was acquired by AT&T in 2018 and WarnerMedia Investment Group was shut down in 2019, selling its equity.
Microsoft announced in April 2018 that it would provide Discord support for Xbox Live users, allowing them to link their Discord and Xbox Live accounts so that they can connect with their Xbox Live friends list through Discord.
In December 2018, the company announced it had raised $150 million in funding at a $2 billion valuation. The round was led by Greenoaks Capital with participation from Firstmark, Tencent, IVP, Index Ventures, and Technology Opportunity Partners.
Infrastructure
Discord is a persistent group chat software, based on an eventually consistent database architecture.Discord was originally built on MongoDB. The infrastructure was migrated to Apache Cassandra when the platform reached a billion messages, then later migrated to ScyllaDB when it reached a trillion messages.
The desktop, web, and iOS apps use React, using React Native on iOS/iPadOS.The Android app was originally written natively, but now shares code with the iOS app.The desktop client is built on the Electron software framework using web technologies, which allows it to be multi-platform and operate as an installed application on personal computers.
Censorship
In September 2024, according to Russian media Kommersant, Russian regulator Roskomnadzor was planning to block the platform.Roskomnadzor demanded that the platform remove 947 posts containing illegal content and imposed a 3.5 million roubles (USD$37,493) fine.On October 8, 2024, Russia officially blocked Discord.
Following a decision made by the Ankara 1st Criminal Court of Peace, several hours apart from Russia’s block, Turkey blocked over concerns regarding child abuse and obscene content. The decision was made following the murder of two women in Istanbul by a 19-year old Discord user who allegedly garnered support for his action from Discord users before he took his own life on 4 October 2024.
is blocked by the Great Firewall in China. Chinese police will find and interrogate people who make sensitive comments on the platform.
In July 2025, began mandating that British users submit to age verification to access content that is age-restricted or marked as sensitive in the UK, to comply with Online Safety Act 2023. Age verification involves submitting a facial recognition scan, or else uploading a government ID.
Age Restricted channels are blocked in iOS platform to comply with App Store’s guidelines.
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