Discord is a voice, video, and text communications platform founded in 2015. It serves over 200 million monthly users and is built around the concept of persistent community spaces called servers, which range from small friend groups to large organised communities. More than 90% of its users play games, and the platform logs a combined 1.9 billion hours of gaming activity each month.
The platform's core technical offering spans real-time voice and video communication, persistent text messaging, and community tooling - all delivered across PC, mobile, and console. Key features include voice channels, video streaming, text chat, custom emojis, server boosting, and integrated in-app activities. Engineering challenges centre on real-time audio and video at scale, cross-platform development, and infrastructure capable of sustaining large numbers of concurrent users.
Originally built to address the problem of coordinating conversation during multiplayer gaming, Discord has since broadened into a general community platform encompassing shared-interest groups beyond gaming. Its stated mission is to build the best place for people to hang out, and the company positions itself as an increasingly significant part of the gaming ecosystem across pre-game, in-game, and post-game contexts.