 In the beginning, there was TeamSpeak. Then came Ventrilo, Skype, Mumble, and skipping over a bunch of platforms that no longer exist, Discord. So is Discord legitimately better on top of being newer? Or is it just another flash in the pan? Let's find out. After I talk about today's video being brought to you by Razer comms that I, no, I'm just kidding. Razer comms is gone. It's be quiet. Their white DarkBase Pro 900 features a modular design to support a variety of layouts and configurations. Check it out at the link below. We'll begin with a quick rundown of our competitors. TeamSpeak and Mumble are both what are called self-hosted voice and chat platforms. Both of them require server software, either running on your desktop or a rented server in a data center somewhere, and both require you to be actively connected to receive messages. Skype and Discord, by contrast, are hosted by Microsoft and Discord respectively. Both of them allow you to send messages to friends who are offline, they'll just be delivered later, and both offer video chat in addition to voice. They are structured a little differently though. Discord is more like a social network, so you can join an existing community or make your own, while Skype operates more like your address book. So like your phone, you start a conversation by scrolling through your contacts list and selecting one or more of them. Okay, so now let's talk design and usability. Both TeamSpeak and Mumble share a theme that's reminiscent of the beige PC cases of decades past, though you can skin them. While Discord and Skype are much more modern, this is an aesthetic advantage, but it should be noted that while Skype does have a more conventional desktop app, the Windows Store version that Microsoft is pushing users towards has generated many complaints about it actually being too simplistic to the point where it makes it confusing to use. Adding contacts, for instance, is done through the search Skype box rather than intuitively by clicking on the plus button. So do yourself a favor and don't use the Windows Store version. Discord's design on the other hand is both beautiful and functional. Every server that you are a part of is displayed in the left tab, along with of course your direct messages. And my main gripe with Discord is just the lack of joint voice and text channels, as it's kind of jarring every time your friend says, yo, check out this link, and you have to ask which channel. To their credit though, they finally added channel categories, which is great. But all of this ignores a huge factor so far, cost. TeamSpeak has a number of paid licensing options, and if you don't buy one of them, you are capped to 32 slots. Mumble on the other hand is open source and completely free with no slot limitations. Skype is free for up to 25 simultaneous users over the internet. And if you wanna call conventional phones, allows you to pay for a subscription or a la carte for that service. And Discord seems to be taking the Silicon Valley social network startup approach. Their core service is free for as many people as you want. And according to them, that's how it's gonna stay. Though we'll see how that goes after the insert multinational here acquisition. Anywho, let's get to what matters most for gamers. How do they all sound? To answer this question for you guys once and for all, Jake used three common microphones. A Blue Yeti to represent the higher end, a pair of HyperX Cloud 2s to be a typical headset, and a ModMic 5 because it was on his desk at the time. Each test clip was played through a host computer and then recorded on the other end. This is a test recording on the Blue Yeti. Every quality setting was cranked to the max and we turned off both echo and noise suppression. YouTube's audio compression though, may make it challenging for you guys to hear the differences. So if you're interested in the raw clips, we'll have them available for download in the description. We'll start with the Yeti. When Discord is working well, more on that a little later. It's basically indistinguishable from TeamSpeak. This is a test recording on the Blue Yeti Blackout Edition. While both Mumble and Skype have a higher noise floor that you'll notice if you listen very closely. This is a test recording on the Blue Yeti Blackout Edition. Switching over to the Cloud 2s, we can hear that the gap between TeamSpeak and Discord compared to Mumble and Skype is more noticeable with lesser source audio. This is a test recording with the HyperX Cloud 2 gaming headset. This is a test recording with the HyperX Cloud 2 gaming headset. So Mumble has a muddier sound to it while Skype maintains its background hiss. This is a test recording with the HyperX Cloud 2 gaming headset. Then the story completely stays the same actually with the ModMic. TeamSpeak and Discord are very clear while Mumble and Skype are slightly worse. So okay, it seems like you can't really go wrong with TeamSpeak or Discord, as long as that one's working. Let's talk about that. As a regular user, our writer Jake has noticed a pattern of degraded or robot-y voice quality on Discord. It's hard to say if it's load-related or completely random without a much larger sample size, and it can usually be fixed by temporarily changing the region of your server, but it's one of those things that happens often enough that it is worth mentioning. Let's move on to admin control. This varies wildly across all four platforms. Skype groups are basically limited to kicking and banning, while Mumble, TeamSpeak, and Discord offer fully-fledged rank and permission systems. TeamSpeak definitely takes the cake for having the deepest customizability, but it does come at the cost of the time required to set up and learn the system. Discord, on the other hand, is much easier, and there isn't much that you can't do with it. So for most people, it's probably the way to go here. But security is another big consideration. Because TeamSpeak and Mumble are self-hosted and can be encrypted, all the data on your server is yours, and no other party can access it without your permission. Discord and Skype, on the other hand, both connect you to their servers, and while Discord says they don't sell your information, according to their privacy policy, they can share it with related companies. So that's just something to keep in mind. Skype, of course, is a similar story, and Ars Technica reported that Microsoft may be snooping, for example, the URLs that you send in chat. Onto overlays, another feature not to be overlooked. TeamSpeak has an excellent in-game overlay supplied by Overwolf that gives you access to an easily repositional, basically fully functional TeamSpeak window while in-game. Mumble is much more limited by contrast, but at least does show you which users are talking in your channel. Discord shows you who's talking and allows you to switch channels or servers on the fly, and also has some great integration with Twitch so you can auto sync subscribers and even show who's talking on stream. Talking, talking, talking. Leading us then to the final answer. What is the best voice platform out there? Well, in terms of pure sound quality, it's hard to compete with TeamSpeak's reliable clarity, but Discord sounds just as good most of the time, and I think our poll response numbers indicate what our viewers think of its excellent chat system and community building features. If you're looking for an open source solution with top-notch security though, Mumble is probably the way to go. And as for Skype, well, at least the IP address resolving nonsense is finally fixed, and it's blue. So if you like the color blue, then you should probably also still use one of the other things we talked about. Speaking of using other things, why not use FreshBooks instead of the complicated accounting software that you're already using? FreshBooks is cloud-based, so you've got access to it from anywhere, whether it's your desktop or even their fully featured mobile app, and it has tons of great features. You can create and send professional-looking invoices in less than 30 seconds. You can set up online payments with just a couple of clicks. You can see when your client has seen your invoice putting an end to the guessing games, and their tech support is freaking awesome. You call them, someone picks up, and you actually just talk to a person. No phone tree, no nothing. So try it out for 30 days for free by going over to freshbooks.com slash tech tips and entering Linus Tech Tips in the how you heard about us section. So thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do, but if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or check out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description. Also down there is a link to our merch store which has cool shirts like this one, as well as our community forum, which you should totally join.