Chat rooms like Omegle, but with a room you can stay in
Omegle is gone, but you can still meet new people. Here are chat rooms that feel like Omegle without the random roulette, and when to pick each one.
If you want chat rooms like Omegle, the closest thing today is not another random video site. It is a group chat room built around a topic, where strangers show up, talk, and come back the next day. Omegle shut down in November 2023. The one-on-one roulette sites that copied it still exist, but most of them have the same problems Omegle had. My honest short list: Discord servers if you want text communities with a lot of choice, Reddit's live chats and subreddits if you want to talk around a shared interest, voice room apps if you want to hear people, and Hashti if you are an adult who wants public rooms where everyone has been verified. Below I explain each one, and when a different pick is better.
What people actually miss about Omegle
I built Hashti, so I have spent a lot of time thinking about why Omegle worked for people. I do not think it was the randomness itself. It was three smaller things.
First, there was no setup. You opened a page and you were talking to someone. No profile, no followers, no feed.
Second, the other person was a stranger. You could say things you would not say to your friends, and you could leave at any moment.
Third, it felt alive. There was always someone new.
The problem was everything else. Anyone could show up, including people who should never have been there, and there was almost nothing stopping bad behavior. When the site closed, its founder wrote openly about how hard it had become to fight misuse. That is the part nobody should want back.
So when people search for chat rooms like Omegle, I think the real question is: where can I talk to new people, quickly, without it becoming a mess?
Rooms versus roulette
A lot of lists answer this question with more roulette sites. You press a button, a random face appears, you press it again. I understand the appeal. But I think a room is the better answer for most adults, and here is why.
In a roulette chat, every conversation starts from zero. You have ten seconds to decide if the person is worth talking to, and so do they. The result is a lot of skipping and very little talking.
In a room, there is a topic. Everyone there chose to be there. If you are in a room about Persian music, or night shift workers, or learning Spanish, you already have something to say. You can listen for a minute before you speak. And if you like the people, you can come back tomorrow and find some of them again.
That last part matters more than it sounds. Omegle was built so you would never see the same person twice. A good room is built so that you might.
The options, honestly
Discord
Discord is the biggest place on the internet for group chat around a topic. There are servers for almost every game, hobby, language and fan community. Many have text channels and voice channels, and some are very active.
Good for: finding people who share a very specific interest. Text chat with lots of channels. Voice hangouts with a group you get to know over time.
Less good for: meeting strangers quickly. Most servers take a bit of work to find, join and learn. Quality depends completely on the server's own moderators, and some servers are great while others are not.
Reddit is not a chat room app, but for many people it has become one. Subreddits are organized around topics, and there are chat features and daily threads where people talk in close to real time.
Good for: talking about a subject you care about with people who care about it too. Anonymity, if you want it.
Less good for: live, back and forth conversation. Reddit is mostly posts and comments. It is slower than a chat room.
Random video chat sites
There are still sites that work the way Omegle did. I am not going to name them one by one, because they change often and I have not tested each one recently. What I will say is that they tend to share Omegle's weak spots. Many do not check who you are. Many rely on reporting after something bad has already happened.
Good for: the pure roulette feeling, if that is really what you want.
Less good for: safety, and for any kind of conversation that lasts.
If you do use one, never share your full name, your city or your social accounts, and leave the moment something feels off.
Voice room apps
There is a category of apps built around live audio rooms. A host opens a room, people join to listen, and some are invited to speak. It feels like a radio call-in show crossed with a group call.
Good for: hearing real voices without being on camera. Rooms with a clear topic.
Less good for: quiet people who would rather type. Some of these apps have become more about influencers than about conversation.
Hashti
This is the one I made, so take my view with that in mind.
Hashti is a free app for adults, 18 and over. It is out now on the App Store, and the Android version is in a closed test. It has public chat rooms with names and topics, private one-on-one chats, calls and a walkie-talkie mode.
The part that is different is verification. Every account can be checked once against a government ID. The photo is deleted after the check, but a fingerprint of the document stays, so the same ID cannot open a second account. Unverified accounts can still look around, but they cannot host rooms, speak in voice rooms or message strangers. And if an account gets twelve verified reports, it is closed permanently. You can read more on how Hashti handles safety.
I built it this way because of everything I described above. I wanted the "open the app and talk to someone new" feeling, without the part where anyone can do anything.
Good for: adults who want to meet new people in topic rooms and know that the people they are talking to are real and accountable. People who speak other languages, because Hashti has live translation in 29 languages as part of Hashti Plus.
Less good for: anyone who wants total anonymity. If you do not want to verify an ID, Hashti will feel limited, and that is on purpose. It is also newer and smaller than Discord or Reddit, so some rooms will be quiet at some hours. The app's interface is English today, with a Farsi version being built. And if you are on Android, you will have to wait.
How to choose
Here is how I would decide, in plain terms.
You want to talk about one specific interest in depth. Go to Discord or Reddit. The communities are bigger and older than anything else.
You want the random, anyone-could-show-up feeling of Omegle. A roulette site will give you that. Just go in knowing that most of them do not check anyone, and protect yourself.
You want to meet new adults quickly, in a room, and you care who is on the other side. That is what Hashti is for. Try the rooms, see if the people fit.
You want to practice a language or talk to people from other countries. Rooms work well for this. Discord has many language servers. Hashti's translation can help if you and the other person do not share a language, and it is the one paid feature, at $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year.
A few habits that make any chat room better
Whatever you pick, a few things help.
Listen before you talk. Read the room for a minute. You will learn the tone and what people are there for.
Use a name that is not your real full name, at least at first.
Do not move to another app just because someone asks you to. A lot of scams start with "let's talk on something else."
Leave rooms that do not feel right. There are always other rooms.
Report people who break the rules. On any app, reports are how moderators find problems.
My honest take
Omegle is not coming back, and I do not think it should. What people liked about it was real. The speed. The strangers. The sense that you might meet someone interesting tonight. You can still get most of that.
For me, the answer is a room. A place with a topic and a door, where the people inside are real, and where you can come back tomorrow. Discord and Reddit are good rooms for interests. Hashti is my attempt at a good room for meeting people, with a verification step that I think makes a real difference. Try a couple of these and keep the one where the conversations are actually good.
Hashti is free, and it is 18+. Hashti Plus — live translation, writing help and catch-ups — is $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year, and nothing else costs anything. How rooms work is on the rooms page, and how reports and the ID check work is on the safety page.