Safe apps like Discord for your own language community
Safe apps like Discord for Persian, Armenian and other language communities: Telegram, Signal, Element, Tandem and Hashti, compared honestly for adults.
If you want a safe app like Discord where you can find people who speak your language, here is my short answer. For a private group of family and friends, use Signal, because nobody can read it. For big public communities in Farsi, Russian and many other languages, Telegram is where the people already are, but change its privacy settings before you join anything. For practicing a language one to one, a language exchange app like Tandem or HelloTalk is built for exactly that. And if you want public rooms where adults from different countries actually talk, the identity of everyone is checked, and live translation lets you be understood, that is what I built Hashti for. Below is how I think about each one.
Why safety feels different in your own language
I am Armenian-Iranian and I live in Los Angeles. When I talk in English online, the worst case is usually a rude stranger. When I talk in Farsi, I am also thinking about who else might be listening, and about family who still live in Iran. Many people in diaspora communities feel the same, whether they are Iranian, Russian, Armenian, Afghan, Chinese or anything else.
So "safe" in a language community often means three things at once:
1. The messages stay private when they need to. 2. My real details are not exposed to strangers in a big public group. 3. The people in the room are real, and someone who harasses others cannot just come back with a new account.
No app does all three perfectly. Here is where each one is strong.
Telegram: where many communities already live
For Farsi speakers, Telegram is not one option among many. It is the default. There are public groups for every city, every hobby, every kind of news. Russian speaking communities are similar. Voice chats inside groups make it feel a lot like Discord.
The safety points you need to know:
- Regular groups and chats are not end-to-end encrypted. Only one-to-one Secret Chats are. Treat everything in a group as public.
- Turn on the privacy settings. Set phone number visibility to "Nobody" and limit who can add you to groups. Big Farsi groups attract a lot of spam and scam accounts, and those settings cut most of it.
- Admins decide everything. A well run group is great. A badly run one is full of fake accounts and arguments. Watch a group for a day before you speak.
In my opinion Telegram is fine for open community life if you go in with those settings on and say nothing in a public group that you would not say on a stage.
Signal: private talk with people you trust
When the conversation is with family or close friends, and especially when some of them live somewhere that watches its citizens, I use Signal. Messages and calls are end-to-end encrypted by default, and you can use a username so your phone number is not shared.
The limit is that Signal has no public rooms. It is not for meeting new people in your language. It is for keeping the people you already have.
Element and Matrix: a community that owns its space
Matrix is an open network, and Element is its best known app. It works like Discord, with rooms, spaces and voice, and private rooms can be encrypted. A community can even run its own server so that no single company holds its history.
For a diaspora organization with one or two technical volunteers, I think it is worth a look. For a casual group of aunts and cousins, the setup will lose half of them in the first week.
Language exchange apps: built for practice
If what you really want is to practice Armenian, Farsi, Spanish or English with a native speaker, an app built for language exchange may suit you better than any Discord replacement. Tandem and HelloTalk are the two best known. You set the language you speak and the one you are learning, and you get matched with people who want the opposite.
They are good at what they do. They are mostly one-to-one, and they are about learning, not community. If you want to hang out with your people rather than study with a partner, they will feel narrow. I wrote more about this in my guide to learning a language by talking to native speakers.
Where Hashti fits
Hashti is a free app for adults, 18 and up, out now on the App Store, with Android in closed testing. It has public rooms with names and topics, so you can walk into a Farsi room, an Armenian room or a room about a city, plus private chats, calls and a walkie-talkie.
Two things make it different for language communities.
Everyone is a real adult, and bans stick. Every account checks its identity once against a government document. The photo is deleted after the check, but a fingerprint of the document stays, so the same document cannot open a second account. Unverified accounts cannot host rooms, speak in voice rooms or message strangers. Twelve verified reports closes an account permanently. In big public groups on other apps, the same troll can return every day with a new number. Here they cannot. The details are on the safety page.
You can be understood across languages. Live translation in 29 languages means a Farsi speaker and an English speaker can talk in the same room, each in their own language. That is the feature I personally wanted most, because half my family is more comfortable in Farsi or Armenian and the other half in English. Translation is part of Hashti Plus, $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year. Everything else is free.
The honest limits
- Hashti is young. Telegram has years of Farsi groups. Hashti has far fewer rooms, and a room in your language may be quiet at some hours. Try a few times of day.
- The interface is English today. You can talk in any language in the rooms, but the app's own buttons and menus are in English. A Farsi interface is being built.
- You show a document once. For some people, especially people who have reasons to be careful with governments, sharing any document with any app is a hard no. I respect that. If that is you, Telegram with strict settings or Signal is the better choice.
- It is not a privacy-first app. Its strength is knowing the people are real. If your only concern is that nobody can read your messages, use Signal.
- No bots or game streaming. If your community is a gaming server, Discord still does that best.
How I would choose for a language community
- Private family or close friends group, some of them abroad: Signal.
- Large public groups in Farsi or Russian that already exist: Telegram, with the privacy settings on.
- An organization that wants to own its own space: Element on Matrix.
- One-to-one language practice with a native speaker: Tandem or HelloTalk.
- Public rooms with real, verified adults, and translation so you can talk across languages: Hashti.
It is normal to use two of these. I use Signal for family and Hashti for rooms.
Habits for talking in your own language online
These matter on every app, mine included:
- Remember who might be reading. If you have family back home, think before you post opinions or photos under your real name in public groups.
- Do not share where you live or work in a public room, in any language.
- Be slow to move to private chat. Someone who speaks your language is not automatically someone you know. Scammers target diaspora communities because people trust their own.
- Never send money, gift cards or verification codes to someone you met online, no matter how familiar their accent sounds.
- Report people who harass others. Reports keep rooms good for everyone, and on Hashti they have real consequences.
My honest bottom line
Finding your own people online should not mean giving up your safety. Pick the app by what you need most: privacy, reach, practice or real people. If you want a room where you can speak your own language, be understood by people who speak another, and trust that the people around you are who they say they are, I think Hashti is worth trying. If something else fits you better, use that, and keep the habits above wherever you go.
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.