Sites like Omegle: how to pick the app that fits you
Sites like Omegle still exist, but the right one depends on what you want from a stranger. Random video, text communities or verified rooms, compared.
If you are searching for sites like Omegle and wondering which app is right for you, here is the short version. The random video roulette sites still exist. OmeTV, Chatroulette and Emerald Chat all do the thing Omegle did. If you want something slower, Discord and Reddit give you text communities around a topic. If you want to hear real adults who are all verified, there are room apps, including Hashti, which I built. None of these is "the new Omegle." Omegle was one kind of experience, and it shut down in November 2023 for reasons that had a lot to do with that experience. The question is not which site copies it best. It is what you actually wanted when you opened Omegle, because every replacement serves one of those wants and drops the others.
I am going to walk through the choices by what you want, not by brand. I am Armenian-Iranian, I live in Los Angeles, and I built a chat app, so I have an interest here. I will say where my app is the wrong pick.
Start with why you opened Omegle
People used Omegle for very different reasons, and the reasons do not overlap much.
Some people wanted the roulette. Hit a button, see a face, decide in two seconds, hit next. The appeal was speed and total randomness. You never knew who was coming.
Some people wanted to talk. Omegle's text mode, and the interest tags, let you find someone who liked the same band or the same game and actually have a conversation. The roulette was the cost, not the point.
Some people wanted to practice a language. Omegle was one of the few places where you could meet a native speaker of almost anything in under a minute, for free.
And some people were lonely at 2 a.m. and wanted a voice. Any voice.
Be honest with yourself about which of these you are, because the apps below each do one of them well and the rest badly.
If you want the roulette: OmeTV, Chatroulette, Emerald Chat
These are the sites most people mean by "sites like Omegle." You get a camera feed of a stranger and a next button. The stable facts: they are free to start, and most of them charge for the things that make the experience less random, like picking a country or filtering by gender. That is their business model and it is not hidden.
What I can tell you from using them, and this is opinion: the problems that Omegle had are the problems these have. Anyone can turn a camera on. Moderation is reactive. You will see things you did not want to see, and if you are a woman you will see them faster. The first ten minutes decide whether you stay, and most people do not stay.
If the roulette is really what you want, these are the pick. Just go in knowing that the random part is also the unsafe part, and no amount of app design has fixed that without removing the randomness.
If you want to talk: Discord and Reddit
If what you liked about Omegle was finding one person who cared about the same thing, you are better off in a community than in a roulette. Discord servers exist for nearly every interest. Reddit has a subreddit for everything and live chat in many of them. Both are free. Both are text first, with voice available on Discord.
The honest trade: you lose the "right now, a stranger, instantly" feeling. On Discord you join a server, read the rules, and talk in a channel where other people are already mid-conversation. It is a slower way to meet people. It is also a much better way to meet people you will talk to twice.
The other trade is accounts. Both are pseudonymous, and nobody checks that the person is an adult or is who they say they are. For most interest-based conversation that is fine. For anything more personal, it matters.
If you want voices: room apps
There is a middle category that did not really exist when Omegle was popular. Voice and text rooms, public, with a name and a topic, where you can walk in and listen before you say anything. Clubhouse made this famous. A few apps still do it. Hashti is one of them, and it is the one I know from the inside, so I will describe it and let you judge.
On Hashti you open a list of public rooms with names and topics, tap one, and you are in. Some are voice, some are text. You can also start private chats, make calls, and there is a walkie-talkie for short voice messages. All of that is free. The app is out on the App Store now; Android is in a closed test.
The part that makes it different from a roulette, and the part some people will not like: everyone is checked once against a government document. The photo is deleted, a fingerprint of the document stays, and that same document cannot open a second account. An unverified account can look around but cannot host a room, speak in a voice room, or message strangers. Twelve verified reports close an account for good. The app is 18+.
That means no anonymous drive-by. It also means you give up the part of Omegle where you could be nobody for an hour. If that anonymity was the point for you, Hashti is the wrong pick and I would rather tell you now.
What I would pick, by situation
Here is how I would actually answer "which one is for me," as plainly as I can.
You want to see faces and skip fast: OmeTV or Chatroulette. Accept the risks that come with it.
You want a real conversation about something specific: a Discord server or a subreddit. It is slower and it is better.
You want to hear adults talk, join in when you feel like it, and come back tomorrow: a room app. Hashti is my pick, obviously, but read the limits above first.
You want to practice a language: a room app or a language exchange community. Random video is the worst option here, because the person you match with rarely speaks what you need. I wrote a separate piece on that angle.
You want to stay fully anonymous: not Hashti. Discord or Reddit, with a throwaway account, or the roulette sites.
What none of them do
A few honest gaps, because I do not want you downloading something expecting Omegle and getting something else.
Nothing is as instant as Omegle was. The closest is the roulette sites, and they have added friction, usually a paywall, exactly where Omegle had none.
Nothing is as big as Omegle was at its peak. Every replacement is smaller, so at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday a room might be empty. On Hashti that is a real thing I deal with: some rooms are quiet, and I would rather you know that than discover it.
And nothing removes the human problem. Verified or not, a stranger is a stranger. Hashti's checks mean the person is a real adult with one account. They do not mean the person is kind. I wrote the safety page to be specific about what the verification does and does not promise, and I would read it before trusting any app's "safe" label, including mine.
A note on the word "safe"
Every site like Omegle calls itself safe now. Omegle's own homepage said it was moderated. So treat the word as a claim to check, not a fact.
The questions I would ask of any app: Does anyone verify that users are adults, and how? What happens to a person who gets reported, and how many reports does it take? Can a banned person come back with a new email? Is the moderation a person, a model, or a button that does nothing?
For Hashti the answers are: a document check, twelve verified reports, no because the document fingerprint blocks a second account, and reports go to a review. For most roulette sites the answers are: no, unclear, yes, and a button. For Discord and Reddit it depends entirely on the server or subreddit you are in.
The short answer, again
Sites like Omegle exist in three shapes. The roulette sites copy the mechanic and keep the problems. The community apps keep the conversation and drop the randomness. The room apps keep the voices and add verification, which some people want and some people will hate.
Pick the shape, then pick the app. If you pick Hashti, start in a public room, listen for a few minutes, and say hello when you are ready. If you pick something else, I hope this saved you a few bad downloads.
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.