Moderating and running Discord servers requires a lot of interaction between staff and users. Having a Modmail bot means that this process becomes a collaborative and transparent effort of the whole staff team.
Modmail acts as a central hub of interaction between staff and users. Once a user messages the Modmail, a new thread is opened within a Discord channel. All moderators and Admins can then discuss the issue and reply to it, all within the Modmail.
Disclaimer: There are multiple bots with the name “Modmail”. This review is specifically for the Modmail by Kyb3r. I am in no way affiliated with the creator of the bot.
Modmail is a free Discord bot which allows you to have a Modmail system in your Discord Server. This means that your users can DM the bot and that message is going to be relayed to a channel in the server.
This message can then be read by your staff team and they can discuss its contents and reply. Once the issue is resolved, the Modmail thread can be closed and a log of the conversation will be saved.
This is what the Modmail looks like in your Server SidebarThis is what users see when they chat with the ModmailThis is what the mods see when a user chats with ModmailLogs of conversations are saved externally and can be viewed any time
Review
Kyb3r’s Modmail is one of my favorite Discord bots and I use it in all of my servers. You can completely customize the bot (down to the actual username and profile picture) and all of its vast features are completely free.
Regarding functionality and uptime it exceeds all expectations and allows for all changes I have ever required and more. You can change the automated messages it sends, who gets notified with a new thread, who has which permissions, what color the embeds have, the activity status of the bot, and so much more.
The only drawback is the setup of the bot. You can sadly not simply invite it to your server as it is hosted on Heroku (Which is absolutely free and requires no technical knowledge).
There’s an official setup guide for the bot which explains every step, so there should be no complications whatsoever, but the setup takes about 20 minutes. Once that is done, you never have to do any setup for the server again though and have full control of the bot, so it’s well worth it.
Want to create the best possible Discord server? Struggling with permissions and overwrites? Does you muted role not work?
Then this guide is for you.
Discord offers an in-depth permission system, which you can use to customize who can do what in your server or in individual channels and categories.
Understanding how this system really works is the most important step when it comes to creating secure and efficient Discord servers.
Discord Permissions
There are lots of individual permissions in the server settings. I recommend you take a minute to get familiar with what each permission means and does before reading this guide.
Before I jump into explanations, let me define and explain some important terms:
Server Owner
Each Discord server has one owner, by default, this is the user who created it. The server owner always has all the permissions, no matter which roles they have, note that they’re the only user able to delete the server.
The server ownership is limited to only one user at once but can be transferred in the Members tab of the server settings.
Be careful, this can not be undone which means whoever is the new server owner can delete it.
@everyone
If you head into your server settings and into the Roles tab, you’ll find the @everyone “Role”.
The permissions defined for @everyone apply to every user in your server, no matter if they have roles or not.
@everyone is not technically a role and is not treated the same as a role by Discord. You can read more about this in the “Permission Hierarchy” section later in this article.
By default, new roles inherit the permission settings of @everyone when created.
Roles
Roles are Discord’s main way of giving specific sets of permissions to specific members.
Say you only want a certain group of moderators to be able to kick or ban members. You would then create a role called “Moderators”, give that role the permission to kick and ban members.
Then, assign that role to all users you want to be moderators.
Role Order
Roles can be dragged and dropped in the Roles tab to change their order. This has multiple functions:
Some permissions, like “Manage Roles”, only allow users to change roles which are below their own highest role
The order of hoisted roles in the member list follows the order in the Roles Settings.
Roles can also be used in a purely cosmetic way to change the color of a user’s username. Every user has the color of the highest colored role assigned to them. If you have a yellow role and another role above it which has the default color, your name will be yellow
Generally, it is best to order the roles by power and importance from top to bottom.
Allow
If a permission is set to “Allow”, it is set to green for @everyone, a role or a user. This can be done in the server settings in the Roles tab, or in the category/channel settings as an override.
Allow on the Server Settings/Role Level
Allow on the Category/Channel Level
Deny
If a permission is set to “Deny”, it is set to red for @everyone, a role or a user. This can be done in the server settings in the Roles tab, or in the category/channel settings as an override.
Deny on the Server Settings/Role Level
Deny on the Category/Channel Level
Neutral/Inherit
If a permission is set to neutral/inherit (gray), it will inherit whatever permission is set on the server settings/role Level. Neutral can only be selected in the category/channel permission settings.
Neutral can only be set on the category/channel Level
Hoisted
A role is hoisted (Meaning it appears separately in the member list) if this setting is set to Allow in the server settings Roles tab:
This feature is used often to make it easier for users to find important people like staff members or moderators.
The Administrator Permission
Users with the “Administrator” Permission automatically have every other permission and are unaffected by category/channel overrides.
This permission should basically never be given to anyone unless you co-own the server.
Lots of bots request it by default, but it’s best to take it away from them for security reasons. Bots don’t usually need the permission anyway, they just add it to prevent permission issues (which you’ll know how to fix after reading this guide)
Categories
Text and voice channels are usually put into categories in Discord servers.
By default, each channel in a category is synced to that category. This means that if you change the permissions of that category the changes are going to apply to all synced channels in it.
You can unsync channels from their category by changing their individual permission settings.
Discord Permission Hierarchy
Let’s recap the most important points before I explain how the permission hierarchy works:
@everyone defines the default set of permissions which every user in the server has
Roles can be used to add or take away permissions from a user or group of users
Roles can also be used for purely cosmetic purposes
While this model explains the basics, many questions are still left unanswered.
What if a user has multiple roles that either deny or allow a certain permission? Do role permissions add up? How do overwrites work?
This is where the permission hierarchy comes into play. Discord wrote an official article to explain how it works, so let’s take a look at that:
1. Server Permissions
The Server Permissions are an individual’s server-wide set of permissions. This set of permissions is made up out of all the Allows that theuser has through @everyone and all of his roles.
Let’s look at an example:
I set up a Server that has the Roles “Role 1” and “Role 2”. The permissions for @everyone, Role 1, and Role 2 are set up like this:
@everyone Permissions
Role 1 Permissions
Role 2 Permissions
If a user has the Roles Role 1 and Role 2, what are his Server Permissions?
Well, according to the Discord article, the Server Permissions are the sum of all the allows for all the roles a user has + the allows for @everyone.
In this case, the user has the permissions
Send Messages
Read Message History
because of @everyone,
Attach Files
because of Role 1, and
Embed links
because of Role 2. All of these permissions together add up to create the user’s Server Permissions.
As you can see, permissions like “Mention @everyone, @here and all Roles” are not part of this individual user’s set of Server Permissions as he has no allows for them in any of his roles or @everyone.
2. Category/Channel Permissions
With Server Permissions you can control which group of users can do what in the whole server. But what if you want certain groups do be able to see hidden channels or only allow a certain role to write messages in a specific category?
That’s where more granular control is needed. Discord allows this through its Category and Channel Permissions.
This might seem complicated at first, but it’s really intuitive to use once you understand it.
When you create a new channel, each of the permissions is set to Neutral/Inherit by default. This means that the user will simply have their Server Permissions in that channel.
However, if overwrites are set on the category/channel permission level, the hierarchy above becomes important. Let’s expand our example from the Server Permissions part:
Let’s say we have a text channel called “#general” in the “Text Channels” category in our Server. The User “M0m” has the roles “Role 1” and “Role 2” from the Server Permissions section.
By default, “M0m” can Send Messages, Read the Message History, Attach Files and Embed links in the #general channel as those are the user’s Server Permissions.
Now, let’s add some overwrites to the “Text Channels” category (#general is synced to the category in this example)
Let’s start by adding denies for the “Embed Links” and the “Attach Files” Permission of @everyone.
M0m can now only Send Messages and Read the Message History in #general.
Why?
Because according to the Channel permission hierarchy, the denies of @everyone in #general are applied after the Server Permissions.
Now, let’s add some overwrites to Role 1 in the category:
“Embed Links” and “Attach Files” are now set to Allow for Role 1.
M0m can now Send Messages, Read the Message history, Attach Files and Embed Links in #general.
Why?
Because all the allows of a member’s roles are added after the Server Permissions and after the settings for @everyone.
Next, let’s add a set of overwrites for Role 2 on top of all overwrites we currently have:
“Embed Links” and “Attach Files” are now set to Deny for Role 2.
M0m can now Send Messages, Read the Message history, Attach Files and Embed Links in #general.
Why?
Because all the allows of a member’s roles are added after the Server Permissions, after the settings for @everyone, and after all of the denies of a member’s roles.
This is important to know because Allows of a lower role will overwrite denies of a higher role. However, Allows set for @everyone will not overwrite denies of any role on the category/channel level!
Now for the last overwrite, let’s add some user-specific settings to the category:
“Embed Links” and “Attach Files” are now set to Deny for the user M0m.
M0m can now only Send Messages and Read the Message History in #general.
This is because user-specific overwrites are applied after the Server Permissions, after the settings for @everyone, and after all of the overwrites for a member’s roles.
Best Practices
Now that you have a solid understanding of how Discord permissions actually work, let’s dive into some best practices you should implement in your servers!
Important changes to the default @everyone
The default permissions set for @everyone in the server role settings are generally fine. However, one change I definitely recommend is setting “Mention @everyone, @here, and all Roles” to deny for @everyone and all roles who aren’t Moderators/Administrators.
How to figure out the most efficient permission system for your server
The goal of permission best practices is essentially to get the job done with as little changes from the default state as possible. You only want to set a permission if it is necessary. Example:
If a user does not have the “Embed Link” permission in his Server Permission, then there is no need to overwrite it with a deny in the Category/Channel Permissions, as the user doesn’t have that permission anyway.
Having optimal permissions means having the least amount of Category/Channel overwrites required to achieve the permissions you want.
User-specific overwrites should basically never be used aside from very specific use cases.
A good way of setting up server permissions is to ask: Do the users with this role need this specific permission in more channels/categories than they won’t need it in? Then decide based on that whether setting it to allow or deny is more efficient in terms of required overrides on the channel/category level.
To find an example of a Server using best practices with announcement channels, a hidden staff category, and a hidden category for users, please study my Server Template in the “Common Roles and example of Permission best practices in use” section further down.
Important denies for a Muted Role
If you have a Muted role in your Server, make sure it has Deny overwrites for these permissions:
Send Messages
Add Reactions (To prevent spelling of insults etc. through reactions)
Connect
Speak
Muted roles often don’t work because server owners don’t understand the permission hierarchy. Make sure the user has no Allows on the role or user-specific level in the Category/Channel settings which will overwrite the denies of the Muted role.
Redundant Denies
A lot of permission settings are redundant. For example, if a user can’t send messages in a channel, it is unnecessary to also deny the “Embed Links” or “Attach Files” permissions as the user won’t be able to send any messages anyway (See Important Denies for a Muted role).
Also, if a user can not read a text/voice channel or messages in a channel, that means that the user can not see the channel at all. If a user can’t see a channel at all, it is unnecessary to deny any other permission.
Vanity and Color Roles
If you have vanity or color roles it is best practice to scroll to the bottom of their settings in the Server Settings Roles tab and press “Clear Role Permissions”. User don’t need any special permissions through these roles and if you clear them they won’t become a hassle if you ever decide to make changes to @everyone.
Personal Preferences
Should a muted user be able to create invites? what perms do moderators / Administrators really need? Is it better to have a hoisted Staff role instead of hoisting Moderators and Administrators?
These are questions that don’t really have a right or wrong answer. A lot of settings on Discord depend on the specific Server and situation you’re dealing with and over time you’ll develop your own style of running Discord Servers.
Common Roles and example of Permission best practices in use
Most servers will have the following Roles
Administrators
Bots (optional)
Moderators
Muted
I have created a Server Template that incorporates all of these roles as well as examples for permission best practices.
You can use the template for your server by clicking here!
That’s it for this complete guide on Discord Permissions. I hope I could answer all of your questions and give you an in-depth understanding of how the system works.
It is not uncommon for large servers to have dozens of empty voice channels ready in case someone needs them.
Cluttered Voice Channels are not only a pain to keep track of, but also drastically impair the user experience on your Server.
PartyBeast solves this issue completely by only creating voice channels when they are needed and deleting them automatically after you’re done using them.
It also adds extra features, like allowing users to rename or lock their temporary voice channels.
Disclaimer: Krankie, the Developer of PartyBeast, is a friend of mine. The bot was developed to solve problems created by too many voice channels and it does just that perfectly. That’s why I’ve decided to showcase it here.
PartyBeast is a free Discord Bot for temporary voice channels. It automatically creates voice channels when they are needed and deletes them after the users leave, without requiring commands on their end.
On top of that, it comes with some extra features like allowing users to lock their voice channels so no one else can join.
How do the temporary voice channels work?
Once you set PartyBeast up, you’ll have a permanent voice channel in your Server (“Join Here!” in the image)
Whenever someone joins the “Join Here!” Voice channel, a new room is automatically created and they are moved into that room (“M0m’s Room” in the example)
As soon as all users leave the created channel, it is automatically deleted again.
Review
Pros
Really good at what it does
Has most customization options you could ask for
Reacts quickly
Channel locking allows users to have control over their voice session, making moderation much easier
Multiple Categories in a single server to support stuff like different team sizes for games
Cons
Discord limitations sometimes cause issues like channels not being deleted properly. Sadly nothing bot devs can do to fix this.
Currently has no web dashboard (might be in the works, ETA unknown)
Currently has no temporary text channels feature
Verdict
Overall, PartyBeast is a super solid and easy to use bot which supports servers of any size efficiently.
Step 2: Make Sure PartyBeast has all the required permissions
PartyBeast requires all these permissions to work correctly:
Manage Channels
Manage Roles
Read Messages
View Channel
Send Messages
Move Members
Make sure it has all of them in the channels you want to use it in. For a more in-depth explanation of the required permissions, check out the official documentation for PartyBeast.
Step 3: Use the setup command
Once you have invited the bot, type !pbSetup in chat in a channel PartyBeast can see. The bot will then create a new category and a new voice channel. At this point, you can already use the temporary voice channels!
Step 4: Customize the channels
You can change the name of the category and the channel as you wish. If you add a User limit to the PartyBeast voice channel, all automatically created voice channels will inherit it.
Automatically created voice channels inherit their permission settings from the category they are in.
By default, automatic channels are named after the username of the person who creates them with the suffix “‘s Room”. Meaning that when a user with the username M0m creates a new channel, it will be named “M0m’s room”.
You can change this by typing !pbRoomName in chat.
Step 5: Customize the Bot
If you want users to be able to lock their own channels, enable the feature by typing !pblock enable in chat.
For room renaming, type !pbrename enable in chat.
Users can now use the following PartyBeast commands in your Server:
!pblock – Locks your voice channel so no one can join
!pbinvite @user – Invites a user to your locked channel
!pbunlock – Unlocks your voice channel again
!pbrename – Renames your voice channel
There are more in-depth customization options available. This includes changing the category automatic voice channels appear in and some other features. You can check them out in the official documentation.
If temporary voice channels are what you’re looking for, give PartyBeast a try!
The bot works great with the Jockie Music bot, which allows you to have 4 music bots in your server at once. Combining both bots means a very clean system that supports lots of users listening to music.
Music Bots are probably the most popular Discord bots. There’s a ton of them and it’s really hard to choose which one to use on your Server.
That’s why I’ve tested all popular options for this list and even managed to find some hidden gems! I also left a lot of inferior bots and versions out to make sure this list allows you to make the best choice possible.
Self-hosted bots have been excluded for simplicity.
I am not affiliated with the creators or owners of any of these bots.
I had never heard of Jockie Music before doing research for this guide but I was blown away by the number of features it offers for free.
The sound quality is great, the permission system allows for in-depth customization and I really like that it has the option to give the owner of each music session full control over who can do what for that session, rendering a DJ role obsolete.
Unique features
You can have the bot in your server 4 times. All versions will use the same prefix, meaning four voice channels can have the music bot at once, while using the same commands
A huge amount of customization and commands. From finding lyrics over saving custom playlists to playing a guess the song game with your friends, Jockie has it all for free and without any voting requirements. My personal favorites include the option to resume one of your last music sessions and autoplay, which will automatically add new songs to the queue based on YouTube recommendations.
Free commands which are usually locked behind premium or voting. This includes changing the volume, playing Spotify playlists (over YouTube), and games.
No clutter. Jockie is a music bot, not more, and not less. It has no useless commands which don’t fit its theme.
Great Premium value. For only 1$ a month you can get access to its premium features like music filters and more playlists your users can save, as well as the ability to preview upcoming updates
Drawbacks
No web dashboard. Currently, there is no real dashboard to customize the bot, you can only see statistics like the most played song
Setup can be complicated if you’re new to Discord Bots. There are a ton of commands and options which can be overwhelming. The bot works great out of the box, but it is something to be aware of if you want to customize it to your needs.
The Premium version does not currently improve audio quality. You do not currently get a dedicated bot for premium servers if you pay for it, which means sound quality won’t increase. This is a Patreon goal and the bot is only 25$ a month away from reaching it, so this will probably be implemented soon.
Best free music bot alternatives
This section only focuses on the free versions of bots, lots of the drawbacks shown here might be remedied in the respective bots premium version, which can be found in the next section.
Vexera offers great sound quality and a web dashboard, as well as support for lots of different languages. It is mainly a music bot, but also offers lots of other features like moderation or welcome messages.
The thing Vexera excels at is visuals. The website, dashboard, and especially the embeds it sends into chat when announcing songs are all very nice.
It’s probably the best option if you care about aesthetics, visuals, and good music quality. Also, it’s great for non-English speaking communities.
Drawbacks are the small amount of music-related commands and the lack of features like Spotify support.
Groovy offers exceptional audio quality, is very easy to use and clutter-free. It’s simple and great at what it does, with a well-designed website.
You can put it in your server and it works right away, making it a very good option for people who are new to Discord botsor really care about audio quality.
Drawbacks are the lack of a web dashboard and more advanced music features. I’d also like nicer embeds when the bot announces songs etc.
If you have paid attention to Discord bots over the past years, then you’ve definitely heard of Rythm. It’s the most popular Music Bot with millions of Users.
It is really solid, features most commands you could ask for, has good quality, and great support. It is good at what it does and surely a great choice if you’re used to it or none of the other bots could convince you.
However, I’ve been struggling to find features that make Rythm unique. It has a great and solid base, but as of now, that’s it. Other bots have long caught up to the features which once set Rythm apart.
Hydras main selling point is it’s unique design. Once invited and set up, you’ll have a dedicated text channel for music, which looks really nice and features a custom embed.
Songs can be paused, skipped, saved, and much more using simple reactions, drastically removing the need to use commands. This allows for a very smooth and professional user experience.
Hydra features a unique system which automatically deletes messages and displays the current song
Aside from that, it comes with average quality and different permission levels for commands.
Drawbacks are the occasional quality issues and lack of more advanced commands. I also personally prefer Jockies Permission system over this one, but that’s largely up to personal preference.
Octave is included here because it allows users access to various commands like music filters, changing song speed, or the global bot volume without premium or a need to vote.
The quality is alright, so if those are the features you are specifically looking for in a free music bot, give it a shot!
Tony made this list because it pretty much is a 24/7 music bot. The website claims that’s a patron-only feature, but I found it still playing music the next day while I was testing. I do not currently know if that’s intended or not.
If it is, then Tony probably offers the best music quality out of the free 24/7 Music Bots I’ve tested. Tony also features a wide range of possible music filters and effects, but they are locked behind voting.
Best premium music bot alternatives
If you’re willing to spend some money on a music bot, then these are your best options.
Prices are based on the price for one server. Yearly/lifetime subscription prices have not been included.
They both offer lots of similar things for a similar price. Vexera has a web dashboard and non-music features while Groovy allows you to have more instances of the bot in your server and features more available music effects.
Mee6 is a very complete Discord bot with awesome design. Music is only a small part of the features you will get access to when purchasing Mee6 Premium.
Mee6 offers great sound quality, a very nice web dashboard with a visual controller for your music and a music quiz game to play with friends. Also, it has a 24/7 music feature and allows you to globally change the volume.
That being said, Mee6 Premium is a great option if you’re going to use its other features like moderation or leveling. However, the price and lack of advanced music features or effects do not make it a good choice if you’re going to use it solely for music.
Tony Premium
Price: 1$ a month, or 2$ a month to also get one premium server
Added features
24/7 Music
No need to vote for effects anymore
Higher quality if you get the 2$ option
If you’re short on money then Tony Premium is a good option for a cheap, quality 24/7 Music Bot.
How to add music bots to Discord
If you’re struggling with this, I recommend starting with a beginner-friendly bot like Groovy.
Simply click on any of the bot names in the list to get to their website and then search for the “add bot” or “invite bot” button.
Click that and a windows will open where you can select the Server you want to add the bot to. Be aware that you need at least “Manage Server” permissions in a server to do this.
Once the bot is added, search for “commands” or “documentation” on the bot website to find out which commands it responds to!
If you’re still struggling with any part of this, please let me know in the comments down below and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
That’s it for this list! I hope it helped you make a decision, I put a lot of effort into testing each music bot individually and giving them all a chance. A lot of them sadly didn’t end up making the list at all.
Every Discord server needs to have clear and understandable rules to keep the community healthy and engaged.
Rules might seem trivial and unnecessary, but as your server grows they’ll become more and more important. They dictate the feel and climate of your community. Simple things like a rule against swearing can completely change the kind of audience you attract.
Moderation
Possibly the most important reason for having clear rules on your Discord server is moderation. The job of moderators is to make sure chat is following the rules. All decisions they make should be made on the basis of the server rules.
Whenever rules are ambiguous or not clear there’ll be some users who try to argue with your staff. Usually, this leads to accusations of unfairness and nepotism.
It is important to prevent this from the start as to not compromise the integrity of your staff and the health of your community.
Server Rules template
The rules template below has been tested and used over many months in Servers ranging from a few hundred to 20.000 members. Modify it as you see fit. The text preformatted so you can just copy and paste it into chat.
**1. Be respectful**
You must respect all users, regardless of your liking towards them. Treat others the way you want to be treated.
**2. No Inappropriate Language**
The use of profanity should be kept to a minimum. However, any derogatory language towards any user is prohibited.
**3. No spamming**
Don't send a lot of small messages right after each other. Do not disrupt chat by spamming.
**4. No pornographic/adult/other NSFW material**
This is a community server and not meant to share this kind of material.
**5. No advertisements**
We do not tolerate any kind of advertisements, whether it be for other communities or streams. You can post your content in the media channel if it is relevant and provides actual value (Video/Art)
**6. No offensive names and profile pictures**
You will be asked to change your name or picture if the staff deems them inappropriate.
**7. Server Raiding**
Raiding or mentions of raiding are not allowed.
**8. Direct & Indirect Threats**
Threats to other users of DDoS, Death, DoX, abuse, and other malicious threats are absolutely prohibited and disallowed.
**9. Follow the Discord Community Guidelines**
You can find them here: https://discordapp.com/guidelines
**10. Do not join voice chat channels without permission of the people already in there**
If you see that they have a free spot it is alright to join and ask whether they have an open spot, but leave if your presence is not wanted by whoever was there first.
**The Admins and Mods will Mute/Kick/Ban per discretion. If you feel mistreated dm an Admin and we will resolve the issue.**
All Channels will have pinned messages explaining what they are there for and how everything works. If you don't understand something, feel free to ask!
**Your presence in this server implies accepting these rules, including all further changes. These changes might be done at any time without notice, it is your responsibility to check for them.**
If you’re looking the expand the template above I recommend taking a look at this list by Ryonez and copy the ones you like.
If you want to learn more handy tips and tricks to improve your Discord server or find some of the best bots, check out the Discord page
Do you have any suggestions for these rules? Please let me know your feedback in the comments down below!
Level systems and role rewards are an easy way of rewarding and encouraging activity in your Discord Server.
The best level bots allow you to customize the pace at which people rank up, write custom messages when they hit certain ranks, or even give XP for time spent talking in voice chats. This list contains the best options available.
Disclaimer: This list is curated, maintained, and updated regularly by me, M0m#7078. I am not affiliated with the developers of any of these bots.
If you want to recommend a bot for this list you can contact me on Discord or reach out to @successofone on Twitter. Make sure to highlight which unique features qualify your bot for this list.
Activityrank features everything you’d expect from a level bot and more. It combines in-depth user stats with levels to create a full activity-based reward system.
You can give people XP for text and voice chat, hand out roles at certain levels, and see the leaderboards for various categories and timeframes.
There are even commands and systems to support unique features like extra XP weekends or users up/downvoting each other for XP boosts.
Default prefix:ar!
Unique features
Offers a mix of in-depth stats and levels. With Activityrank, you can see detailed stats for every user. How many messages did they send in this channel in the past week or month? How many minutes did they spend in voice chat? All of these Infos are accessible through commands.
Extra XP times. Activityrank allows you to adjust the amount of XP users get for different activities for a special timeframe. This can be used for events like double XP weekends.
Upvote/Downvote system. If you want to, you can allow users to upvote and downvote each other, granting a little bit of XP or taking it away. It’s a cool system that can be used to encourage user interaction.
Drawbacks
No web dashboard as of now. The bot website says that a dashboard is coming soon but currently the bot can only be customized through commands.
Prefix needs to be a minimum of 2 characters. This is an unusual limitation and something I dislike as I usually only have one character like ! or / as bot command prefix.
Upvoting on top.gg impacts the power of upvotes. Currently, users can upvote the bot on top.gg to boost the XP received by upvotes by 3x. While I understand while devs use systems like this, I generally dislike them. This can be pretty much circumvented by adjusting the upvote cooldown when you’re setting up the bot in your Server.
Activityrank is a full featured bot for showing and rewarding user activity
Best command-based level bot alternatives
The advantage of the command-based level bots listed here is that they allow for more in-depth customization than their currently available web dashboard counterparts.
This comes at the cost of being less beginner-friendly and intuitive to use.
Tatsumaki offers bots a global and a local, server-specific level system. It features level roles and everything you’d expect, but the reason it makes this list is because of its in-depth user profile customization.
Users can earn points with which they can customize the backgrounds of their cards or badges to show which games they like to play. Also, users can write a short bio about themselves.
Default prefix: t! and t@
Tatsumaki is a solid level bot to use if you plan on making use of its social features.
Tatsumaki offers great customization when it comes to user profiles
Gaius Play doesn’t just offer the basics, but also comes with in-depth customization options, voice chat activity tracking and (in its premium version) with a very cool and unique tree leveling system.
I’ve used Gaius Play’s tree leveling in various servers of mine and it always makes for a much more unique and interesting level experience.
Default prefix: >
Gaius Play is a great option if you plan on using the unique features it offers, want to focus on voice chat for levels, or if you need in-depth customization for the level experience.
Gaius Play Tree Leveling allows users to choose different level paths
Atlas features are very nicely designed Web dashboard with a solid leveling module.
It only allows limited control over the leveling process itself, but as it also features a level calculator you can adjust your role rewards to your liking.
What’s nice is that you can customize both the level and leaderboard commands to change who exactly can use them, where they can be used, whether the response is sent in direct messages or whether the command invocation is deleted.
Arcane might not look quite as neat as Atlas, but it makes up with some cool unique features. It does of course also offer level roles and basic customization options. What sets it apart is the option to give a special role to the user with the most XP, set a max level, or allow users to customize the color of their level profile.
If you’re willing to pay for premium, you can also get access to XP rate customization and give users more control over their level profile.
Default prefix: a
The Arcane Levels DashboardArcane Leaderboard
Which level bot should you choose?
If you are looking for an in-depth way to track and reward user activity, go with Activityrank
Looking for levels and role rewards and nothing more? Choose Amari!
If you are looking for in-depth user profiles, go with Tatsumaki
Need accurate voice XP or the Tree Leveling system? Choose Gaius Play!
If you absolutely require a web dashboard, go with either Arcane or Atlas When it comes to the comparison of both bots there are some things to consider.
In my opinion, Atlas offers a cleaner design, more control over the commands (how and where they can be used), as well as the level calculator.
Arcane on the other hand, comes with the unique features of allowing users to customize their profile color and giving the top user a role. If you want to set a specific max level, that’s also possible with Arcane.
Both bots are great, you’ll have to decide which unique features you value more. You might also consider other points not evaluated here, like the quality of the respective support.
Please share your experiences with the level bots in the comments!
This will create a new Server with role separators already included.
2. Open the Server Settings
Then, select the newly created Server and go to Server Settings ⇾ Roles.
3. Copy Role Name
In the role settings, you will see a role called RoleCategory at the top. Select the whole name field (there are invisible characters on both sides of the word, make sure you get them all) and copy the selection by pressing ctrl + c on your keyboard.
Now you can paste the role name into the name field of a role on your Server.
Be careful when changing the name and don’t delete the invisible characters, only change the letters without deleting anything else. If there’s an issue here please check out method 2 or write a comment!
If you assign the role to a user, you will see that it looks like this now:
Invisible Role Color
You can make an invisible role in discord by switching its color to match the background of the role interface. That way, people will only see the name of the role but not the border around it. This is very useful for organizing your roles with role dividers because it makes them look much cleaner.
The invisible role color for discord is: #2f3136
Simply set the category role to this color and you should be all set!
Method 2: Manually creating the role separators
I only include this second method for the people interested in how the roles are created. This is quite a bit more complicated than the first method, so only use this if you want to know how it works.
Here’s a gif I made of the whole process, you can follow along and read the text here when you’re stuck:
You can click on this gif to watch it from the beginning
First, give the role any name. This is just a placeholder and can be changed later.
2. Insert invisible separator and EN space characters
Now you’ll need to first insert an invisible separator character on the left side of the word and then one on the right side of the word. This doesn’t actually do anything in the role name field but that’s fine. Just press save after you’ve done this.
Then, past the EN space characters to the left and right of the field. As you can see in the gif, it can take multiple tries to get the word centered perfectly. I recommend starting with 10 EN spaces on both sides and then adjusting as necessary.
3. Make the role invisible
Now you’ll need to make the role invisible using the color of the background. Use this color:
#2f3136
and you’re done! Your server now comes equipped with role categories.
Limitations and Problems
I gave my users the category role and now all their names are very hard to see
Users will always have the color of their highest role in chat and the sidebar. To make role categories work properly, you will need to assign every user a colored role which is above the category role itself.
As you can see in this example, I always assign my servers users a basic role when they join.
Lots of bots offer autorole functionality, but if you would like me to write a guide about it please let me know!
I don’t want to add the role categories manually to each user
It’s best to use a bot with an autorole functionality. This means that the bot is going to assign every user a set of roles as soon as they join. I personally use Gaius, but there are lots of options out there.
Next Steps
Now that you have the categories set up it’s time to fill them up. I mainly use categories for roles the users can select. This varies from server to server, but some good ideas are: Platform, their ingame role, region, which channels they have access to, and so on.
If you want to learn how to create fancy reaction role menus like the one below, check this guide out!
Thanks so much for reading this guide! I hope you can put the role categories to good use in your server.
If you have any questions or feedback please let me know in the comments down below. You can also join the Discord community to meet likeminded people 🙂
Check out the Discord section of this website to learn more tips and tricks!
I always felt like Discord more or less replaced TeamSpeak. While older communities often stayed on TeamSpeak (and it still is the go-to program for some games) it’s rare that new communities chose it over Discord.
Now with TeamSpeak’s overhauled version coming up, it was time to revisit the old TeamSpeak vs Discord discussion.
Surprisingly, I found lots of use cases where TeamSpeak would actually be the better option.
But enough introductory talk, let’s get right into the comparison!
Overview
Discord
Discord is a community and voice-chat platform with a modern design. It is completely free to use.
Each server is divided into text channels and voice channels. Different Roles and permission systems can be used to dictate who can see or use which channels.
It’s main selling points are:
free
can be used in browser
accessible
widely used
offers most features required by most people
TeamSpeak 3
TeamSpeak 3 is a voice chat platform. It features an in-depth permission system, various channels, and user groups.
Using it is free, but hosting a Server costs varying amounts of money.
It’s main selling points are:
Very good audio quality
End-to-end encryption
The older audience is used to it
Customizability
Full control
TeamSpeak 5
TeamSpeak 5 is the upcoming overhaul of TeamSpeak. It will add some new features to the selling points of Discord 3:
Free Server hosting available (Limited to 4 slots)
Various audio improvements
Unlimited channels and servers
Even more control over your server
Responsive interface
Discord vs Teamspeak: Feature Comparison
Discord
Teamspeak 3
Teamspeak 5 (Beta currently closed)
Price (Hosting a server)
Free, Nitro boosts increase audio quality
Varies based on slots, between 5-50$ a month
4 Slots are free, then varies based on slots
Platforms
PC, Mac, inside Browser, iOS and Android
PC, Mac, iOS and Android
PC, Mac, iOS and Android
Focus
Community based
Focus on Voice chat
Community based
Best for
Content creators and communities
Gaming clans or Guilds
Gaming clans or guilds, communities also possible
User Interface
Very clean and modern
Aged and confusing to most newcomers
Clean and modern
Usability
Generally user friendly, some things are confusing though (position of settings for example)
Confusing at the start but intuitive once you learn it
Unknown at the moment, probably better than TeamSpeak 3
CPU/Resource Usage
Relatively low, but has a high priority which can cause performance problems on low-end machines
low
low
Mobile App
Free
Paid
Unknown, new app coming sometime in 2020
Integrations
Integrates with lots of games and services like Spotify
Integrates with some games, can add functionality with plugins
Integrates with some games, can add functionality with plugins
Base Audience
Younger generation
Older generation
Older generation
Uptime / Reliability
Mixed, Discord has downtimes occasionally meaning no servers work
Depends on your Server configuration, ranging from worse than Discord to 100% uptime
Depends on your Server configuration, ranging from worse than Discord to 100% uptime
Text chat
Yes
Yes
Yes
Voice chat
Yes (Varying quality, generally decent)
Yes (Quality depends on Server, from worse than Discord to pretty much perfect)
Yes (Quality depends on Server, from worse than Discord to pretty much perfect)
Voice/ Audio quality
Alright, can be made better with Server boosts
Depends, ranging from bad to perfect. Generally better than Discord
Depends, ranging from bad to perfect. Generally better than Discord
Videochat
Yes
No, can be added with plugins
No, can be added with plugins
Emojis
Yes, also supports custom emojis
No
Yes
Bots
Wide variety of bots with different functions, lots of good free options
Lots of plugins of varying quality
Lots of plugins of varying quality
Permission system
Good with some minor quirks. Can achieve almost everything once you understand how to use it properly
In-depth with granular control of user permissions
In-depth with granular control of user permissions
Overlay
Yes, supports most games and looks clean
Yes with Overwolf, kind of dated
Yes, also with Overwolf
Data protection/ Privacy
Pretty awful. Discord claims to not sell your data but according to their ToS they can sell all of your data including everything you send in chat to advertisers
Very good, data is end-to-end encrypted and you can host your own server
Very good, data is end-to-end encrypted and you can host your own server
Conclusion
As you can see there are lots of advantages to both Discord and TeamSpeak, especially the upcoming version 5. But which one should you choose?
I generally recommend Discord if you plan on using it as a community platform with a voice chat feature. This applies to online communities, communities for content creators, and so on.
TeamSpeak, on the other hand, is a good alternative for when the voice chat is the main focus. The quality is simply better than Discords. Lots of gaming clans use ts for that reason.
Especially with TS5 coming up the community capabilities of TeamSpeak will be expanded, meaning that it’s going to be an even better alternative to Discord if your community is centered around voice, not text chat.
There are some important things which differentiate the two platforms significantly and might completely change your decision, so let’s look into them a bit further:
Privacy and data protection
Discords policy when it comes to privacy and data protection is pretty bad. While most users don’t mind, it is important to be aware of this.
If you plan on handling any sensible data inside your program of choice I’d recommend staying away from Discord and looking for alternatives. This mostly applies to businesses.
TeamSpeak offers the ability to host your own server and have full control over the encryption, making it a much safer alternative in such a case.
Integrations
If you’re a Streamer or Content Creator then Discord offers much more capability when it comes to connecting your medium of choice to your community. Twitch integrations, YouTube bots and other systems can truly turn your Server into a part of your community space.
TeamSpeak has plugins, but they are different from Discord bots and webhooks. While they offer a range of cool features, I still can’t recommend TS3 or 5 if you want to use them as a community space for your content.
Audiences
The audience is a major factor when it comes to deciding whether Discord or TeamSpeak is better for you.
Say your audience is comprised of World of Warcraft players. They probably don’t mind using TeamSpeak, as it still is a widely accepted standard in that scene. However, if you have a lifestyle channel, good luck growing a TeamSpeak server for it. Discord will work much better in such a case.
It really comes down to understanding what your audience is looking for. Do they want to voice chat all the time or do they want a place to hang out and interact with you and each other? Do they even know what TeamSpeak is or did they solely use Discord for the past years?
All questions worth considering before putting in the work to set the server up properly. I am currently working on a guide for that whole process, as from my experience most servers have a horrendous permission system and lots of issues.
That’s it for this comparison. Please let me know in the comments what your stance on the topic is and if you’re interested in improving your Discord Server, check out the Discord section!
There are thousands of free Discord bots to choose from and testing all of them is simply impossible. That’s why we’ll give you a list of our personal favorites in this article. Keep in mind that we haven’t tested all of them and probably won’t ever be able to, so if you think a bot deserves a spot on our next list please let us know!
Lots of the bots in this list have completely different capabilities and a unique range of features. None of them are objectively the best discord bots, but we can absolutely vouch for them. Keep in mind that we only reviewed the free versions of each bot down below.
Gaius has quickly become our go-to choice for security and moderation on all of our Discord Servers. The bot covers all features we could wish for in those fields and still manages to provide even more functionality than other bots. The website and documentation are great, the setup process is streamlined and easy to follow and the devs are actively updating Gaius. You can even request new features and if they are reasonable and useful they will often be added quickly. This makes Gaius our first choice when it comes to the best Discord bots in 2019.
For years now Dyno has managed to keep the top spot as one of the best Discord bots on the market. There are many good reasons for that. The bot has a relatively large and dedicated development team, lots of patrons, the best Support Server on Discord, a great Web Dashboard and all the features you could ask for in a general purpose/moderation bot. If you came to this website looking for a single Discord bot that is going to satisfy all of your needs and teach you a lot about Discord on top of that, choose Dyno. You won’t regret it.
BastionBot is another great choice for a general purpose Discord bot. The bot is Open-source, actively developed and mainly focused on helping you automate all possible tasks. Whether you are looking for moderation, security or games, BastionBot is a bot you should definitely consider. Especially for developers, this bot can be interesting, with the ability to self-host it and contribute to development on Github.
StatBot provides a unique functionality in that it can give you detailed stats about your Discord server. On its web dashboard, it can display graphs for a lot of things, whether it be how many people joined on a certain day, how many messages were sent of how many minutes spent in voice chat. There’s basically no reason not to use this bot and it’s great to be able to track your server’s success over time.
Can’t make a list of the best Discord bots and not include a music bot. Rythm is our favorite because it simply feels clean and polished. The quality is great, the website is nice and it has all the features we ever needed. Do however keep in mind that we usually don’t use music bots on our servers so our experience is limited to testing the bots and not employing them in “real” servers.
Unbelievaboat is our favorite choice for games and an economic system within Discord. The bot allows you to set up income for roles, features lots of different games, gambling and ways for users to interact with each other. You can really sink your time into setting it up properly and we actually had a case where we returned to an abandoned server after months and saw that people were still active because of this bot alone. The documentation is thankfully very good so you can always look stuff up.
We’ve spent a ton of time searching for a public modmail bot. Until we found Kyb3r’s modmail on GitHub. The developers are extremely active, sometimes updating the bot multiple times a day. Currently, it offers all the features we could wish for in a modmail and some we didn’t even think of. You can use and host the bot for free, but the setup process takes a bit of time. Thankfully there’s a full installation guide on the GitHub!
Xenon was made for a single purpose and to our knowledge, it is the only bot even offering its features. The bot allows you to completely copy your Discord Server, including channels, roles, and permissions (and even messages with the premium version) and copy them to another Discord Server. It also has the ability to automatically create backups of your server, which you can load even if your server somehow is wiped completely. It might not offer as many features as the other bots on this list, but the uniqueness and usability of the features it has make it one of the best discord bots in our eyes.
Those are all our favorite Discord Bots. We tried to cover different categories in this list and also give some hidden gems the spotlight they deserve. We have tested all the bots on this list and recommend them with a clear conscience. What do you think? Have any favorite bots which didn’t make our list? Please tell us in our Discord down below!
You can use Discord Markdown to format your text in chat messages. There are a few basic things you should know about it and we’ll go over them in this Guide.
Bold Text
To make your text bold, put ** in front of and after the text.
Italics
To use italic text, put * in front of and after the text.
Underline
To underline your text, put __ in front of and after the text.
Strikethrough
To strikethrough, put ~~ in front of and after the text.
Mixing Markdown
You can use different markdown syntax on the same piece of text, as shown in the pictures below:
Spoilers
Spoilers were introduced with a recent update. You can create one by putting two asterisks ||in front of and after the text. They will appear as black bars (as seen above) and only show the text if users click on them.
Spoilers also work for images:
Links
Links are usually going to embed in chat (if set in the channel settings). You can prevent this by writing <https://somelink.com>. Usually only used for rickrolls.
[thrive_leads id=’97’]
Code Blocks
You can use two backticks ``in front of and after text to make it a single-line code block.
Or you can use three backticks ``` in front of and after the text to make it a multi-line code block.
You can specify different coding languages inside code blocks to make the text colored, but that’s pretty advanced and rarely used so we won’t go over it in this guide. If you want to know more about that check it out here: https://gist.github.com/Ryonez/e2b45b84d1dd419b540f743b433db2a1
That’s it!
Those are the basics of Discord Markdown and you’ll usually not need more than shown in this guide. If you have any further questions please join our Discord down below:
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