5 Best Apps like Clubhouse for Android and iOS
Clubhouse undoubtedly left a major impact on the world of technology. In the past 12 months or so, it gained over 10 million followers from all across the world. It also added a new ‘audio’ dimension to social media and emerged as a great social media platform where you can conveniently interact with other users via audio conversations. These audio conversations are generally public and may be heard by anyone on the platform.
Thanks to this exciting approach taken by Clubhouse, it gained immense popularity among users. But slowly the Clubhouse hype has started fading away.
New and better group-audio platforms similar to Clubhouse have started emerging. Users are now moving away to other Clubhouse alternatives. If you too are someone who wasn’t happy with Clubhouse, one way or another, you can try these new Clubhouse competitors.
In this article, I have listed some of the best apps like Clubhouse that you can try. These apps are available for both Android and iOS smartphones, are easy to use and free to signup.
Best Apps like Clubhouse for Android and iOS
You will find my picks for the top Clubhouse-like apps for Android and iOS in this section. I’ve described the prominent features of each of them to help you select one of them more easily.
1. Twitter Spaces
It is worth noting that Clubhouse closely follows one of the core principles of Twitter – namely, “everything is public”. Thus, following the launch of Clubhouse, many people expressed that Twitter should’ve come up with the concept of an audio chat social network long ago. Their voices seem to have reached Twitter, for it has recently now launched Twitter Spaces – a platform that closely resembles Clubhouse but is integrated within Twitter along with Fleets.
Although Twitter Spaces is globally available only to users with over 600 followers, Twitter allows users from certain countries to host a Space. To start Twitter Spaces, you just need to tap the “Compose” button on Twitter and then select “Spaces”. Although Spaces is public like Clubhouse, you can adjust your settings regarding who is allowed to speak in your Twitter Space – everyone, people you follow, or only people you invite to speak. As of now, only ten users can have the speaking privilege at a time.
Like Clubhouse, nothing will be publicly available after you end your Space. Although there’s no audio recording feature presently, Twitter does keep a copy of Spaces for 30 days in case there’s any violation. Also, protected accounts can’t create Spaces themselves but can join and listen to other conversations.
2. Telegram Voice Chat
Telegram has joined the fray and introduced the Voice Chat feature that is very much like what Clubhouse offers. As of now, only a channel owner or group admin can enable this feature. Essentially, it means that you need to create a group in order to start a voice chat. Also, unlike Clubhouse, it does not allow users to search for and listen to audio discussions. Rather, it is limited to the group of channel users.
Nevertheless, you can share the group’s invite link or add people to join the voice chat. Although Telegram’s voice chats aren’t as sophisticated as in Clubhouse yet, they’ll likely get better with future updates. If you don’t yet have access to Clubhouse on Android, then Telegram Voice Chat is definitely a good alternative for you.
3. Discord Stages
Discord isn’t simply meant for talking to your contacts or chatting with friends while gaming. It has now emerged as another great Clubhouse alternative with the introduction of “Stage Channels”. This is a new type of channel integrated into Discord that allows you to invite users and have public conversations with them like in Clubhouse. It also includes many of the controls that Clubhouse does.
For example, listeners can use the “raise hand” feature to send a request to the moderator to receive permission to speak in stage channels. The moderator has access to several controls as well – they can shift a speaker to the audience group, remove people from the channel, and so on. Conveniently, there are controls on the main page to remove members, mute your mic, and see who is speaking.
A lot of Clubhouse users have mentioned that they find it difficult to find who is speaking; Discord Stage Channels is a great improvement in this regard. Moreover, if you know how to add bots to your Discord server, you can make even better use of this platform.
4. Reddit Talk
If you happen to use Reddit frequently, then you should consider finding like-minded people in a subreddit using the audio chat feature, Reddit Talk. As of now, this feature only allows moderators to host a talk. However, Reddit has hinted that it has plans to eventually make Reddit Talk available to a much wider audience.
Like in the case of Clubhouse, subreddit moderators can start public audio conversations with the help of Reddit Talk. Anyone can join and request to speak in these conversations. Another advantage of Reddit Talk is that its user interface is very similar to Clubhouse. Thus, I highly recommend it to regular Reddit users who are seeking an audio social network.
5. Fireside
Finally, there’s Fireside – a unique made-in-India Clubhouse alternative. Developed by the same team that worked on Chingari (the TikTok alternative for Indian users), it features a state-of-the-art user interface that is surprisingly similar to Clubhouse. It presently features three different sections – to search for communities, explore active chat rooms, and find COVID help and resources.
The audio chats at Fireside are all public, just like Clubhouse. It allows people to freely join and listen to conversations. You will also get access to all the necessary controls that are usually offered by audio-based social media apps. As of now, Fireside supports five languages – English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu. It is a great option if you are looking for a good Clubhouse alternative made in India.
Other Clubhouse alternatives
In the list above, I’ve presented my picks for the best Clubhouse alternatives presently available online. Apart from them, there are also some more options that you may want to check out. Continuing with India-made Clubhouse alternatives, Leher is another great app. Developed in 2018, it notably features support for both audio and video chat. Moreover, it lets you start your own club with like-minded people and share your ideas with them.
Similarly, Riffr is a micro-podcasting platform that allows users to have conversational audio chats known as riffs. It also has a sharing feature that lets you convert your audio riff to video and post your micro-podcasts to other social media platforms conveniently. Spoon is another popular Clubhouse alternative that already has 30 million users on its audio platform. Unlike at Clubhouse, creators can actually monetize it and earn money.
Conclusion
Audio-based social media platforms have been growing very popular in recent times. By virtue of its excellent features, Clubhouse has undoubtedly grown to become a new sensation in the social media world. However, the invite-only nature of the social media app has rendered it inaccessible to many people. Thus, if you too want to have an audio-only social networking experience, I recommend checking out the quality Clubhouse alternatives mentioned in this article.