Claim file

The homepage is a mood board.

stoat.chat and the about page make a stack of promises: private, independent, fully FOSS, everywhere, in control, free forever. The files, the Ltd, and the status page contradict the loudest ones. This page is the stamp.

FALSE

Not sketchy, not creepy. Secure and confidential.

Said on the homepage: “Built in Europe under some of the strictest data protection laws in the world… We don’t sell your data and we never will.” Community members were told the product was “Secure and Confidential.”

Found: the Stoat privacy supplement stores your messages and attachments, your date of birth, your IP address, and a short device description for every session. Login, register, and password-reset flows send behavior data (IP, dwell time, mouse movement) to hCaptcha / Intuition Machines, Inc., a Delaware US corporation. Voice and video “may also be processed or stored on servers located in other countries.” GitHub discussion #1050: a user wrote that everything is stored plaintext in the database. A May 2024 team write-up on the licensing fight said they had already stripped privacy-oriented branding because they still do not have E2EE. Discussion #597, October 2025: E2EE starts “after we release video chats,” still no ETA. PrivacyTools: “it is not end-to-end encrypted… do not treat it as a privacy messenger.”

Homepage · Privacy policy · June 2024 addendum · #597

FALSE

We’ve got you covered on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and the web.

Said on the homepage, under “Take it with you. Everywhere.”

Found on the download page: Android is “Early Access.” iOS is TestFlight, iOS 18.0 or later. macOS documents the error “Stoat” is damaged and can’t be opened and tells you to strip the quarantine flag in Terminal. Linux: “We are currently in the process of publishing Stoat to Flathub.” The GitHub org table leaves Fit For Use blank for for-ios. The iOS README: “This app is still in early stages, and not yet ready for production.” TestFlight expired and had to be renewed. Self-hosted README: “Currently, most official clients do not support self-hosted instances.”

for-ios · GitHub org · self-hosted README

FALSE

Answers to you, not investors. No board to please. 100% open source.

Homepage: “We’ve got no board to please and no ad revenue to protect… Free and open source, now and forever.” About page: “Every line of code is public.” “100% Open source.”

Found: Revolt Platforms Ltd, incorporated 18 February 2025, company 16260658. Person of significant control: Pawel Makles, ownership of shares 75% or more. Registered office is a London virtual-office suite. The legal entity is still named Revolt. GitHub bio: he currently works at FUTO on the Immich team. Discover, Shield, and parts of the admin panel were not public AGPL. FAQ: monetisation plans to “pass down costs such as for file storage or voice bandwidth.”

About · FAQ · FOSS file · Company

STRETCH

Handles tens, handles thousands.

Homepage: “Whether you’re chatting with a handful of friends or running a bustling community, Stoat scales with you.”

Found: after Discord’s February 2026 age-verification announcement, the status page read “There’s simply too many people, but we’re trying our best.” Sign-up mail landed the platform on spam lists. Destructoid could not complete registration. Vale’s history: an extra US production node went live 9 August 2026 and was removed 22 August 2026 due to the great associated costs after a Brazilian influx. Reddit server admins described a product built for friend groups, with no ETAs for larger communities.

TechRadar · Destructoid · Server-admin thread

STRETCH

You’re in control. Really in control. Self-host it.

Homepage: “You don’t have to worry about hosting your own server if you don’t want to, but if you do, we’ve got you covered. It’s free, it’s open, and it’s yours.”

Found: a Docker Compose stack exists. Official clients generally cannot enter an instance URL, so you distribute forks yourself, including mobile. Self-host README still uses Revolt.toml. The FAQ forbids looking like stoat.chat. The product people actually join is the central instance, which is one UK company.

self-hosted · FAQ branding rules · Fermi’s Revolt notes

STRETCH

Everything you need… servers, channels, voice, file sharing, and all the rest.

Homepage lead. Download and press coverage sold a Discord swap.

Found: voice launched with the October 2025 rebrand and was not initially usable in production. Video streaming reached the hosted service in mid-July 2026. GameStar (Feb 2026) found buttons with no function behind them, friend requests taking 5 to 10 minutes, and community reports of ~800ms voice latency. A server admin on Reddit: “It is VERY buggy” and “does not feel designed for proper communities.”

Rebrand wiki · GameStar · Vale history

FALSE

The best moderation bots in class.

Homepage, under “The rules are simple.”

Found: the bot people actually cite is AutoMod, a third-party project by Declan Chidlow (Vale). Platform-level reporting arrived in 2023. The AUP also bans “Misinformation & Conspiracy Theories,” which is a moderation power the Discord-refugee pitch does not advertise.

Homepage · AUP

TRUE-ISH

Don’t pay for basic stuff.

Custom emoji, 20MB uploads, server-specific avatars, animated avatars, profile banners, no Nitro.

Found: those perks are free on the hosted instance today. The same FAQ that brags about donation surplus already has monetisation plans lined up to pass through file-storage and voice-bandwidth costs. “Don’t pay” is the current menu. “Forever” is the slogan.

Homepage · FAQ

FALSE

The Discord-ID escape hatch.

Press and community traffic treated Stoat as the place you go so nobody scans your face.

Found: Stoat already collects date of birth “to ensure that users satisfy the legal age requirement.” Minimum age is 13, higher in several EU states. After the UK Online Safety Act, NSFW channels were locked for people in the UK because the team would not (yet) ship ID checks. A maintainer: if “a good service provider exists which can verify users while still maintaining some sense of privacy we most likely will go ahead and roll it out.” People fled Discord’s verifier onto a platform that still has to obey the same class of law, and already geo-blocks the adult rooms.

Minimum age · zomatree_ on r/revoltchat · Privacy supplement

FALSE

Long live Stoat: a mission refresh.

1 October 2025 blog: “After four years of building Revolt, we’re rebranding to Stoat to better reflect our mission and community.”

Found two days later, same post: cease and desist against the name Revolt, sender withheld, apology, promised postmortem “within the next week.” Vale: temporary brand resources were hastily created. Voice launched broken. Community thought the domain redirect was a compromise. Internal names included Furor, Schism, Vulp, Glowbug, and Pipit. The UK company is still Revolt Platforms Ltd.

Long Live Stoat · Wiki · r/revoltchat rebrand thread