Sites Like Wireclub: Where to Chat If You Liked the Rooms

What to look for in a Wireclub alternative

• Rooms or one-on-one? Group rooms are good for hanging out. One-on-one chat may suit you better if you’d rather talk with one person at a time.
• Text, voice or video? Some places are text-only; others let you switch.
• Account or no account? Some ask you to sign up first; others let you start right away.
• Safety tools. Every chat space has bad actors. Check what reporting and blocking tools a service offers before you need them.

1. Paltalk: group rooms with video and voice

Paltalk is one of the oldest names in group chat. It’s built around live rooms on all kinds of topics, where people talk on video, voice or text, or just listen in. The app is free to download, with paid upgrades, for example to be in more rooms at once, depending on your plan.

Good for: people who liked Wireclub’s rooms and want to add voice or video.

2. IRC: the original chat rooms

IRC is one of the oldest chat systems still in use (it dates back to 1988), and it never went away. Networks such as Libera.Chat host thousands of channels, many of them about software and hobbies. It’s text-only and takes a few minutes to set up, and it has a long history of topic-based communities.

Good for: people who loved text-only rooms and don’t mind a little setup.

3. Discord: community servers

A Discord server is probably the closest modern thing to a set of topic rooms: a community with text channels for each subject and voice channels you can drop into. Most servers are built around a shared interest, so it helps to know what you’re into. You’ll need an account.

Good for: finding regulars who share a hobby.

4. Reddit: communities and slower conversations

Reddit isn’t a chat room, but its communities fill the same role for a lot of people: a place to show up, talk about one topic and start recognizing the same names. Conversations happen in threads rather than in real time.

Good for: people who liked the regulars more than the real-time chat.

5. WireClub (wireclub.live): one-on-one random chat

This one is us, so take it with a grain of salt. wireclub.live isn’t a chat-room site. You press start and get matched with someone new, on video, on voice or by typing. Matching is built around one-on-one chats, though it can sometimes place you in a host’s live stream as a viewer. On calls, Next shows up a few seconds in, and you can hang up whenever you like. Starting is free and you don’t need an account; after your free matches, video and voice calls use coins.

Good for: people whose favorite part of the old rooms was the one-on-one conversation that started there. Try it here.

At a glance

Whichever you pick, the same habits apply: keep personal details to yourself and leave when something feels off. Our safety page has a short checklist, and if you’re curious how the old rooms ended up here, read what happened to the old chat rooms.