How Many Discord Servers Are There in 2024?
Discord has exploded in popularity over the last few years as the chat app of choice for gamers, hobbyists, content creators, and more. The platform‘s unique server feature is what really sets it apart, enabling vibrant, dedicated communities to thrive around common interests. But with the rapid growth of Discord servers, one might wonder just how many exist now across the platform?
According to Discord’s own data, as of January 2023 there are approximately 19.4 million active Discord servers. That‘s a mind-blowingly large figure, considering there were just 4.4 million servers in 2018. Clearly the Discord community is flourishing!
Discord‘s Server Growth Goes Parabolic
To fully grasp the massive growth in Discord servers, let‘s analyze the historical data year-over-year:
- 2018 – 4.4 million servers
- 2019 – 5.5 million servers (25% annual growth)
- 2020 – 6.7 million servers (22% annual growth)
- 2021 – 13.5 million servers (102% annual growth)!
- 2022 – 19.4 million servers (44% annual growth)
As seen above, Discord saw steady but modest server growth rates from 2018-2020 in the 20-25% range annually. But 2021 marked an inflection point where year-over-year server creation absolutely hockey-sticked over 100% to 13.5 million servers!
Discord server growth rate exploded in 2021, more than doubling YOY
While growth tempered a bit in 2022 back down to 44% and 19.4 million servers, that still represents stellar expansion. Extrapolating the growth curve, Discord could easily top 30 million servers by 2025 if current trends continue.
What explains this massive influx of new servers in 2021 though? As many suspected, the COVID-19 pandemic and remote lifestyles played a major role.
With people stuck at home and lacking social connections, internet communities like Discord became invaluable. Whether for work collaboration, casual gaming, or just chatting with friends you couldn‘t see physically, Discord filled a huge communication void. Servers enabled everything from remote learning to virtual family game nights.
It remains to be seen how post-pandemic shifts back towards in-person activities will impact Discord growth rates. However, many believe COVID-19 has permanently accelerated Discord‘s central status given users now recognize its unmatched flexibility as an online gathering spot tailored to any interest.
Gaming No Longer Dominates
Since its launch in 2015, Discord has been heavily associated with gaming. And gaming servers still currently represent the majority of Discord’s communities, with around 38% of activity according to the company. Some of the biggest public servers are for games like Fortnite, Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Minecraft.
However, Discord servers are becoming increasingly diverse with a wider range of topics covered. Surprisingly, Discord reports that the fastest growing categories are now in areas including lifestyle (16%), creativity (16%), and education (13%), with activities ranging from yoga to art to even study groups.
Discord‘s fastest growing server categories are shifting away from gaming
These figures reflect Discord‘s expanding appeal beyond its initial core gaming audience. It has evolved into an extremely flexible platform that can support all kinds of shared passions and conversations. Discord allows servers to sprout around everything from European baking to Korean pop music – any niche interest or hobby under the sun!
And with customization features like roles, bots, and channels tailored to each community, servers truly take on a unique identity. A K-Pop server looks wildly different from a server for new parents or aspiring writers for instance.
Tiny Servers Rule the Landscape
Those figures above referring to the millions of Discord servers may be somewhat misleading in implying massive public groups. The reality is that the vast majority of Discord activity actually occurs in smaller, private communities.
According to Discord estimates, around 90-95% of users’ time on the platform is spent in "nano communities" with between 3 to 80 members. Think servers set up for a friend group, a school club, a local sports team, or even just a family.
Vast majority of Discord servers have less than 80 members
The chart above visualizing the distribution of server sizes illustrates this clearly – over 50% of servers have 10 members or less. These tight-knit “micro” servers allow for more intimate connections versus huge, chaotic public servers. They represent Discord’s adaption as a space for all forms of communication, from large interest groups down to just simple chatting between close friends.
Of course, there are still plenty of gigantic public servers too – the largest known Discord server is believed to have over 720,000 members! But on the whole, the heart of the Discord community lies in the smaller servers.
Average Engagement Varies by Server Type
When evaluating the landscape of millions of Discord servers, it‘s also interesting to explore the difference in user engagement across various server themes.
Analytics provider Radar has compiled data tracking the variance in average weekly message volumes across their sample of Discord servers:
Data Source: Radar
A few interesting takeaways:
- Gaming servers unsurprisingly lead engagement levels with over 15,000 weekly messages on average.
- Creative servers focused on graphic design, writing, etc. also drive high involvement with over 5,000 messages per week.
- Servers for networking/career advice see lower traffic under 500 messages per week – likely due to more sporadic professional discussions.
For creators or business owners evaluating Discord, it‘s helpful recognizing that engagement varies drastically depending on your community‘s purpose. Niche hobby servers caffeinate constant fan discussion; professional servers may be more intermittent.
The Optimal Server Size?
Related to engagement levels, what‘s the ideal Discord server size to shoot for? Analysis shows it varies…
According to Discord statistics, the servers with the highest message rates per member are:
- 2 members: 38 msgs/member/day
- 3-4 members: 18 msgs/member/day
- 5-10 members: 5 msgs/member/day
- 15-25 members: 1 msg/member/day
So very small servers of just 2-10 members drive the most conversations per individual. However, more members means more total messages overall.
Servers above 500 members still average over 10,000 messages per week. But per member activity starts declining. So community owners should consider keeping public servers under 500 members to maintain personal connections. Additional conversations can happen in smaller special interest channels within a larger server.
Most Popular Public Servers
Okay, enough number-crunching! Let‘s look at some real examples of the current most visited public Discord servers to understand the range of popular topics:
Gaming servers like MMO Final Fantasy XIV, shooters Destiny 2 and Apex Legends, and all-purpose gaming hub Giant Bomb draw huge crowds.
But interest-based servers also intrigue users, like those for hot new show The Sandman, tech query assistance at Overclock, and even just basic adulting advice through Adulting 101.Educational servers are on the rise too – students congregate on Study Together and Science & Tech to forge virtual study groups.
The variety demonstrates Discord’s widening mainstream status across entertainment, education, tech and more. And within each server, users divide into niche text and voice channels on subjects from music production to photography tips.
How Many Servers Can You Join?
But if you‘re an eager Discord user with varied interests, constantly hunting for new active servers to join, how many communities can you keep up with?
Discord currently puts a cap at allowing each user to join up to 100 servers across their profile. That still leaves room for some sizable server-hopping between different topics and friend groups, but forces you to be a bit more selective compared to endlessly adding new servers.
Discord limits each user to 100 servers to maintain performance
The main reasons behind the 100 server limit are to maintain account performance and prevent server spamming issues. Jumping around dozens of always-pinging servers could get chaotic, both to manage and for your device‘s resources.
Still, power users who want to join more communities do have the option to create additional Discord accounts. But that comes with the downside of fragmented separate friends lists and conversations across accounts.
How Do Server Costs Scale?
Given the infrastructure required to support over 19 million vibrant servers, Discord‘s operating costs must be ballooning. While official financials are not public, analysis of their investor documents suggests Discord is spending over $100 million annually.
Most of these costs relate to bandwidth, networking equipment, and data storage supporting voice/video plus archiving message history across every server. Compute resources for running server bots and apps pile on too.
However, Discord has achieved strong enough product-market fit that pursuit of monetization is only just beginning without damaging growth so far. The startup relies on a mix of paid subscription plans like Discord Nitro ($9.99/month) and premium memberships around games and content brands.
Discord is also testing in-app advertising and virtual currency/in-app purchases related to aesthetics like custom emojis and profiles. As they scale to their eventual IPO, balancing community trust with revenue will be key.
Discord revenue growth estimates sourced from Pitchbook
But the company emphasizes focus on delivering underlying social value versus short-term monetization. Their hope seems to be if they can empower this generation’s communication fabric, the profits will follow.
What‘s Next for Discord?
Discord shared some hints about their development roadmap at the 2022 Discord Developers Conference. Major upcoming initiatives involve improvements around:
- Moderation – Better tools to manage server communities safely
- Search – Helping discovery of relevant servers/channels
- Events – Group video watch parties and voice event support
- Portability – Seamless server access across devices
No major paradigm shifts, but rather strengthening Discord‘s core social infrastructure.
The bigger unknown is whether tech giants like Microsoft, Meta, or Amazon make a bid to acquire Discord as social networks consolidate. However, Discord leadership has emphasized preferring independence to sustain trust with its grassroots gaming/Gen Z base leery of big tech.
Ultimately though in the digital realm, retaining culture that taps into youth identity is easier preached than practiced once market pressures pile on. Will have to wait and see!
The Sky‘s the Limit for Servers
As evidenced by the meteoric rise beyond 19 million servers today, Discord communities show no sign of slowing down their explosive growth. The platform has become the internet‘s hub for sharing common passions, whether around gaming, work, creativity or everyday living.
What‘s special about Discord is its flexibility to allow both huge public and tiny private servers alike to thrive. So no matter what weird niche or hobby you may be into, chances are there‘s already an active Discord server for fellow fans – or you could start your own!
Just be sure when joining servers to be intentional about which tight-knit communities you engage in based on shared meaningful interests versus random spammy groups. Quality over quantity is key to getting true value from Discord servers.
But overall, embrace Discord‘s openness as a digital home facilitating millions of vibrant mini-worlds centered around every obscure interest imaginable. What surprising community will you explore next in this ever-expanding universe of passion-fueled servers?
