The internet has been responsible for breaking down our barriers of communication more than anything else in human history, such that you can keep in touch with your friends with remarkable ease, or even strike up conversations with strangers whenever you’d like. Websites like Omegle are notorious for this, allowing you to get in touch with unfamiliar people over familiar topics, but it’s not alone in this trend; we’ve rounded up 10 alternative websites that are similar to Omegle, but differ in interesting and important ways that you just might find especially compelling!
If you fancy a talk with a stranger, you don’t have to look far anymore. What used to be limited to social events, coffeehouses, bars, and nightclubs can now take place from the comfort of your home, right in your web browser, thanks to never-before-seen levels of accessibility presented by our contemporary internet. Distance doesn’t matter anymore, and most of the time, the artificial borders that we’ve struck up around ourselves–everything from county lines to country borders–don’t stand in our way either.
The only thing that does stand in our way, and always will, is human nature. It takes a fair bit of courage to talk to a stranger, and websites like Omegle have done quite a bit to help people overcome that natural aversion to the unknown. It works through anonymity, and the only information that’s shared with the person that you’re chatting with is information that you’re willing to divulge yourself. Omegle takes no information from you and doesn’t require any form of the registration process.
It’s been around for several years, and because of its ease of access, it has flourished. Anyone that spends a significant amount of time online has very likely heard of Omegle, and probably knows several people who have used it, if they haven’t themselves.
However, like most scenarios that encourage contact and conversation with anonymous people, it carries with it something of a rough reputation. This isn’t necessarily the fault of Omegle, as much as it is the behavior of people who don’t safeguard their identities and personal information when interacting online. You’d be surprised by the number of people that are willing to divulge information about themselves!
That reputation hasn’t slowed Omegle down, though, and it hasn’t done anything to stem the flow of competitors that are eager to host similar chat services of their own. If it sounds up your alley, check out these alternatives to Omegle.
Just as much as Omegle, Chatroulette is one of the biggest names in online chat services. Its rules are laid out and simple, and so is the minimalistic design of the site. It’s certainly the most straightforward on this list.
If you’re under 18, you’re prohibited from using the service. Similarly, offering or broadcasting nudity isn’t allowed, and neither is faking the cam streams of other people. Other than those few rules, you’re free to chat about practically anything and talk to virtually anyone. The matching service is fast, random, and can potentially provide endless hours of entertainment.
As one of the single largest online chat entities, it takes the cake as the alternative recommendation to Omegle and is definitely one of the largest services that you’re going to find.
This one is simple in concept, more so even than Chatroulette or Omegle. Head to the website, click the “Connect” button, and you’ll instantly be chatting with someone else, somewhere else in the world. Friendship and growth are encouraged in everything from ChatGig’s aesthetic to the description of its services, where users are encouraged to “be nice and friendly” to one another.
More than most chatroom options on this list, DittoFish seems to be about encouraging friendships and lasting relationships, rather than quick, one-off encounters that don’t continue to develop. This isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing, and you’ll still encounter people who’d prefer the fast-paced trend of anonymous chatting as established by Chatroulette and Omegle, but it’s a welcome alternative in a direction that isn’t as prevalent elsewhere as you might think.
Whether you’re looking for friendship, a date, or someone to enjoy similar online interests with, DittoFish is definitely one of the alternatives most worth your attention on this list.
It’s very easy to strike a comparison between Chatrandom and Chatroulette, but Chatrandom makes it very clear, right on their landing page, that it’s meant for people 18 years old and up. Streaming illegal content or underage people is a prosecutable offense on this site which should tell you enough about what kind of content you can expect to encounter (that being, “anything under the sun, as long as it’s legal.”)
Users are encouraged to behave themselves while using the chat service (and keep their clothes on) but it’s not so tightly policed that nudity isn’t allowed.
I can’t decide if Chatshock is an accompanying website to other services like Chatroulette and Omegle, or if it exists just fine on its own. On one hand, it’s a community built upon the wild and unique experiences that people have had in online chatrooms. On the other hand, many of those experiences are coming from other places on the web, entirely.
Either way, it’s worth checking out if random chats are your area of interest since it does have a rather large community.
This platform is very similar to Omegle and Chatroulette, but it also has a supporting app that’s particularly well designed. As expected, you’ll be matched with strangers via your listed interests, and you can browse open chat rooms to potentially join either from your web browser or the smartphone app.
Tinychat is a wide-open chat service, which means that it’s not as strictly moderated as other services. You might run into behavior, images, and discussions that aren’t appropriate for younger users.
Another interesting entry on the list! This one is different in that it removes the “anonymous” element from a lot of the chats you get lined up with since it purports to draw from your friends and family.
How? By requiring you to sign in via Facebook, of course. This adds elements of certainty and safety to an otherwise volatile conversation landscape, but it also changes the nature of what the online chat room can be used for. It’s all hosted in your web browser, and contrary to how often it’s compared to Skype, it allowed you to chat with up to three other people at once, entirely for free.
Billed as a place to improve your English and communication skills, Hope Speak is an interesting, different take on the popular trend of online chat rooms. Think of it as a place where natural learning can take place, allowing you to use languages that you’re struggling to get the hang of, while also potentially increasing your social network through random connections with people from all over the world.
As far as topics go, you’ll be familiar with the basic setup if you’re used to Omegle. The peculiarity of Hope Speak is built upon its function as a learning device.
This chat site is very similar to Chatroulette and Omegle, but it isn’t as popular as either of those other services. It maintains a hardline stance against any nudity and allows users to play up to five camera feeds at once, thereby allowing you to chat faster.
This is an interesting choice in chat venue, as it matches live cam feeds with anonymity. It doesn’t disclose any information that you don’t want it to…apart from whatever your webcam happens to be pointed towards. “Video Mixup” will set you up 1 on 1 with webcam feeds, while “Text Mash” will do the exact same thing in a text-based environment. This makes A Pumpkin Patch a prolific place to begin and linger in a random chat web space.
It’s also slanted towards community growth and allows you to create persistent chat groups between the various people that you meet on its service. Because of its community-oriented growth, you won’t run into as much illicit behavior here as you might on other platforms.
Of course, this is a far cry from all of the chat services available online. Many will hone in more specifically on hookup and cam modeling culture, while others still will focus on other shared interests that people might have. Omegle, however, is an open service that wants users to talk about every topic under the sun, and so we feel that this list of alternatives should follow suit. If you’re tried your hand at Omegle and want something else instead, any of the above options might be up your alley!
Nobody really understands why anonymous, randomized chats can be so fun until they’ve given it a whirl and have a few good experiences under their belts. After you’ve given a few of these 10 Omegle alternative websites a try, don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below! If you still have questions (or better yet, even more recommendations) let us hear those, too!
