Discord is a platform where users can be connected with friends, family, and colleagues. It offers a variety of kinds of communication and users enjoy their own space with friends and communities for spending quality time. The user of Discord servers who consumes this platform a lot, is also very concerned about how much data is consumed by Discord ?
Let’s start the discussion to know the data consumption patterns of the Discord server app.
How Much Data Does Discord Use ?
Discord is the fastest-growing communication app that enjoying more than 350 million users by the end of June 2021. Discord is more popular among the young age group who loves gaming, music, anime and memes. They love using it for Stream & Screen sharing with friends who also use a big amount of data, therefore this concern is real.
Its users also want to know about the data usage of Voice & Video calls on Discord because they enjoy a great user experience on it.
We will discuss Discord data usage for all kinds of activities in the following, first important to understand how it works.
Discord vs Other Communication Apps
Discord competes with several communication apps and offers better features on a single platform. Discord provides a platform to get connected with friends & family just like a Zoom, but in a more organized way.
A Discord user can also get connected with music and video streaming services like Spotify.
Many people love Discord for its VOIP services which allow them to make international calls using a broadband internet connection and they do not require any mobile line. This also ensures privacy of communication and very convenient to contact someone from anywhere. Since VOIP calls using the Internet and consuming data.
Discord is a single app can offer you full user experience from music streaming to game streaming, messaging to video calls.
Therefore, data usage of Discord is not dependent upon a single factor but including multiple factors in.
First, we need to understand that how using the Discord app on mobile is different from using it on PCs in terms of data consumption.
Discord Data Consumption on PCs vs Mobiles
Mobile data gets the user connected to the internet by using radio waves. It is similar to Wi-Fi which also requires other devices using radio waves to get connected, but its waves remain within the small area like apartment or within the building.
Mobile data also catches the waves from cell towers which offer a broader range and allows the user to get connected with the internet from anywhere.
The cost of data plans is depended upon the bandwidth speed and data limit factors. Users are also very much interested in unlimited data plan which are cheaper, but mostly users do not need unlimited data and they go for limited data to pay less.
Discord app / software is designed in a way that uses more data on its PC version. It is because PC versions are designed to support loading high-quality images, video and streaming compared to its mobile version.
Its developers believe that PC or laptop has a bigger screen and any compromise on quality would be worst for user experience, whereas mobile screens are smaller and little bit compromise would make no difference. Therefore, using Discord on PCs / Laptop uses more data as compared to mobiles.
The developers of Discord also did this because, they knew mostly mobile users are the ones looking for data-saving techniques. Therefore, they originally designed Discord to be data-efficient for mobile users.
How Many MBs / GBs Discord Can Use In an Hour ?
First of all, it depends upon what activity performing on Discord and some activities consume more amount of data and some activities use lesser. It also depends on how fast your internet speed is which allows performing multiple activities.
Everyone knows that sending images and video uses more data than sending text.
Screen sharing to 10 users will use lots of data compared to 5 users. Data is separately used for every user and it is not something collective data consumption. It also depends on whether sharing screen at high or low video quality.
Let us share interesting facts on data usage for sharing screens at high quality. According to the Discord Staff in their official thread, it uses 8mbps per second for sharing screens at 1080p 60fps.
It is very critical to remove the Discord app running in the background, otherwise going to burn your large amount of data in no time.
Moreover, faster internet speed multiplies the user experience on Discord and user tends to be spending more quality on it and eventually data usage would be in GBs.
Slow internet speed is a blessing disguised for the ones who cannot afford large amount of data usage.
How Much Data Is Used By Discord For Voice Calls Only ?
To make a voice call on Discord will use 800 KBs per minute and 46.25MBs for an hour, this is about when calling to only one user and not multiple users. It should be affordable for most of the Discord users as per GB data is not that expensive these days.
Discord is highly efficient app comparing to the Skype, It only transmits data when someone starts speaking, meanwhile no data transition and usage. Whereas, Skype is throughout transmitting the data no matter someone is speaking or not.
How Much Data Is Used By Discord For Video Calls Only ?
To make a video call on Discord will use 3.5 – 5 MBs per minute and still can enjoy high quality. Again, this is when video calling to one user and not engaged in group video calling. This is the same amount of data usage as WhatsApp consumes, both apps are highly efficient in terms of data usage to support high-quality videos.
How Much Data Is Used By Discord For Texting / Messaging ?
To send a message or text on Discord is technically sending a HTTP POST request. Most of us even have not heard this term, but such requests use much data to be fulfilled.
Furthermore, how much data is used by texting or messaging on Discord also depends upon how many users are chatting at once.
Let’s assume two users are chatting at a time on Discord, it will use .28MB for an hour-long chatting. This is the same data usage a Facebook image takes to load on-page.
How Much Streaming and Music Use Data on Discord ?
Music lovers and hardcore gamers are mostly interested in the answer of this question and they want to know how much data streaming and music service use on Discord, so they accordingly manage data plan and control the usage. The answer is it depends on which service you are using.
To listen the music using Spotify service will use 40MB per hour, whereas streaming 1080p quality video on YouTube uses 3GB per hour on Discord app.
How To Reduce Data Usage on Discord
Discord is not just an addictive platform but also a great source of connectivity with friends, family and interesting communities. To get disconnected on Discord is something undesirable, so it is better to learn how to minimize data usage on Discord.
First of all, go with the easiest technique and remove the all unnecessary background apps. User can perform this apps removing the function from the settings menu, whether using Android or iOS.
Secondly, Discord user needs to disable link previews, which uses the data on loading the preview image. An average user can come across tens of preview links which forces the device to download all those images, so user can see them instantly. Why should we see all these previews when not interested in, so better to disable the link preview option.
You can also ask the people in your Discord chat group, that always use the bracket link using < >, this type of link blocks the previews and they do not use the data to load the image.
So far, Discord have not provided a specific enabling/disabling option to disable the preview option, but its developers have been seriously considering this feature as future update.
Discord Data Usage vs Other Similar Apps
Discord offers more advanced functions and better platform to get connected with friends, family and online communities. It is more data-efficient app comparing to Skype which transmits data all the time during audio call, whereas Discord only transmits data when someone speaks.
As far as its stream sharing is concerned, sharing the streaming on Discord can use up to 4-5 GB per hour for low quality, 15-20 GB for high quality. This is huge amount of data to consume in an hour, which means sharing the screen is not something affordable by every discord user.
Discord is such an app which allows to communicate and share things in group joined by many users, when you share something in group will use more data compare to sending the message to only one person. In a group, everyone is sending photos / images back and forth, these activities will consume higher amount of data.
Screen sharing is the highest data-consuming function on Discord and then directly streaming the videos on Discord. Most of the Discord users cannot even afford sharing the screen to more than one friend as it requires an unlimited data plan which also has its specific limit.
