I'm ok with having to host something, but if it's more complicated than logging in with my npub/nsec, then even if I'm able to figure it out I'm not going to be able to get anyone in my discord groups to follow the same witches road. Which means it won't work as real competition for Discord.

Flotilla seems to work. Found your npub on there, but it looks like you need to establish an account connection before it would work even to chat.