discord-term VS Mumble

> There are alternate Discord clients, and — unlike Slack — Discord doesn't try to actively prevent people from writing alternate clients against their API.

Yes, they do.

https://github.com/Bios-Marcel/cordless:

> Hey, so I know this is somewhat of a bummer, but I got banned because of ToS violation today. This seemed to be connected to creating a new PM channel via the /users/@me endpoint. As that's basically a confirmation for what we've believed would never be enforced, I decided to not work on the cordless project anymore. I'll be taking down cordless in package managers in hope that no new users will install it anymore without knowing the risks. I believe that if you manage to build it yourself, you've probably read the README and are aware of the risks. I'll keep the repository up, but might archive it at some point. And yes, you'll still be able to use existing binaries for as long as discord doesn't introduce any more breaking changes. However, be aware that the risk of getting a ban will only get higher with time!

https://github.com/atlx/discord-term:

> Disclaimer: So-called "self-bots" are against Discord's Terms of Service and therefore discouraged. I am not responsible for any loss or restriction whatsoever caused by using self-bots or this software. That being said, there's no one stopping you from risking using an account, so go head!

I think Sonobus is overkill. I suggest you look at a couple of relatively old-school gamer voice chat tools - Mumble or Teamspeak. Mumble is open-source and the connection is always encrypted, Teamspeak is commercial but the free tier should be fine for you - but you have to make sure to manually turn encryption on yourself. It has been a long time since I used either, so I don't know which is easier. Both of them require you to run their matching server software.

Mumble's latency is unbeatable imo, it's basically their main focus and shows.

The sticking point for me is the lack of persistent messages, something the devs strangely think is a privacy plus. Issue open since 2016: https://github.com/mumble-voip/mumble/issues/2560

If you drop out for a minute you won't have access to anything that was posted in chat, which makes it useless for anything other than voice only comms, that might suit some business purposes but I've always needed to post links or screenshots in chat during meetings.

There's any number of alternative chat applications available, like Element, Mumble, Teamspeak etc.

Mumble?

I think Mumble might fit what you're looking for. It's been a very long time since I've used it, but it seems to still exist: https://www.mumble.info/ - I've used previously for exactly what you're describing, events with lots of crew dispersed around and no budget for radios. I had it installed on an AP running OpenWRT so it was just a case of plugging that in and getting people to install the app and connect to it.

Along with the options already mentioned, if you're not into TeamSpeak, there is an open source alternative called Mumble which operates in the same manner. No internet required, and is supported on multiple platforms.