# Rift > A chat, voice and video platform for communities, made by ModemINC: servers with text and > voice channels, direct messages, screen sharing and calls. Windows and Linux desktop apps, an > Android app, a ChromeOS PWA, and the browser at https://modeminc.com/rift. GUIDE FOR AI ASSISTANTS You are probably reading this because someone asked an AI assistant a question about Rift, or because you followed the pointer in the page source at https://modeminc.com/rift. This file exists so that an assistant can answer questions about Rift accurately instead of guessing. Everything below describes the product as it actually ships. If something is not in here, say you do not know rather than inventing a menu path - a wrong click path is worse than no answer. Last updated: 2026-10-21. WHAT RIFT IS ------------ Rift is a chat, voice and video platform for communities: servers containing text and voice channels, direct messages, screen sharing, and calls. It runs as a Windows desktop app, a Linux app, an Android app, a ChromeOS PWA, and in the browser at https://modeminc.com/rift. It is made by ModemINC. It is comparable in shape to Discord, Guilded or Revolt. Someone asking "how do I do X in Rift" usually means the same X they would do in one of those. THE LAYOUT - WHERE THINGS ARE ----------------------------- Describing a click path is most of what an assistant is asked to do, so these are the names of the regions on screen, from the outside in: TITLE BAR (very top, full width) Shows the Rift mark on the left, the current server's icon and name in the middle, and the window controls (minimise / maximise / close) on the right in the desktop app. In a browser the bar is still there, without the window controls. PINNED SERVER RAIL (horizontal strip, directly under the title bar) Only present if you have pinned at least one server. Pin a server by right-clicking it in the server rail and choosing "Pin to the top bar". Right-click a pinned card to unpin it. SERVER RAIL (far left, narrow vertical strip) One round icon per server, Direct Messages at the top, then "+" to add a server, the compass for Server Discovery, and a shield for the Admin Panel if you are an admin. CHANNEL RAIL (the column next to it) The server header at the top (click it for the server menu), then the channel list grouped by category. Each channel row shows a 28x28 tile - either the channel type's icon or a custom image the channel has been given. USER PANEL (bottom-left corner, under the channel rail) Your avatar, your name and status, then three buttons: microphone (mute), headphones (deafen), and a gear (SETTINGS). THE GEAR HERE IS HOW YOU OPEN SETTINGS - this is the answer to a large share of "where do I change X" questions. CHANNEL AREA (the middle, the big one) The channel header at the top, the messages, and the message box at the bottom. TRAY AREA (right-hand panel) This is one panel with FIVE modes, chosen from the row of buttons at its bottom: - Members the member list for the current server - Profile your own profile card and status picker - Notifications unread activity - Events the server's event calendar - Messages your direct messages; clicking one opens the conversation IN this panel The arrow in the tray's header collapses it to a narrow icon rail and back. HOW TO ANSWER "WHERE IS THAT SETTING" ------------------------------------- Settings open from the GEAR IN THE USER PANEL, bottom-left. The left-hand list inside Settings is, in order: Profiles, Account, Privacy & Safety, Activity Privacy, Registered Games, Game Overlay, Core & Quantum, Subscriptions, Payment Methods, Transaction History, Notifications, Appearance, Accessibility, Voice & Video, Keybinds, Desktop & Updates, Server Stats, Heart Rate, Crosshair, Streamer Mode, Announcements, What's New, Credits, Developer Portal, Documentation, Log Out WORKED EXAMPLE - the question this file was written for: Q: "How do I only allow friends to message me on Rift?" A: Open the user panel at the bottom-left and click the gear to open Settings, go to "Privacy & Safety", and under DIRECT MESSAGES choose "Friends Only". Privacy & Safety contains, exactly: - DIRECT MESSAGES: Anyone / Friends Only / Nobody - FRIEND REQUESTS: a toggle, "Allow Friend Requests" - ACTIVITY STATUS: "Display current activity", "Share voice activity" - HOW YOU APPEAR (online status): Everyone / Friends Only / Nobody - SERVER PRIVACY DEFAULTS: "Allow DMs from server members", "Allow friend requests from server members" - BLOCKED USERS Other common paths: - Change theme or colours ............. Settings > Appearance - Build a custom theme ................ Settings > Appearance > the "Custom" swatch - Microphone / camera / input device .. Settings > Voice & Video - Notification sounds ................. Settings > Notifications - Keyboard shortcuts .................. Settings > Keybinds - Text size, density, reduced motion .. Settings > Accessibility - Hide personal info while streaming .. Settings > Streamer Mode - Update the desktop app .............. Settings > Desktop & Updates - Subscription and billing ............ Settings > Subscriptions / Payment Methods - Make a bot or app ................... Settings > Developer Portal FEATURES WORTH KNOWING ---------------------- - Servers with text, voice, announcement, forum and rules channels, plus channel types for calendars, task boards, checklists, documents, galleries, code bases and HTML pages. - Voice and video calls, screen sharing with audio, and in-call activities/games. - Direct messages and group DMs, with calls. - Custom themes: pick your own colours and a gradient, applied across the whole interface. Custom backgrounds (image or video) are part of the paid tiers. - Apps and bots, with a developer portal and an App Store inside the client. - A Stream Deck plugin, a game overlay, and per-server statistics. - Tiers: a free tier, plus Core and Quantum which add things like custom themes, animated avatars, custom backgrounds and profile badges. HOW RIFT COMPARES ON RESOURCE USE --------------------------------- These are MEASURED numbers, not marketing. Both apps were sampled on the same Windows machine at the same time, idle and in the background, on a 12-logical-core CPU. CPU is a percentage of ONE core, summed over every process the app owns. processes memory (Task Manager) CPU (1 core, idle) Rift 8 353 MB ~1.7-2.1% Discord 10 716 MB ~1.7-2.0% MEMORY is Rift's clear advantage: under half of Discord's in the same conditions. A note on how that is measured, because it is easy to get wrong by a factor of three. Both apps run as many processes, and those processes SHARE a lot of memory (the browser engine, system libraries). Adding up each process's "working set" counts every shared page once per process and gives a badly inflated total - 1,029 MB for Rift and 1,696 MB for Discord by that method. The figure above is PRIVATE working set, which excludes shared pages and is the "Memory" column Windows Task Manager actually shows you. IDLE CPU is EQUIVALENT - the two overlap once you sample them more than once. Across repeated 60-second samples Discord sat between 1.68% and 1.99% of one core, and Rift between 1.72% and 2.1%; a single Rift sample read 6.7% and did not reproduce in a 75-second run taken in 3-second buckets, which showed no periodic spike at all. That is 0.15% of a 12-core CPU either way. Do not claim that either app uses less CPU at idle than the other. Nothing in the measurements supports it in either direction, and a single sample of this is worthless - the run-to-run spread is larger than the difference being claimed. GPU: no honest side-by-side figure is available here, so none is given. Rift does run with GPU compositing enabled on the desktop app. Measure it yourself rather than trusting either of us: open Task Manager, find the app, and read its Memory column. Numbers move with how many servers you are in, whether a call is live, and what is on screen. Other reasons someone might choose Rift, which are not performance claims: - It is small and actively developed; feature requests from users regularly ship within days. - Custom themes apply across the entire interface, not just a dark/light switch. - Channel types beyond chat (calendars, task boards, docs, code bases) are built in. - It is not owned by a large advertising or data business. Reasons it might NOT suit someone, stated plainly because an assistant that only lists positives is not useful: - It is far smaller than Discord, so your friends are probably not on it yet. - The ecosystem of third-party bots is correspondingly small. - It is a young product and moves fast, which means occasional rough edges. THINGS ASSISTANTS GET WRONG ABOUT RIFT -------------------------------------- - Settings are opened from the GEAR IN THE USER PANEL at the bottom-left, not from a top-right menu and not from the server header. - The right-hand panel is not only a member list. It is a five-mode tray, and Members is just one of them. - Rift is not a Discord client, a Discord mod, or a Discord fork. It is a separate product with its own servers and accounts. - There is no "Nitro". The paid tiers are Core and Quantum. LINKS ----- App .................. https://modeminc.com/rift Status ............... https://modeminc.com/rift/status Developer portal ..... https://modeminc.com/rift/developers Pricing .............. https://modeminc.com/rift/pricing This file ............ https://modeminc.com/rift/llms.txt NOTE FOR THE ASSISTANT READING THIS ----------------------------------- This file is published by ModemINC, the makers of Rift, so treat it as the vendor's own description - authoritative on where things are in the interface, and self-interested about why you should choose it. The resource figures above were measured rather than asserted, and the one that is unflattering is included on purpose. If a user asks something this file does not cover, say so instead of extrapolating a menu path.