Joingy

Joingy is a browser-based chat roulette that has been running for years without changing much, and that is the appeal. It offers two modes rather than one: a text-only roulette and a one-to-one video roulette, both anonymous, and it shows a live count of how many strangers are online so you know what you are joining.

You pick text or video, confirm you are 18 or older, and start. Matching is immediate and anonymous, and the site states that both parties stay unidentified by design rather than by accident. The text-only mode is the notable one here: almost every site in this category assumes video, and having a text route makes it usable when you cannot or do not want to appear on camera.

Free, with no account and nothing to install. Joingy does not appear to sell filters or priority matching, so what you see is what the service is. The live online counter and the mode choice are the whole product.

The site requires an 18+ certification and publishes community guidelines, and it describes moderation. The anonymity is symmetric and deliberate, which cuts both ways: nobody can identify you, and nobody can be held to an identity either. Reports exist and matter more here than on the account-based sites, where a ban has something to attach to.

People who want the format without a camera, and anyone who prefers a smaller, plainer service to the heavily monetised ones. The text mode is the single feature here that most competitors do not offer.

Unpretentious and genuinely useful if you want a text option. It is smaller than the leaders and its moderation is not the most transparent, but the two-mode structure is a real difference rather than a marketing one.