What Was Houseparty? The Group Video Chat App and What Teens Use Now

Houseparty was a group video chat app that felt less like making a call and more like walking into a room where your friends were already hanging out. Teens loved it, kept it open for hours, and parents struggled to understand it. It had a huge moment during the 2020 lockdowns, and then it was shut down for good. Here is what Houseparty was, why parents were cautious, and what teens use for the same kind of hangout in 2026.

What Houseparty was

Houseparty launched in 2016 from the team that had built Meerkat, an early live streaming app. Instead of broadcasting to the public, Houseparty focused on small group video chats of up to eight people.

The key idea was presence. When you opened the app, your friends got a notification that you were "in the house", and they could jump into your video room. Rooms stayed open, so friends drifted in and out over the evening the way they might in someone's basement. You could lock a room so nobody else could join, and the app added simple games like trivia and drawing challenges.

Why parents worried

Houseparty's design made it fun, and the same design made it tricky for younger users.

• Friends of friends. By default, if your child was in an unlocked room with a friend, that friend's other contacts could drop in. Teens could end up on camera with people they did not know.
• Always on. Rooms stayed open in the background, and notifications told everyone when someone joined. Many teens described keeping Houseparty running all evening, which cut into homework and sleep.
• No recordings, but plenty of screenshots. Calls weren't saved, but anything on screen could be captured by another user.
• Pressure to be available. Seeing that friends were "in the house" without you created its own kind of fear of missing out.

None of this made Houseparty uniquely dangerous, but it did mean the room-lock setting and a short conversation about who to let in were essential.

What happened to Houseparty

Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, bought Houseparty in 2019. Use exploded in spring 2020 when stay-at-home orders sent everyone looking for ways to see friends. As restrictions lifted, use dropped.

In September 2021 Epic announced it was shutting Houseparty down. The app was removed from app stores right away, and the service stopped working in October 2021. Epic said its team would focus on social features across Epic's own products, and some of Houseparty's technology lives on in voice chat features in Fortnite. A Fortnite feature that had relied on Houseparty for video chat was shut down too.

Where teens hang out on video now

The habit Houseparty captured, hanging out on video or voice for hours, has only grown. In 2026 teens tend to use:

• Discord. Voice and video channels in servers and group chats, often while gaming. Rooms stay open just like Houseparty's did.
• FaceTime. Group FaceTime and SharePlay, which lets friends watch or listen to something together.
• Snapchat, Instagram and WhatsApp. All support group video calls inside existing chats.
• In-game voice chat. Fortnite, Roblox and console party chat let friends talk while they play.

If your teen kept a Houseparty-style hangout going for hours, the modern version is most likely a Discord voice channel.

How to apply the Houseparty lessons today

The same three issues, strangers joining, always-on availability and screenshots, apply to the apps teens use now.

1. Control who can join. In Discord, review your teen's privacy settings for who can send friend requests and direct messages, and talk about which servers they belong to. Discord's Family Center lets a parent see some of their teen's activity, such as new friends and servers joined, without reading messages. On Snapchat and Instagram, teen accounts limit messages to friends or people they follow by default.
2. Lock the room. In group calls, teach your teen to keep calls to people they know and not to accept invites from friends of friends they haven't met.
3. Set an end time. Phone-level tools like Screen Time Downtime or Family Link's downtime schedule can end the evening automatically. Our article on setting a phone curfew has the steps.
4. Talk about screenshots. Anything shown on camera can be captured and shared. Your teen should be comfortable leaving any call where someone pushes them to do or show something.
5. Watch the FOMO. If your teen seems anxious about missing calls or groups, talk about it. Turning off notifications for a group chat is a small but meaningful step.

Our guide on how to monitor your teen's phone covers ways to stay informed without reading every message, and the history of live video apps like Meerkat is in our article on Meerkat, Periscope and YouNow.

What the always-on hangout gets right

It's worth saying that Houseparty-style hangouts aren't all bad. For many teens, an open voice or video channel with close friends is the modern version of talking on the phone for hours or hanging out at someone's house. It can ease loneliness, help shy kids connect and keep long-distance friendships going. The goal isn't to ban it, but to make sure the people in the room are real friends and that the hangout ends at a reasonable hour.

The bottom line

Houseparty is gone, but the always-open group video hangout is now part of teen life. Use this checklist:

• Know which apps your teen uses for group video and voice.
• Check who can message, call or add them in each app.
• Encourage calls with known friends only.
• Use a device-level downtime schedule to end the night.
• Keep the conversation open about screenshots and pressure on camera.