[notheguyouthink]

Is this UI a template that i'm unaware of? Slack, Flock, Discord, <insert new hip product>, they all seem to have nearly an identical UI. This one especially just looks like Discord to me.

I'm not knocking it, it's a nice Bootstrap-like UI, i'm just weirded out by it showing up everywhere.

Note: I'm a dev, not a designer, so i have no idea which elements make me feel like this is "the same". I don't think it's just the sidebar, but beyond that i do not know. Is it the sidebar + hamburger menu? etc.

[wiplo]

It has become a best practice design style for left nav interfaces. It's a good idea to separate the page with contrast, which often results in a dark left nav and white main section.